The Scriptures — On Their Own— Don’t Tell Us Who God Is.
Reflections on John 2: 1-11
Last week, Rev. Williams—the other Jonathan, that is—raised an important issue in his sermon: the interpretation of scripture. With gratifying vulnerability, he presented the Baptism of Jesus as a narrative which resists simple conclusions and remains notoriously difficult to understand. Not only does a literal reading leave us somewhat incredulous, but the account of Jesus’ baptism in the Gospel according to Luke doesn’t match the accounts in Matthew, Mark, or John. So, with gratifying pastoral care Jonathan gave us permission to ask questions of the text, to wrestle with the contradictions we find, and to say in public, “I don’t know what to do with this text. I’m not sure what it means.”
In a particular way, Jonathan revealed what it means to be an Episcopalian: we believe our knowledge of God comes to us through the combined revelation of Scripture, Christian Tradition, and the human faculty of Reason. Scripture, Tradition, and Reason: for short, we call this the three-leggèd stool. If one or two of the legs are missing on a three-leggèd stool, you’ve got nothing to sit down on. In other words: The scriptures of the Old and New Testament on their own don’t tell us who God is.
As 21st Century Episcopalians, we do not hold the truths of Scripture to be self-evident, contrary to the philosophy embedded in the Declaration of Independence. There are some truths that are self-evident: stubbing your toe on the coffee table hurts. But the truths of Scripture don’t work this way. The Bible by itself is just a book, and the words of that book—by themselves—are not the Living Word. But when we read Scripture alongside the Church’s Worship and Service, and in light of everything Reason tells us about the Universe, then the scriptures become the Living Word. As the bread is the Sacrament of Christ’s Body and the wine the Sacrament of his Blood, so the anthology of strange texts we call the Bible is the Sacrament of the Living Word, but only in the power of the Spirit, the Lord the Giver of Life! As the apostle Paul points out to the Corinthians, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Spirit.” And just as we don’t celebrate the Eucharist by ourselves, we don’t interpret scripture by ourselves either.
I’m glad I’m following Jonathan Williams in the preaching schedule, because like the Baptism of Jesus, we’ve got another humdinger of a story today. Without him, and without you, I don’t know if I could have said what it means or why it matters that Jesus changed water into wine. Let us pray:
Most gracious God, out of all the words that will now be spoken and heard,
may it be your Living Word that stays in our hearts.
Give us the grace to receive it,
and give us the charity to let all the other words slip away.
We pray this in the Name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
Today we’re going to step fully into our Episcopalian identity as communal scripture-interpreters and make a bold claim: this story from a wedding at Cana is not about Jesus; it’s about those who encounter him. The miraculous epiphany of Jesus as Messiah during that feast is not simply for the benefit of those disciples, who came to believe because they had seen. Rather I think the main characters in this story are the people like us, the people who’ve been told a lot of things about Jesus and are asked to be faithful long before they have any inkling that their trust will amount to anything. In particular, I’m speaking about the servants who fill the jars with water.
You see, if we let our minds run along with the Spirit a little, we observe that its no miracle for the Living Word to alter the molecular structure of H 2 O. No… for the One through whom all things came into being, molecules and atoms are tinker toys! Jesus might just as well have turned the water into maple syrup! So we need not be impressed with Jesus for simply being himself. Indeed, the way the author tells his story, it’s almost as if Jesus is bored by the whole thing. Let’s hear a little snippet again:
And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6 Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’
Between the middle of verse 7 and the beginning of verse 8, what is going on? What is this filling of jars? And what was Jesus doing?
Was he returning cluck for cluck and—with a twinkle in his eye—driving his mother crazy by showing her his empty bowl and pointing out that the bigger problem with this party was that they’d run out of matzo-ball soup?
Was he choreographing an elaborate liturgical dance with his disciples?
Was he waving his arms as he spoke some sublimely intricate incantation of the fruit of the vine?
Was he mixing spit and dirt in his hands and throwing little mud patties into the well?
Or was he just sitting there, hopefully in the shade, with his puzzled disciples?
The latter seems most probable, but the author is notoriously silent here, which is the first clue that we should pause right in the middle of the silence and consider the scene. Because even if we can’t say what Jesus was doing, the text very clearly implies what the servants were doing.
Thinking this through works best as a recipe:
Take 6, 25-gallon burnished clay jars.
Put the jars on the ox cart.
Secure them with a rope.
Take them to the well. (NOTE: leave jars in cart)
Get your 3-gallon bucket and secure it to the well rope.
Lower your bucket down into the well to draw 150 gallons, filling all 6 jars.
Repeat dipping process as necessary for spillage.
Return filled jars to Jesus.
My fellow scripture-interpreters, use your reason now: How long does it take to fill six, 25-gallon jars from a well? An hour? Two hours? More? And how much effort does it take to haul that much water up a pulley, pass a three-gallon bucket gingerly from the rope hook to the servant on the cart, pour it into the vessel, and repeat 50 times? Fill the jars?! Really Jesus? We’re out of time!
What happens if the absurdity of Jesus’ request and the prospect of so much work depresses the servants to the point where they decide to just quit and look for other employment. Doesn’t this feel like the last straw? I mean, the planning for this wedding has clearly been a shambles, so no doubt the servants have been getting the short end of every stick for the preceding three or four days. What happens if they forgo following Jesus’ foolishly simple instructions. Mary the mother of Jesus says, “Do whatever he tells you.” Well… What if they don’t?
I’ll tell you what I think as I’ve wrestled this text: not only would there have been no wine at the end of the feast, but nobody who encountered Jesus that day would have gone home wondering how often they’d missed out on a miracle because they’d been to exasperated or incredulous to follow God’s foolishly simple instructions. The question still stands these 2000 years later; let’s allow it to land in our hearts: How many of us have missed out on miracles that reveal Jesus to be the Christ because we couldn’t summon the energy or humility to follow God’s simple instructions? How many of us miss out on miracles because we can’t follow God’s simple instructions?
For the Jewish family and friends at that wedding in Cana, there were 10 simple instructions: they’re on page 350 in your Prayer Book. They all lead to miracles of revelation, because they all give life!
For the people of Jesus in all times and places, there’s just one more that sums up those ancient ten commandments: “I give you a new commandment,” says Jesus to his friends, “that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.” (John 13:34) We’d do well to remember that Jesus says this right after he washes the feet of Judas Iscariot.
Friends, if we follow Jesus’ recipe, I have a feeling our lives will overflow with miracles, and each new miracle will in some mysterious way confirm what the scriptures tell:
That Jesus of Nazareth is the Incarnate Living Word of the Creator,
the Begotten One through whom all things came into being, the Image of the Invisible God,
and the Anointed Suffering Servant who emptied himself of glory,
the Good Shepherd:
whose Body is True Food;
whose Blood is True Drink;
who laid down his life for the life of the world;
who was raised and vindicated by Divine Love
that we too might live.
When we don’t know what to do with our faith, let’s take the first step of asking for help. When we pray, together and alone, let us ask for the energy and humility to take Jesus at his word, that we might fill all the uncertainty in our lives with big buckets of his grace. And if we will become constant in this prayer, perhaps the vision of the Psalmist will be fulfilled: as we open to the possibilities of God’s steadfast love we will experience refuge, and abundance, and delight!
(Psalm 36:7-8)
May it be so: for you, for me, and for the whole creation yearning to be free.
Photo by Sixteen Miles Out on Unsplash