"The Good Wine" - Sermon for the First Sunday after Epiphany

The Good Wine
Epiphany 1 – Narrative Lectionary 4
January 12, 2014
Grace, Mankato, MN
John 2.1-11

Many of you know I am a second career (or midlife crisis) pastor. It would be no surprise that I was very involved in my previous congregations as a lay person, participating in many of the same ways in ministry as you do. One role I had was as an assisting minister in worship. During one memorable moment at Nativity Lutheran Church in Alexandria, VA, Pr. Paul Huddle was serving as our interim pastor, preaching and presiding one Sunday as I was assisting. We used the common cup, or pouring chalice, in worship and our practice was that the presiding minister would finish off the wine at the end of the meal, I practice I have continued as an ordained minister. This particular Sunday Pr. Huddle started to do this, suddenly stopped, handed the chalice to me and said, “I can’t do this; you need to finish it off.” Puzzled, I took the chalice and proceeded to drain the worst wine imaginable. Somebody on the altar guild must have had an awful week or left the wine bottle sitting on a radiator overnight. It was bad wine.

“Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests 
have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

In our gospel reading for today, we hear instead about the good wine. Like most of John’s gospel, the story of the wedding at Cana is rich and operates on many levels. At its simplest, this is a miracle story, where Jesus does something almost over the top. A problem is identified, a request is made, Jesus responds with a miracle, and there is a reaction from those present. However, as Augustine first, and CS Lewis later, remind us, Jesus does a speeded up version of what God does every year all over the world, turning water into wine. In other words, a miracle is not an arbitrary violation of nature’s laws, but an experience of God’s transforming presence in our lives. The story, much like a parable, is not as much a puzzle to solve as a mystery to embrace or engage. So, let’s embrace and engage this mystery for a while this morning and see how God can open us up in some new and life-giving ways.

Jesus’ miracle is called a sign, meaning it points to something more important than the miracle itself. The sign points to the divine reality of God’s transformative presence in our world, i.e., glory. One way to engage the mystery is to remember that banquets, especially wedding feasts, often symbolize God’s promised consummation at the end of time, where the world is finally made right. However, this hint of what is to come provides not only a foreshadowing of what is to come, but also a foretaste of that forthcoming. God’s future breaks into our present in a real and substantive way that changes us and the world.

It is short jump from this end-of-time (not end-times) banquet to the meal we share each week. The chief steward in the story assumes that the bridegroom is responsible for the good wine. But, as so often happens, it is Jesus who is actually the host at this most amazing meal. And, as is the case when we gather around our table, the mystery that we enter, engage, and embrace is that Jesus is not only the host of the meal, but he also is the meal. Jesus gives us his very self.

So, we are reminded that, as this miracle both points to God’s future and is a vehicle for God’s future to break into our present, it does so through the cross, Jesus’ death and resurrection. For as grapes are offered up to produce wine, so Jesus offers himself for the sake of the world. Like so many other symbols in John—light, water, and food—wine symbolizes Jesus’ gift of salvation. The miracle of water turned to wine, good wine, anticipates the love of God poured out through Jesus.

We believe that God is with us and we gather today to receive the Good Wine of God’s love poured out for us. In so doing, God invites to look at the ordinary places in our lives and discover those places where God is working through them to care for God’s people: in our families, our work, our schools, and here. God provides a different kind of abundance than the world knows, an abundance of self-giving love. So, what are the unforeseen needs or ministry opportunities that God is going to fill in our lives? We are urged to embrace and engage the mystery, looking for those places the Good Wine comes. Amen.