January 18, 2004 - Second Sunday after Epiphany
I Cor. 12:1-11
    NRSV KJV CEV
John 2:1-11
    NRSV KJV CEV

"Stewards of Many Gifts"

“. . . the steward called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first and the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk.  But you have kept the good wine until now.’”

Yes, I know.  It’s an interesting and a rather unlikely text to preach in a church that had a total abstinence clause in its original church covenant.  Actually, what I’ve done is give you the conclusion – the best wine last.  So, let’s go back to the story and see what happened.

Jesus, his mother, and his disciples (and that means there could have been 72 or more of them at this point, not just the twelve) went to a wedding feast.  The wine ran out, unheard of in a place where hospitality means everything.  I wonder if they failed to practice what I’ve heard about here: FHB. FHB means ‘family hold back’ until the guests are fed, or in this case, watered.  No wine – a terrible thing for a host to face, not to mention all of those thirsty guests.

Mary lets Jesus know that the wine is out and he doesn’t seem particularly concerned.  Centuries of speculation have been poured into Jesus’ cryptic, and almost curt, response to his mother, “Woman, what concern is that to you or me?  My hour has not yet come.”  Some speculate that it is an implied rebuke, reminding Mary that she isn’t in on the whole picture of what God is doing.  Others think this refers to the “already but not yet” tension that is woven all through John’s Gospel. Regardless, Mary responds by saying to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Whether in on the fullness of the relationship or not, she knew deep inside herself that the correct response to the Word is to listen and then to take that Word seriously.

Even though Jesus says that his “hour has not yet come” – probably a foreshadowing of the Passion – he gives instructions to the kitchen staff.  The next thing we know there is between 120 and 180 gallons of top-shelf quality wine where none had been before.  We could write this as an unproveable miracle.  We could say that we take it on faith.  But I’m going to suggest that we should think about what it means for us right here and right now.  What do we do when the wine runs out?

Our modern American world knows abundance like no other – we have multiples of choice in just about every category.  There was an entire section in last Sunday’s paper that asked the question, “Do we have too many choices?”  We suffer from what Kierkegaard called the “despair of possibility,” which is “due to the lack of necessity.”  We have too many choices; even to choose to choose becomes difficult.  Yet, we are experiencing a deep sense of scarcity in our society.  We’re scarce on time, we’re scarce on relationships, and we’re scarce on a sense of security, well-being, and inner peace.  Our response seems to involve trying to fling even more choices, more material goods, more frenetic activity, and attempt to assert some kind of control, but that doesn’t stop the scarcity.  It doesn’t fill the void.  The wine of life is out – what do we do?

“Do whatever he tells you.”  Jesus tells the servants to fill the jugs with ordinary water and it goes from there.  Perhaps we need to look back to the ordinary, back to the place where the scarcity began?  What orders our time, sets our priorities and directs our lives?  Is it relationship with God and with one another or does something else push these primary orienting points out of the way?  Perhaps what we need is to allow God to transform the water we see into the wine it was meant to be?

Jesus reaches out to this unnamed couple and more than saves their party.  It’s not different today.  God entered into relationship with us, with our world, because God wants to know us and love us.  The primal covenant expressed in the Bible is one of presence, of relationship: “I am with you, always.”  Sometimes, we have to get out of the way and let God fill us with the abundance each of us is intended to have. It may not always happen according to our schedule, but it will happen.  After all, some scholars speculate that Jesus and company showed up uninvited, just dropped-in.  God wants to come into our lives and waits until we open the door to our party, then we know the best wine.

Once we enter into that divine party and experience the transforming presence of God in the everyday we become stewards of the many gifts we have.  All of us here are possessed of many gifts, each of them from God and all of them intended to keep the good wine of life flowing, not just for ourselves, but for others.  Paul is trying to tell the Corinthian Church about this.  The wine had run out at their party and the church was in conflict.  Few churches today escape conflict and it actually seems on the rise across denominational lines.  Churches today are also struggling with how to fit into a society that increasingly views the church as either marginal or irrelevant.  The wine is out – what shall we do?  Listen, do what he tells you.

The Corinthian church didn’t quite know what to do about these wild gifts that were exploding in the church.  They wanted order and, more than anything else, they wanted control.  When God sent the Spirit to the church on Pentecost day there was an eruption of praise, of energy, and of reconciling love that reached across ethnic, racial, and linguistic boundaries to draw people into God’s life.  I don’t think we can deny the need for order or for structure in the church nor can we deny the need to be open to the freshness, to the new ideas and, yes, even to the change that comes when we drink in the new wine of God’s Spirit.

Perhaps the wine of the institutional church needs to run out so it can be replenished with the wine of renewal?  People look at the church and see some kind of stern, forbidding, nay-saying, judgmental institution – is that what Jesus preached when he said that the kingdom was near at hand?  The church was meant to be, should be, and, please God, is the living presence of God in the world. God works through people.  I know I quote this a lot, but I do because it’s true, Irenaeus said, “God’s glory – human beings fully alive.”  Christians seem to be perceived as religious Eeyores – so burdened with themselves and their faith – “ooohhh myyy, I have this burden to loves others.  Ooohh myyyy.”  It’s not very attractive, is it?  I know that it certainly doesn’t attract me!  “Fully alive” means delighting in God, delighting in life, and in God’s people – all of God’s people.  That’s supposed to be the church – we’re not supposed to be some ho-hum, withered on the vine bunch.  We’re to be vital, active, alive, producing the wine that intoxicates people with the possibilities that God has for them for wholeness and living toward God and others in loving relationships.  Maybe, just maybe, the best wine is still waiting for us?

God has blessed this bunch on Church Street with a variety of gifts, and also with the same Spirit who activates them all. I can’t help but think that we are to look again to the everyday to renew the wine of the church.  Are we using our gifts to transform and to heal, to enrich and to better the lives of those here and around us?  Are we moving beyond self-centeredness and desire to control to an ever greater other-centeredness and a desire for the common good?  I’m not so sure that all of our 935 members can answer those questions in the affirmative – mainly because it’s been a while since we’ve actually seen them here!  I’m confident that we’re working toward it, but there is much work for us to do and it begins with the basic building block of relationship with God and with one another – the primal gift of God.

People are looking for something extra-ordinary, something to lift them beyond the pressures and routines of life.  Last Wednesday I was shocked when almost 400 people came here to talk about The DaVinci Code.  Some of the folks who stayed after to ask questions were trying to find something, something to give them meaning and to pull them up.  The tragedy of the Christian faith is that we have it to offer, but because we’ve wrapped it in layers of dogma and rules people have to go looking to fiction to find it.  It’s time for new wine.  It’s time to listen to the Word, to do whatever he says.

The relationship of God to humanity and human to human in love rests at the core of Jesus’ teaching.  It marks his life, his death, and his influence on us.  You want new and intoxicating wine – there it is: God loves us – just as we are.  God wants to draw us into the Divine life and have us experience what it means to be fully human and fully alive.  It’s so simple I can’t believe that we keep messing it up – but we do.  It doesn’t mean, however, that there isn’t work involved.  On the contrary, there is work, much work that we should be doing to prepare ourselves for living out this relationship.

Connie Pedesta, a motivational speaker, says that all relationships go through three stages: 1) I don’t want to change a thing about the other person.  They are perfect.  (This is the blissfully ignorant stage); 2) I want to change everything about the other person.  Nothing about them is right.  (This is the painful – or pain inducing -- stage); 3) I can not change my partner.  I can accept them as they are, or not.  (This is the stage of acceptance and maturity.)  The final stage is either the beginning of a long-term, healthy relationship or the end of a relationship, which might be the healthiest thing for both.  I see parallels to the life of the church here.

When we come to the point of acceptance – accepting who God is, who we are, and accepting those with whom we are in relationship – then we’re healthy and the relationship deepens and grows.  It’s not rocket science, but it does take effort.  Because of that effort I hope that we will meet together again in a very crowded social hall to do the business of this source of new wine – one can’t have a relationship without being present to the other.  Part of the task means that we can’t always expect that “someone else will do it,” or that “someone else is better at it,” or “someone else will give a bit more.”  We are the someone else.  In addition, we must be willing to put our own agendas aside and seek the common good before we see to our needs.  We must be willing to listen and engage in honest, loving communication.  And, most importantly, we must develop a lively relationship with God through prayer which will enable us to do the work and will keep us in touch.  It’s important for us to realize that prayer isn’t our one-sided conversation with God, telling God how to run the world.  We need to listen, otherwise how can we do what we’re told to do?