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Twinbrook Baptist Church Rockville, MD Second Sunday after Epiphany (MLKing Sunday) January 14, 2007 Pastor: Kip Ingram Kip@TwinbrookBaptist.com |
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Carla and I were recently invited to a dinner party at the home of some friends. After inquiring about what we could bring, if anything, we found out that a nice wine would be good. Knowing our hosts and their knowledge of wine, we were a little intimidated. You see, neither one of us drink any alcohol to speak of, not because we think it is inherently evil or anything like that, but because neither of us were raised with it, and we just never started drinking it. To be sure, there are concerns about alcohol among over-drinkers and minors and those who drive and those who struggle with an addiction to it, but alcohol itself and wine in particular are just an occasional reality that we see in the lives of others around us. Well, not knowing what wine to get for the dinner party, Carla and I wondered what we should do. I think I made some wisecrack about a place in Texas we used to drive by called ”Two Bucks Beverages.” Carla had a good idea that she would ask one of her colleagues at school. So she did, and he gave her the name of a good and appropriate wine to bring. And armed with this information, we stopped at the alcohol store in the Twinbrook Shopping Center. Carla went in; I waited in the car with the engine running just in case we needed to make a quick getaway. I couldn´t see her face when she walked in, but I imagined she had something like a deer-caught-in-the-headlights look because the whole store was nothing but row after row of bottles. Finally a person working there walked up and helped her, and later that evening we got to present our gift of wine to the hosts, like the sophisticated people we are. There is a long history of wine being served at friendly gatherings and other kinds of celebrations. Once upon a time Jesus comes to a gathering of celebration, a wedding in Cana of Galilee. It is a story in the gospel of John, but like most everything in John´s gospel, a story is not just a story. The elements often have strong symbolic meaning for faith. It was at the beginning of Jesus' public ministry. He was invited with his disciples to this festive event, and his mother was there as well. She notices that they are running low on wine. Wine, you see, was an important part of the wedding celebration, the lubricant, if you will, that kept the party going smoothly. So she approaches Jesus and says ”they have no wine.” But Jesus says in stern-sounding language that has baffled commentators over the centuries: ”Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” I actually like the translation of Eugene Peterson better when he has Jesus saying: ”Is that any of our business, MotherByours or mine? This isn´t my time. Don´t push me.” Perhaps it is reassuring and a relief to know that even Mary and Jesus had mother-child issues. Who knows? Whatever the motivations, Mary instructs those who are serving at the wedding to do whatever Jesus asks them to do. There were six large stone water jars nearby which were used for washing rituals connected with the Jewish law of the time. Each jar could hold about 20 or 30 gallons of water, that´s roughly the size of a trash can you might set out at the curb. So the total would be about 120 to 180 gallons of water. Jesus approaches those serving and asks them to fill the large water jars with water, and they fill them up to the brim. Jesus them instructs them to draw some out and take it to the chief steward or wedding manager. The outcome is that the steward tastes the water which had become wine and judges it to be far better than the wine which had been offered at the beginning of the wedding celebration. The steward says to the bridegroom, ”Everyone serves the good wine first and then the cheap stuff after the guests have had their fill, but you have kept the good wine until now.” The gospel of John that breaks the narrative to tell us this the first of the signs to reveal the glory of Jesus and then comments, ”and the disciples believed in him.” Remember what I said earlier about John´s gospel-a story is never merely a story. It is freighted with symbolic meaning. And this story bears that out. Being the first miracle Jesus performs, its means something about the character of Jesus´ ministry and God´s kingdom that it was done in the middle of a wedding celebration. The implication is that God´s reign which Jesus comes to offer is to be like a festive, joyful gathering, a feast of welcome and celebration. Also, the symbols of the ritual water jars and the wine is heavy with meaning here as well. The ritual water jars which people of that day would use to purify themselves according to the law represents an older way which had become a distorted burden for many by the time of Jesus. All kinds of people were excluded from participating in community because they were not considered pure according to prevalent attitudes. Jesus however, in the symbolic act of this story, comes to offer something new. The new wine of God´s welcome over against any attitudes that used God to exclude others. In this story, the wine represents the new reality of God´s love which Jesus comes to bring. The wine gives them (and us) the reality. Now, we usually think that wine doesn´t give us reality but impairs our sense of reality, right? So the truth of this story can be somewhat counter-intuitive. I want to be careful here with what I´m saying. I´m not saying everyone go out and drink wine so you can find God. Remember, in this story, the wine represents more than wine, more than a simple alcoholic beverage. The Bible uses wine as a positive symbol again and again for God´s renewal and joyful presence. It represents something profoundly true and real for us. So when we say that wine gives us reality, what do we mean? Consider this: in a world of anxious boundaries, the wine of God can open us up to others. In the last century and a half, we human beings are more aware than at any other time that we are anxious beings. From thinkers like Kierkegaard and Freud and others, we have begun to understand ourselves as beings who are shaped and driven by our anxieties more than we would often admit. Think about yourself and how you feel when you are facing a difficult meeting at work, an important test at school, an appointment at the doctor or the hospital, or think about times when you must speak publicly before people, when you must resolve an argument or issue with a family member, when you wonder if you have the money to meet your financial obligations and plans. It´s enough to keep things spinning around in our mind when we lay our head on the pillow at night. And with this kind of anxiety, it spills over into how we relate to other people, we can become overly-guarded with others, or defensive and reactionary, or judgmental and controlling. When we think of the gospel story for today, we can even feel something of the anxiety of running out of wine. It would be a social and personal embarrassment to the wedding party if it happened. But then there´s the reality of wine. Listen to the way Eugene Peterson describes the reality wine brings. Eugene Peterson: ”The stock meaning of wine . . . is conviviality. It lifts a person from isolation into shared fellowship. For those who are dwelling overmuch on their own selves, nurturing feelings of inadequacy or guilt, wine, temporarily, can free them from such inwardness and liberate them to talk freely, speech being an act of community. . . Wine is praised because it releases inhibitions and stimulates conversation, that it, banishes isolation and bridges the chasms that separate individuals.” The new wine of God addresses us precisely at the point of our anxious boundaries. It opens us up to the others in our lives in ways that bring joy and understanding and a deeper sense of being together in community. With the new wine of God, we find God in fresh ways as we discover new, meaningful ways to be with others. In this sense, wine, the new wine of God, can give us reality. Consider something else: in a world of sober calculations, the wine of God can make us willing to look a little foolish. Now, we´ve all heard the stories of stupid things done when someone has had too much to drink, how a person has lost touch with reality. And yet, looking a little foolish for good reasons can point to something real. Think about the way a person will sometimes propose marriage publicly to their mate. You´ve seen them at sporting events and with words on large billboard signs and in other dramatic ways. A little foolish? Perhaps, but in their very foolishness for love, don´t they bear witness to a reality that is true for their relationship and something we can all identify with. What would our world look like if people were only sober and calculating all the time? If they never did anything considered dramatic or a little foolish for love? But then, we do a lot of things which might be considered a little foolish in order to bear witness to some reality which honors God, from making funny sounds and faces with a baby we want to connect with, to marching in protest over something that matters to us. On the Sunday morning of September 15, 1963, a number of church members began to gather for Sunday School at 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, AL, including a number of children and youth. Perhaps it was a morning not unlike this one. Someone later remembered seeing a white man drive up and place something under the steps of the church. Suddenly there was flash and a huge explosion, glass shattered and fire erupted, there was devastation to large parts of that historic black church. When the smoke and confusion cleared, people began to realize the awful truth of what had happened. A white man, most likely a member of the local KKK, had bombed the church. Dozens of people were hurt, and four young girls were killed. Four young lives were taken in a cruel, heartless act of racial violence. Martin Luther King was asked to come and speak at the memorial service. What would you say? Well, Rev. King offered some words of comfort to the families, gentle and understanding. He also said this: And so my friends, these young ones did not die in vain. (Yeah) God still has a way of wringing good out of evil. (Oh yes) And history has proven over and over again that unmerited suffering is redemptive. The innocent blood of these little girls may well serve as a redemptive force (Yeah) that will bring new light to this dark city. (Yeah) The holy Scripture says, ”A little child shall lead them.” (Oh yeah) The death of these little children may lead our whole Southland (Yeah) from the low road of man's inhumanity to man to the high road of peace and brotherhood. (Yeah, Yes) These tragic deaths may lead our nation to substitute an aristocracy of character for an aristocracy of color. The spilled blood of these innocent girls may cause the whole citizenry of Birmingham (Yeah) to transform the negative extremes of a dark past into the positive extremes of a bright future. Indeed this tragic event may cause the white South to come to terms with its conscience. (Yeah) And so I stand here to say this afternoon to all assembled here, that in spite of the darkness of this hour (Yeah Well), we must not despair. (Yeah, Well) We must not become bitter (Yeah, That´s right), nor must we harbor the desire to retaliate with violence. No, we must not lose faith in our white brothers. (Yeah, Yes) Somehow we must believe that the most misguided among them can learn to respect the dignity and the worth of all human personality.” Were these words of hope simply naive and foolish? To hope that the very human beings who stood behind such violent actions or who stood around while they took place, to hope that such human beings would learn a deeper, God-given reality about themselves and others? Was it all a little too foolish to be realistic? Some would say so. But Martin Luther King, and those present in that church that day, had tasted something, something so good and true that they weren´t willing to let go of it even in the face of tragedy. Martin Luther King, who once compared himself to a drum major, of all things (perhaps a foolish image itself), Martin Luther King knew where the reality was and he bore witness to it. Where is the reality of the new wine of God to be found in our lives and our world? And how can we bear witness to it? i. Eugene Peterson, Five Smooth Stones for Pastoral Work (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992). ii.Martin Luther King, Jr., ´Eulogy for the Martyred Children,´ in A Testament of Hope: The Essential Writings of Martin Luther King,Jr. (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1986). |
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