Sister Ellen Francis

Epiphany 2, Year C, SunDAY January 14, 2007 Our Savior
Isa 62:1-5; Psalm 96:1-10; 1 Cor 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

Quote: “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit” (1 Cor 12:4); “His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (John 2:5).
Point: JC doesn’t do it for them; they have to pour the water and pour out the wine; we each have God-given gifts in the Spirit
Illus: patient who woke from coma

“His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you’” (John 2:5).
* * * * *
This story of the wedding at Cana is a strange and puzzling story.
We can certainly understand the embarrassment and shame of the host when the party runs out of wine.
And perhaps we can even understand that Jesus’ mother might go to him and say, “They have no wine” (John 2:3b).
She doesn’t ask him explicitly to do anything, but her words imply the hope that he might and the faith that he will do something to help.
He certainly takes her words as a request.
Even though he declines at first to help, and says that his “hour has not yet come” (John 2:4b),
still she says to the stewards, “Do whatever he tells you” (John 2:5).
She leaves it to him to decide what to do.
And he leaves it to the stewards to decide how they will fill the jars.
Jesus gives the instructions, and it is the stewards who pour the water into six stone water jars.
They don’t just pour in a little bit of water, into one or two jars, to test it out and just to see what will happen.
They make a complete commitment.
They fill all six jars right up to the brim.
These jars probably held about 20-30 gallons each, and so six of them would mean between 120 and 180 gallons of wine.
Now, these must have been very heavy, large stone jars, and this was of course long before indoor plumbing.
They would have been too heavy to carry to the well, so to fill all six of them to the brim would have meant many, many trips back and forth between the house and the well.
Jesus gives the instructions, and the stewards do all this work, and we can imagine that they do it with amazement and wonder, and also with faith and with enthusiasm.
* * * * *
These stewards see a possibility on that day, and they follow through.
They have the gift to see this possibility.
Through the variety of gifts, that St. Paul describes, even today, the one Spirit may bring miracles of healing and grace (1 Cor 12:4).
I was once a witness to a miracle of sorts, and it seems to me that it happened in somewhat the same way.
One day I was visiting at a hospital, and I stopped in to the intensive care unit to see if anyone would like a chaplain to visit.
At the desk, the nurse directed me to talk with a patient’s daughters who were standing in the hall outside his room.
They said that their father was in a coma and the doctors had said that he would not recover.
They were really glad that I was there, and asked me to go into his room to pray for him.
I did this, and saw that he was in a coma and resting peacefully.
I said some prayers, aloud, standing at his bedside, and then I started to read aloud from the psalms.
As I read, I had a feeling that someone was looking at me.
Since I was alone in the room with the patient, this felt rather strange.
I looked up from the book, and saw that he was starting to wake up.
I spoke to him and called his name, and he gradually became more fully awake.
Then went and called his daughters.
They were so thrilled, and talked eagerly with him.
I left them alone to spend this precious time together.
I have no idea whether he recovered or not, but it was clearly a miracle that he returned to consciousness from the coma and had some precious time with his daughters.
I can only say that God’s grace was working that day, and through the words of prayer that were addressed to God
for this patient and his daughters.
I seemed to me afterwards that the words of prayer addressed to God, and also spoken to him may have been a vehicle for his awakening.
I certainly didn’t do the miracle myself, but may have been an agent for God’s grace to work through my words of prayer, as the work of the stewards made possible the miracle of wine.
* * * * *
Jesus gives the instructions, and the stewards are open to possibility.
They enter into the mystery with enthusiasm and probably also with awe.
For us, today, it is amazing and humbling to hear such a story and to think that we also present in this story.
We are all given gifts of ministry, through grace, to accomplish Christ’s work in the world,
and to serve God and one another, and even to be witness to miracles of the Spirit.
It may seem that the problems we face are intractable, and yet this strange story of God’s miraculous hospitality can give us hope that we can, indeed, be participants in accomplishing God’s work in the world.
As Jesus gave instructions to the stewards, we also can be open to listen to the opportunities that we are given to serve and to use our gifts to accomplish God’s work.
The story of the wedding at Cana is also our story.
We are the stewards, listening to incredible instructions to fill up empty jars, with only water, to make possible the miracle of God’s hospitality.
We may sometimes be the chief steward, astonished to find a sudden abundance of wine, and not just any wine, but the best.
We are the guests who are fed at the banquet, not always aware of the drama unfolding around us, and still recipients of God’s abundant hospitality.
We are also the empty jars, waiting to be filled to overflowing, with the abundant love of Christ.