Sermon Preached Oct. 6, 2013
World Communion Sunday
Metro Baptist Church
New York, NY
World Communion Sunday
Metro Baptist Church
New York, NY
This morning you are invited to a wedding banquet. The wedding in Cana, Jesus’ first miracle! Turning water into wine at a wedding party. Some have argued that the point of this story is that Jesus ministers in small ways, such as helping out the hosts when they’re running low on wine. But might the author of John be up to something more here? And what does a wedding banquet have to do with World Communion Sunday, anyway?
Why would the
author choose a story about Jesus turning water into wine at an unnamed
couple’s wedding in Cana as the first sign that would reveal Jesus’ glory in
this gospel account? Doesn’t it seem just a bit mundane? Were there not bigger
needs in Cana that day where Jesus could have put this power to better use?
But what if this
story isn’t really about the wedding of the Canan couple? Is the author using the
wedding to symbolize something else?
The Bible is full
of nuptial imagery and wedding banquets in
particular are an important allegory in the New Testament. The apostle Paul
uses this metaphor in his letters to the churches in Ephesus and Corinth. And Jesus
is repeatedly called the bridegroom, and the Church a bride. This imagery
culminates in the last two chapters of Revelation, written around the same time
as the Gospel of John, at the wedding of the Lamb, with the vision of the New
Jerusalem, dressed as a bride adorned for her husband.
Could it be that the
couple go unnamed in this story in order for us to substitute in our own names?
Jean-Calvin, Tiffany, Angie, Alan, Michelle, Anita? Are we in fact the guests
of honor at this wedding banquet?
To put it another way,
could this story be about God’s desire to enter into relationship with us?
In your own Bible
study time I’m sure you’ve noticed that the Gospel of John is a bit different
in style from the other three gospels. It’s a bit more poetic - a little more
literary version of Jesus’ story. Theologian Marva Dawn puts it this way:
John ought not to be read quickly. It is full
of double and triple meanings, endlessly suggestive images, and “signs” that
seem obvious on the surface but yield much deeper truth if we are willing to
dig contemplatively.[1]
And this mornings’
story is no exception, it is full of allegory, full of possible meanings. Meanings
that may help us understand what the author is trying to say about Jesus and
God, but perhaps even more importantly, meanings that we might apply to our
lives, to our church, and to our faith today.
So, if this story is
about God’s desire to be in relationship with us, what is this relationship to
be about, what will it look like?
In the second chapter
of John there are two stories, and I believe they are key to interpreting each
other. The second story, which we didn’t
read this morning, is the familiar story where Jesus purifies the temple in
Jerusalem by overturning the money changers’ tables. A wonderful scene, Jesus
engaged in street theater of divine justice, running the crooks out of the
temple.
One clue that these
two stories are connected may be the six purification jars that Jesus asks the
servants to fill with water. Though we can’t know for sure, it is likely that
these jars would have been part of the purification process controlled by the
temple authorities, and unlikely that there would have been six of them of this
size in someone’s home. And did you notice that they were empty… depleted? And
notice that Jesus didn’t reject them, but rather filled them. Today’s environmentalists might say he repurposed them. The jars, previously
used for ritual purification are liberated
by Jesus and given a life-giving, celebratory purpose. When coupled with the purification of the temple,
this liberation of the purification
jars seems to point to a radical reorientation of the focus of the church, from ritual and purification to liberation
and justice.
Another indication
that the stories in John 2 are connected is how the author uses the phrase, “on
the third day” to frame them. Verse one
literally starts with the words, “on the third day, there was a wedding in Cana
of Galilee”. Just 17 verses later, after running the money changers out of the
temple, Jesus is asked, “What sign can you show us for doing this? And Jesus
answered them, ‘Destroy this Temple, and in three days I
will raise it up.’" The author goes
on to make it even more clear by saying that after Jesus was crucified and
resurrected his disciples remembered these words and believed. This takes on
even more significance because for
Jews in the first century, the temple was where heaven and earth met… Jesus
seems to be saying that has changed now. He has come to replace the temple. And
he has come to bring liberation and justice.
And what about Mary? Were you intrigued like I was by her role in
this story? Mary makes two
cameo-appearances in the entire Gospel of John, and is never mentioned by name.
She plays a pivotal role here at the beginning - at Jesus’ first sign - and she
is there at Jesus’ last breath at Golgotha. Is Mary there to help us connect
the gift of wine at the wedding banquet, with the gift of Jesus’ life on the
cross?
Or is she there to
remind us of Jesus’ humanity, that he was born of a human mother, even as he is
revealing his divinity by transforming water into wine?Or is she there to
simply show us the way. We would all do well from time to time to listen to
Mary when she says, as she did to the servants at the wedding banquet: “Whatever Jesus says, you do it.” Now
there’s a Bible verse I don’t mind people taking literally!
Or who knows, maybe
her voice trembled as she spoke to the servants, wondering if Jesus would
really come through. Was she stepping out on faith?… expecting a miracle? Can
we approach the challenges we face with that type of faith?
And
did you notice that the servants! were the first to
understand the sign? Is
this mere coincidence or did Jesus purposely choose to reveal himself first to
those on the underside of history? Are the humble and impoverished privileged in understanding the signs of
the Kingdom of God? Can you imagine the excitement when they went home to their
families after the banquet to tell of what they had witnessed? And what must
they have felt as they heard of what this same Jesus did a few days later at
the temple in Jerusalem?
And how
can we be sure we’re not missing out on new signs of the Kingdom today? I know
that during my days at Metro I often let my desire to help, outpace my
willingness to listen. What rumors of Jesus’ activity did I miss out on by not
listening enough to the Damayan Migrant Worker’s Association and their struggle
against modern-day slavery? Did I miss a chance to chat with Jesus when he came
in the guise of a woman in need of some food for her family or a warm coat in
the winter? There’s no doubt for me that each spring a piece of the kingdom
sprouts up four floors above your heads on Metro’s roof in the Hell’s Kitchen
Farming Project.
And here
in Colombia I’m just beginning to learn about the spirituality of urban
gardening, resistance and nonviolence as articulated by the network of
Anabaptist urban gardens springing up in the poorest and most violent
neighborhoods here in Bogotá. I’d love to connect them with the Hells Kitchen
Farming Project!
That’s
just one concrete idea that I can come up with that would be a wonderful
outcome of this World Communion Sunday. But I’m sure you all can think of more.
Metro is so blessed to have wonderful connections with other parts of the world
such as South Sudan, Brazil, the Philippines, Sweden, Cameroon, the Democratic
Republic of the Congo, St. Lucia and of course Colombia, to name just a few.
But before
I close, I want to come back to a
question I briefly raised earlier about the apparent arbitrariness of turning water into wine and the question of whether there
weren’t more important uses for God’s power? I don’t know how the author would
answer that question. And it’s no easier to answer why so much suffering still
exists today.
But what if we turn
that question on ourselves? Have we
set our sights too low? Have we grown
too accustomed to the injustices around us? What power and energy do we have that can bring healing to the
world? Because the Gospel of John seems to be saying that for Jesus, loving God
is very this-worldly… it’s not about purification rites, but celebration
of love and community, and it’s most definitely about justice! The story of the
wedding in Cana teaches that God’s power is present in Jesus… and now through
the Communion Jesus has told us that God’s power is with us, through the Holy
Spirit.
And yet we know that
many are still excluded from the tables of life… for lack of food, lack of
power, lack of justice, from Hell’s Kitchen, to Kinshasa, to Bogotá. But we are
also promised that at God’s final banquet all will be invited to the feast…
Welcome to God’s
wedding banquet! As you come
to the communion table today, do you come as the Bride, or do you come as Mary,
or do you come as a servant?… but most importantly do you dare leave as a
disciple?… emboldened by the signs that you have seen to go out and effectively
love the world? May it be so!
[1] Marva Dawn, Untitled Essay, in Richard Foster, Dallas
Willard, Walter Brueggemann and Eugene Peterson, Renovaré Spiritual
Formation Bible: New Revised Standard Version with Deuterocanonical Books, (San Francisco:HarperSanFrancisco,
2005) p. 1934.
