Do Whatever He Tells You to Do
John 2:1-11 January 20, 2013
Rev. David J. Clark
Something went wrong at the wedding. It’s a common occurrence. I warn couples that something will go wrong during their wedding day. It may be something insignificant – the goldfish for the table decoration might be floating belly up by the time the guests reach the reception hall. It may be something that no one ever notices – one of the groomsmen’s trousers has a hole. It might be something that everyone sees and notices – like the time one of my clergy friends accidentally swore during the sermon He was trying to say one word that rhymed with a swear word and accidentally said the big one right there in church in front of God and everyone.
Something went wrong at this wedding Jesus attended. They ran out of wine, which would have been a big thing in that culture. Weddings were community events that lasted several days and involved countless details. There was always at least a year between the betrothal and wedding. The party was a sign of faith in God, and the connection of God between God’s people. People come together in celebration; people celebrate love, community and God.
In this party, in this small, poor village they run out of wine. Why did they run out? Perhaps it was just one of those things where they didn’t plan well enough or maybe someone was guzzling too much. More likely, the couple was poor and they just didn’t have enough. Unfortunately, to run out of wine was considered a sign of disrespect, of not trusting that you’d be taken care of. You could be ostracized from the community and I read, you could even be sued. Imagine starting off that way, embarrassed, broke and facing a lawsuit. Maybe some of you have been there.
Mary notices, “They’ve run out of wine.” And Jesus sounds harsh, “What is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come.” Mary kind of pushes him to take care of it anyway. It’s the time of their need, you do something. So Mary says some of the wisest words ever uttered. She tells some of the servants “Do whatever he tells you to do.”
She pushed him into his first miracle. I’ll bet you could see him rolling his eyes and sighing. It shows the humanness of Jesus. Even he had his mother telling him what to do when he was 30 years old. And she was right. He did act. It’s a human moment that reminds us that Jesus identifies fully with us. There are going to be things in this world that God wants you to do that at first you are not going to want to do. From time to time, you are going to need a little push to get going in the direction you need to go. Have you ever had a Mary in your life, someone who has given you that little push? You do it. Sometimes it is someone who is just blunt we’re going to church; I’ll pick you up at 8:10. You are going to open up your checkbook and give $100 dollars to Costa Rica mission relief– you were hoping to get away with five.
I don’t think I would have accomplished much if there hadn’t been someone in the background encouraging me to move forward. We all need a Mary – someone who will encourage us, someone who will even see where we need to be and get a little pushy with us. Do you have a Mary? Maybe this is the time today to listen to her instead of shutting her out. Maybe you are supposed to be a Mary for someone else. Maybe there is someone who you sense their call to be faithful to God in some area of their lives. Go ahead, get a little more assertive. They may roll their eyes and sigh, but they may also start down a path that leads to blessing. It occurs to me that part of the pastor’s job is to be a Mary, to give you the push you need sometimes, the call that begins “I’ve got an opportunity for you.”
Jesus told the stewards to fill the six stone jars of 20–30 gallons each with water. We’re told these jars are for the Jewish rites of purification. People would come to events, and ritualistically wash signifying a cleansing for God. You get ritually pure and then you can get into the party. He told the stewards to fill these jars and this is the water that turns to wine. Jesus had said, it is not what is on the outside that is impure but what is on the inside. And now, the wine, the blessing, gets on the inside and cleanses us. And the wine from Jesus that cleanses us from the inside hits our taste buds every week in the sacrament of communion. We are reminded of the cleansing, healing, blessing power of Jesus for our lives.
In the story, wine was important. Not because of the alcohol content, but because it was a symbol of blessing. The God who provides the abundance of the world, the abundance of the grapes that produce the wine is looking out over us, always. And the glass was raised, just like we still do today of blessing. To say that they had run out of wine was a symbol that they had run out of benediction, of blessing. It is at that moment that Jesus provides not just wine, but blessing.
Have you run out of wine? In a relationship that is important to you? Have you run out of wine in your dreams--feeling like you are just going through the motions, feeling like you are the one who is poor, embarrassed? Maybe you should follow Mary’s advice. Do what Jesus tells you to do. Sometimes we get into trouble in areas of our lives, we run out of wine, because we have not followed the way of Jesus in the world. We have not been obedient to his will – the gospel of sharing, the gospel of forgiving each other, the gospel of serving others. Study the scriptures, engage yourself in prayer and find people who can help push you into faithfulness.
So many times people act as if God is stingy with blessings. They get into a deficit kind of thinking. That you only get a little from God and God quickly will take it away. We think maybe I can’t go to God now, because I’ve used up all the grace God’s going to give me or I don’t want to blow it and have God giving me a blessing now because I might really need it later. I’ll just wait and cash in my chips with the Almighty when I’m really in trouble.
The water into wine sign is a sign that God doesn’t act that way. God is the God of abundance and will give you what you need. He’s not stingy with a little bit of blessing. He pours it out by the bucketful. He turned 180 gallons of water into wine. Not just a little eyedropper full, but an everflowing amount. This is the first miracle of Jesus and it is just a foretaste of everything that follows from Jesus. Jesus is the one who gives us blessings and has an abundance of love and grace for us to get us through no matter what.
Do you believe God can do a new thing in your life? The church is the community through which God wants to do new things, but he needs us to respond and sometimes do things we don’t really want to do. The story reminds us that no matter how bad it is, Jesus turns the water into wine.
There are times when we may sense a delay on Jesus’ part to help with real life problems. As if we need to tug Jesus on the sleeve and say, “We’ve run out of money, hope, chances. Our relationship is in trouble. There are people without food, shelter, who are being denied human rights.
Stories like this make us question what to do with our WWJD bracelets. What would Jesus do in a tight spot? Perform a miracle. But we cannot do that. We aren’t Jesus we can only do what he tells us to do: to be faithful, to be hopeful, to be charitable, to seek justice and to do the small acts of kindness that are available to you every day. The servants to what they are told and amazing things begin to happen, miracles happen, the world changes.
It takes a lot of trips to the well to get those jars full, but you plug away. MLK Jr. we remember he did what he was told: speak the truth boldly and suddenly segregation was turned into equal rights. Abraham Lincoln in the movie has a scene where he rallies his allies saying, “Now, now, now, now is the time for action.” Now is the time for you to get with it.
He can turn our weeping into laughter; our sorrow into unspeakable joy, our fears and failures into a witness of transforming power; our swords into pruning hooks, our cries of anguish into shouts of praise.
The old revival preacher Billy Sunday used to say that he hasn’t seen a lot of water turning into wine—but he’s seen whiskey turn into furniture. The alcoholic decides to rely on his higher power, get clean and suddenly the money he’d waste on booze turns into something productive. Have you seen it? Cigarettes into baby food; fast food ministry to support a place of hope and grace where people can get their lives turned around; mocha Frappuccino’s into Costa Rica relief.
O Jesus brings the good stuff. He’s no fuddy duddy. He made 180 gallons of wine for a party that had already gone through all t he stuff. Jesus knows how to celebrate the joy of life. But he also knows about how to live in an appropriate balance. Because what he is really after is to bring the good stuff:
The Merlot of mindfulness
The Cabernet of kindness
The Rose of righteousness.
The Jesus Juice of Justice.
The Pinot Noir of quit feeling sorry for yourself and get up and do what he told you to do and watch what God can do when you fill up the jars.
AMEN.
