Sermon:
November 30, 1997

Scripture:
John 2:1-12

As I noted in my Steeple Notes column, this year's version of the "wedding season" is pretty much history. I don't have a single wedding scheduled for December. Matt has one. And I'm not certain about Melody. But I can tell you that this year's season concluded with a bang. Yesterday I sang at one wedding, officiated at a second, and attended a pair of receptions (including one for a third wedding that took place, several weeks ago, on Long Island).

As a well-seasoned veteran of such Saturdays, I am going to make you privy to a piece of secret knowledge, heretofore unrevealed to the general public (but widely known to ministers, organists and wedding coordinators the world over): Whenever two or two hundred gather to have a wedding, sooner or later something is going to go wrong. In spite of intricate planning, adequate rehearsing and the fussy attending to detail (by the most perspicacious of polished professionals), even the best-laid plans will have to accommodate some mistake ... some flaw ... or some unanticipated "glitch."

But let me be quick to assure you that, should you desire to have your wedding go well, there are few better places to be wed than here. Like heart surgeries at Beaumont Hospital, we have been at weddings so long ... have done so many ... and work together so well ... that we can spot and solve most "glitches" before they become obvious or embarrassing. But glitches there will be. It's a rule. You can look it up.

Over the years, we have had to solve the problem of missing flowers, missing fathers, missing singers, missing attendants, missing trousers (for the groom), missing ties (for all the guys), and a missing tiara arranger, without whose stylish assistance the bride wouldn't go down the aisle. What she needed was not a tiara arranger, but a Dutch uncle. So I became the uncle. And she became the bride.

I could write an entire book on glitches. I would start with the ring bearer who, in the center aisle, took off his shoes (which he didn't like), took off his socks (which he didn't like either), and proceeded to play with his toes (which he apparently liked a lot). Then I would conclude with the father who, after practicing his line for weeks ("Her mother and I do"), listened attentively to my question, brushed a tear from his eye, looked over his shoulder at his wife and stammered: "My mother and I do." But if you remember Chuck and Di's wedding, she couldn't pronounce his name correctly. And she was a princess.

Sooner or later, something is going to go wrong. Which should come as no surprise. But it should also come as no embarrassment. Glitches are simply disclosures of our humanity. There can be no perfect ritual, because there are no perfect people to enact one. Besides, I often remind nervous brides and grooms that their wedding is not going to be attended by 200 critics who have come to appraise their performance, but by 200 friends and family members who have come to share their joy.

* * * * *

Jesus went to a wedding. And there was a glitch. His mother was the first to spot it. Women seem to pick up on these things faster than men. Don't ask me why.

As glitches go, this one didn't seem so bad on the surface. But I suppose it was awkward ... not to mention a tad embarrassing. You remember what happened. They ran out of wine. That's right. They ran out of wine.

While the stories in John's gospel are ripe for preaching, most preachers tend to avoid this one. Conservatives avoid it because they don't know what to make of the wine involved. Liberals avoid it because they don't know what to make of the miracle involved. But let's you and I ignore such labels and have a go at it.

The story begins simply enough. Jesus and his mother are attending a wedding. Which gives us a glimpse of Jesus as a social being. And since those glimpses are far too few, let's preserve the ones we have. There is a suggestion in early apocryphal literature that this may have been the wedding of a relative ... with Mary being the aunt of the groom, making Jesus the groom's cousin. There is nothing to support this idea. And the idea, itself, probably arose among a group of people who had trouble visualizing Jesus at a wedding reception, leading them to concoct a scenario wherein he had to attend ... against his will, of course ... because his mother made him go. But that's a dumb idea. So drop it.

The wedding is at Cana. Cana is in Galilee. Today, Cana is a West Bank town, populated largely by Arabs. As communities go, it is quite small ... and more than a little impoverished. Which is pretty much how it was then. But suddenly our story takes a funny little detour. Not because they ran out of wine. That's a glitch, not a detour. Instead, the story detours into a strange discussion between Jesus and his mother about the question of time. And how to tell it.

If you have been listening in at this outpost for very many moons, you know that whenever Jesus shows up in John's Gospel, nothing is ever quite as it seems. There are always two levels to the stories in John. There is a "right now" level that deals with the surface of things. And there is an "obscure and subterranean" level that deals with the hidden meaning of things. With that in mind, let's take a closer look at this morning's story.

Jesus' mother says: "Look, son, they have run out of wine" (an observation that is readily available on the surface of things).

To which Jesus could have said: "So they have" ... or "We've had enough to drink anyway" ... or "We're in luck, Mother, because we just passed a Merchant of Vino a couple of miles back." All of these would be appropriate "surface" responses.

But Jesus doesn't say any of these things. Instead, he dips several layers below the surface and says: "Woman, what has this concern of yours to do with me? My time has not yet come." Which is strange, is it not?

Strange, from the standpoint of mood. Jesus is obviously irritated.

Strange, from the standpoint of address. Jesus does not call her "Mother" or "Mary." He calls her "woman." Suddenly she is depersonalized. Suddenly she is nameless. Or is it that suddenly, at some deeper level, she is generalized? She is no longer one woman. She is every woman.

Strange, also, from the standpoint of "time." "Woman, the time is not yet right."

This, however, is the point on which the story pivots. For this is not a story about weddings ... about water ... or about wine. This is a story about time. John's Gospel is constructed on two layers of time ... which are perceived as being the same time. There is ordinary time ... as in clock time. And there is God's time ... as in Kingdom time.

Elsewhere in the Bible, it is suggested that ordinary time is present time (the way things are right now), while God's time is future time (as in the way things will be someday). You know how it goes. The Bible says: "You are hungry now" (clock time). But the Bible also says: "You shall enjoy a great banquet someday" (Kingdom time). The Bible says: "You are sad and sorrowing now" (clock time). But the Bible also says: "You shall have every tear wiped away someday" (Kingdom time). Or the Bible says: "You suffer the ravages of warfare now" (clock time). But the Bible also says: "Swords shall be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks someday" (Kingdom time).

But John is saying something different. John is saying that if you look really carefully ... and if you pay very close attention to things ... you will see places where God's time (Kingdom time) is breaking into ordinary time (clock time). Which means that the implied question threading its way through John's Gospel is: "Can you tell time? Can you see God's time peeking through clock time? Can you see hints of the Kingdom in the present?" You can't tell time in the Gospel of John, you see, unless you wear two watches.

In order to understand this, you need to know where John is coming from. John is looking back at Jesus from the perspective of 70 years of history. John's Gospel is dated somewhere in the neighborhood of 100 A.D. (give or take a decade). John is looking back at Jesus from the other side of Jesus' life ... from the other side of Jesus' death ... and from the other side of Jesus' resurrection. John is using this story to say: "If we had looked more carefully at the beginning of his ministry, we would have seen it ... could have seen it ... should have seen it ... for it was there from the beginning."

Note when the wedding takes place. It takes place on "the third day." Which may be one of John's literary tricks. The wedding day (clock time) is also resurrection day (Kingdom time).

Or consider this strange little reference to six stone water jars. Do you know how much water you can get in six stone jars? The answer is 120 gallons. Which is more wine than any group of wedding guests could put away (although I am sure one of you will tell me that 120 gallons is a drop in the bucket, whenever your relatives get together).

Why 120 gallons? I'll answer that one, too. There was a consistent Old Testament prophecy (Amos 9:13, Hosea 14:7, Jeremiah 31:12) suggesting that when the final days come, there will be great joy and an abundance of wine. And in a non-biblical Jewish legend (written at the same time as the Gospel of John), we read: "In the final days, each vine shall have 1000 branches ... each branch, 1000 clusters ... each cluster, 1000 grapes ... and each grape shall yield 120 gallons of wine."

Don't you see it? On the one hand, Jesus is saying: "Woman, don't bug me. My time is not yet. My time is in the future. My time is still hidden ... not yet revealed." But Mary can see that this moment is pregnant with possibilities. So she says to the servants: "Listen to him. Do whatever he tells you."

Then six stone jars are filled with water. One hundred twenty gallons of water are turned into wine. And (to the degree that "wine" is a symbol of the "New Kingdom"), God's time comes breaking into clock time. There is a new way of looking at things ... a new way of experiencing things ... a new way of telling time. The future is not "out there." The future is "right here."

All of which raises a question. What if we really could see two kinds of reality at the same time? What if we could learn to tell time with two watches? For one thing, the world might begin to look different to us. Less frightening, perhaps. Less threatening, that too. Certainly less ordinary ... less matter-of-factish ... less mundane.

Tom Long, who has guided me through John's material, tells a moving story of his own. It seems that Tom was a member of a downtown Presbyterian church in Atlanta. The church was located on the edge of a demographic shift, meaning that there were a lot of "street people" living in the vicinity of the building. So the church's minister issued a challenge to the congregation.

We have an unused gym in which no one has shot a basket for years. And there are nights, even in Atlanta, when the temperature dips into the twenties and below. On those nights, why don't we open the gym and offer temporary shelter, along with a few snacks?

So they talked about it. And, as with most new ideas, they found a million things wrong with it. But the Holy Spirit moved, and they decided to proceed. So they went looking for volunteers. As a seminary professor who just happened to worship in that church, Tom Long figured it was time to put his body where his heart was. So he signed up for a night. And since no one signed up with him, he recruited a friend to help. Tom's friend was not a member of that church. In fact, he was not a member of any church. Periodically, across the years of the friendship, his friend would preface innumerable opinions with the words: "I'm no theologian, but it seems to me ... "

But let Tom pick up the story.

On the appointed evening we went to the gym, set out the food, opened up the doors, and in they came. After they snacked and played a few table games, our visitors took off their coats (some of them were wearing four of five) and began to build a nest for sleeping on the gymnasium floor. I said to my friend: "Why don't we keep watch in shifts? That way, neither of us will be completely wasted by morning."

My friend agreed that it was a good idea. He also volunteered to take the first shift, claiming that he wanted to mingle with our guests while they were still awake. It seems that he was fascinated by the stories they were telling, as to who they were and how they had gotten themselves into this predicament.

So I went into the office and bunked down on a sofa. The agreement was that my friend would trade places with me at 2:00 a.m. Which is what happened. At 2:00 he shook me awake. But there was an urgency in his shaking that jolted me faster than my normal rhythms were inclined to accept. Then I heard him speak, and discovered an excitement in his voice that exceeded the urgency in his hands. "Tom," he said, "you've got to wake up and join me. Now mind you, I'm no theologian ... but I think Jesus Christ is out there."

My friends, do not look down on that kind of report. For such things can happen when you allow Bible stories to spill out of their settings. And such things can happen if you are "enough of a theologian" to believe that Kingdom time can occasionally be experienced in the middle of clock time.

Night after night, the TV preachers tell us that God is running out of patience with us ... and that our time is coming to an end. Permit me a moment of arrogance, just long enough to say that I think they are wrong. Not about God's patience. I have no grounds on which to contradict them there. For I know next-to-nothing about how patient God is. And neither do they.

What they are wrong about is the idea that it is "our time" that is coming to an end. For if anything I have just said is even remotely correct, this isn't just "our time" in which we are living. Anybody with two watches knows that.

Which makes me realize that I have come to the end of my sermon and misplaced my watch. Does anybody out there know what time it is?

* * * * *

Note: This sermon owes a debt of gratitude to Dr. Tom Long who currently teaches preaching at Princeton Theological Seminary.