When the wine gave out

Scripture Lessons: Isaiah 62: 1-5, Song of Solomon 8: 6-7, and John 2: 1-11, NT page 93 Sermon Title: When the wine gave out Weddings. You plan and you plan, but something always seems to go wrong. There’s a great story of a Maury County wedding – the groom and his father walk out from the front, but during their processional they somehow trip and fall into the baptismal font. “I guess they got a two for one deal – married and baptized in the same ceremony,” someone said last Wednesday night at Bible study. I’m proud to be a part of weddings. I’m proud to have been a part of some of your weddings, but our own, when I was the groom I only had one job – to secure a soloist. A friend offered to sing at our wedding and I took him up on it which took care of that, but I never thought to ask whether or not he could sing, so the first time I heard him sing was when Sara and I were up there, just having made our vows and he was so bad that my cousin asked if I had asked him to sing that badly on purpose to get a few laughs, and I had not. Weddings. I get to stand right up front next to the groom as the bride walks down the aisle. It’s my job to catch him if he decides to run, and I’m thankful that I’ve never had to do so, which bodes well for not just the wedding but also the marriage. It’s that much harder to have a successful marriage if in high stress situations you are the kind of person who is quick to walk out. In our Scripture lesson for this morning it’s not the groom who might leave. It’s not the bride – but the guests. The wine gave out – that’s what went wrong with this wedding – and if you’ve ever been at a wedding reception when the drinks ran out than you know that this would bring an embarrassing and abrupt end to the party. According to Dr. Bill Creasy, a celebrated Bible scholar, the hosts may have planned to perfectly accommodate the guests, but this itinerant preacher, a friend of the family, he came with a whole crew of disciples with him, so why did the wine give out? John, Andrew, Peter, Philip, Thomas, Nathaniel and the others – that’s why. Maybe knowing this to be the case Mary goes to Jesus saying, “They have no wine” and according to Dr. Creasy, she goes to him not only because it’s his guests who caused the shortage, but also, because she knows he can do something about it. Mary, the mother of Jesus goes to her son and makes a big request that masquerades as a simple observation, “They have no wine.” And Jesus, who knows his mother as well as or better than any other son, he knows what his mother is saying when she makes such an observation so he responds, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” He’s responding to her, not only telling her that he doesn’t want to do anything, nor does he feel responsible, but he’s also making a statement about how he will prioritize his time of introduction – yes He is the Son of God who can perform miracles, but not everyone needs to know that right now, “my hour has not yet come.” But despite the protest, Mary says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” “Do whatever he tells you.” With this statement our Scripture Lesson offers us two options for those occasions when the wine runs out. When the wine runs out some will know that it’s time to go and they will leave, but the servants will stay and they will “do whatever he tells” them. A theological truth is that those who leave, the Lord may just let them go. You’ve seen it played out in Scripture. That’s just how God works. In a couple months we’ll read the parable of the Prodigal Son and in this parable the father gives his son his inheritance, allows him to leave with all that money, knowing well that he may take it to squander it away on loose living which is exactly what he does. When the money ran out he was looking at these pods that he was supposed to feed to the pigs longingly, wishing he could just eat those pods himself and fall even farther down the pit of shame. In a moment like this he had the option of turning farther away – leaving again, or turning and going back. You know the rest of the story. You know that the son does go back and that the father rushes out to greet him which is surprising every time we hear it, because it’s just so hard to believe that when the wine gives out there could be something so miraculous as God’s abundance. The Lord promises rivers of flowing water – grace greater than all our sins – but we are only so bold to hope for getting by from one day to the next. Mary knows the Lord better than we do, however, and so “His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” And standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” Now did that make any sense? Not to those servants, surely. What would have made sense would have been for Jesus to tell them to run down to the liquor store to buy a few amphora of the cheap stuff, but instead he told them to get these great big water jars – more like bathtubs than anything else – and to fill them up with water and whether that made sense to any of them or not they did it which adds something to the lesson that is already developing: there are two options – to leave or to stay and “do whatever he tells you,” and whatever he tells you may not make any sense but the best advice seldom does so do it anyway. An example - I remember seeking out advice from a retired pastor who had served these great big churches. We were at a Presbytery meeting and I asked him something like, “so what’s the secret to being a pastor?” He looked me up and down and told me, “Joe, you’d be a lot better off if you’d shine your shoes.” “Shine my shoes?” I asked. “Isn’t that just a little superficial?” Then he responded, “Well maybe it is, but people are so take advantage of it.” Shine your shoes. It doesn’t have to make sense to you for it to work. You know how many men have told me that they thought Valentine’s Day was a dumb idea hatched by the greeting card and chocolate companies to drum up some business. They’re out there shaking their heads – “they’re not gunna pull one over on me!” But just because you think it’s stupid doesn’t mean that your wife does. You hear this relationship advice – go out on a date at least one night a month, never go to bed if you’re still in a fight, go to church together, sit down at the dinner table and turn off the TV – not all of this makes sense to everybody, but who cares? You may as well try something. That may have been exactly what the servants were thinking. “Do whatever he tells you,” Mary said, and so they started filling up those big wash tubs and one said to the other, “You think this is going to work?” The other servant says, “We may as well try something” – and sometimes in life that’s all it takes. They filled up those big water jars, with the faith of those willing to try anything and they ended up with wine finer than what had been served first. Of course you can’t always stay and just be obedient. Sometimes the issues are so severe the advice of any sensible person would be for you to not only leave but to run away. But you know what the ones who make it say? You ask them to explain love and sometimes you’ll hear the wives say, “No matter what, he was always there.” He was there in the good times and the bad times. For richer or poorer, In joy and in sorrow, In sickness and in health. That’s what they stand up here and promise to each other, and it sounds simple at the time, but the ones who make it to their 50th anniversary, it’s because they chose to stay. “Do whatever he tells you.” Doesn’t that sound simple? Doesn’t it sound easy? Of course it’s not. So hear again the words the choir just sang: “Set me as a seal upon your heart, As a seal upon your arm; For love is as strong as death, Passion fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love; neither can floods drown it. If one offered for love all the wealth of his house, It would be utterly scorned.” For those who honor such love, for those who stayed at that wedding even after the wine gave out, the Lord provided wine finer than the Steward served before. May it be yours as well. Amen.