Risky Symbols and Small Miracles
based on John 2:1-11; Isaiah 62:1-5
Rev. Karen A. Goltz

            Today’s gospel lesson is commonly recognized as the first of Jesus’ public miracles.  It was by this miracle that people sat up and took notice, and it was with this miracle that Jesus really began his ministry.  Personally, my initial reaction to this is, what a waste of a miracle.

            I mean, really!  So the guests drank all the available wine at a wedding.  Big deal.  Would it have killed them to switch to water?  If they were going through the wine so quickly maybe they should have switched to a non-alcoholic beverage!  Was it so important that the guests be able to keep imbibing?  If Jesus is going to perform his first public miracle, shouldn’t it be to provide food for starving people, or healing for someone terminally ill?  Why waste such a momentous event on something so mundane and unimportant?
            I realize my personal bias is showing.  But for me, wine is something that will cause no good and all bad if I bring it back into my life.  So I have trouble using it as a symbol of grace, which is how this story is often interpreted, because that symbol so completely excludes me and others like me.  What good is grace if I can’t partake of it?

            But that’s the thing about symbols.  They’re risky.  Any symbol you want to use, you can find someone for whom that symbol is offensive, and the message is lost.  This text also has a wedding, which is often understood as a symbol of celebration, commitment, devotion, and love.  Tell that to anyone who’s been through a messy divorce, and see how much joy they get out of the wedding imagery.  The kingdom of heaven is like a wedding banquet?  I remember doing the seating chart at my wedding banquet, and I remember having to make sure that this person was seated nowhere near this person, or else world war three would break out.  And I had to do that with multiple people, and I only had a few tables to work with.  I hope the kingdom of heaven’s not going to be like that!  Isaiah says that God will be like a husband (or spouse) to his people?  I know of many people who the last thing they want is for the Lord God Almighty to treat them the way their (usually ex-) husbands or wives did.  All of these texts are trying to proclaim something good, and that good message risks getting lost due to misunderstanding the symbols.

            And maybe that’s why Jesus was so reluctant to do it in the first place.

            Initially he didn’t want to.  His mother pointed out the fact that they’d run out of wine, and Jesus basically told her it wasn’t his problem, and his ‘hour’ had not yet come.  In other words, he didn’t plan to do anything about it.  His mother persisted, though, and eventually he relented.  Why was it so important to her?

            First we need to look past the symbol, and understand the importance of the wine itself.  In the ancient Middle East, drinkable water was scarce.  It was often contaminated, and it made people sick.  Wine, however, kept for a very long time, and when mixed with water, it served to kill some of the harmful bacteria.  So the wine was usually heavily watered down, to enable people to be able to drink it as a thirst-quenching beverage in this arid climate.  It wasn’t a luxury; it was a necessity.  Running out of wine at a wedding back then would be the same as running out of all beverages - including water - today.  And in that culture, to do so would be hugely shameful for the host; the kind of shame that would reflect poorly on the family for years if not generations.  What a way to begin your new life with your beloved, by bringing lasting shame on both families!  Some have speculated that Mary may have been somehow related to the bridegroom (why else would she have had the authority to order the servants around?), and that she was trying to spare herself and her son Jesus from sharing in that shame.  Maybe, maybe not.  Either way, she wasn’t asking Jesus to help a bunch of drunks to keep drinking; she was asking him to spare the new couple and their families lifelong humiliation.

            And Jesus did it.  Abundantly.  They not only were spared the shame of running out, but they were commended for the quality of the vintage.  And what’s most striking is that very few people knew that he did it.  His mother knew, the servants who filled the jugs knew, and, presumably his disciples knew.  But the groom, the bride, the chief steward, and all of the wedding guests never knew.  They only knew that the wine seemed to get better as the celebration wore on, rather than the other way around.  So this miracle, this sign by which Jesus’ glory was revealed and this event that launched his ministry, was not only for something rather mundane, but it also went widely unnoticed.

            And that’s the way God often works in our lives.  We like to look for the big miracles, the booming voice from the sky like in last week’s gospel, or a few loaves of bread feeding thousands of people, or someone who was born blind suddenly being able to see.  We look for God in the hospital, in the war zone, in the area devastated by natural disaster.  Lots of people are looking for God in Newtown, Connecticut right now, as well as in Syria and anywhere else that large numbers of people are suffering.  And I promise you, God is in all those places, with all those people.  But he is also in your home, in your kitchen, in your classroom at school, in your cubicle at work.  He’s with you in your car, as you pay your bills, as you do your laundry.  The God who turned water into wine is also with the people struggling through detox, and the God who celebrated the joy of a wedding is also with families torn apart by divorce.  A lot is made of the fact that nothing is too big for God, but this text reminds us that nothing is too small, either.  John’s gospel begins with a big, cosmic beginning: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  All things came into being through him.  How much bigger a miracle can you get than that—the creation of all things?!  It’s big, important, impressive stuff.  And then in the very next chapter, the Word is at a simple wedding, and performs a small miracle that most people don’t even notice.  But that’s how God often works.

            Jesus did that miracle reluctantly, but he did it.  Maybe he was afraid it would be misunderstood by people like me; maybe he wanted a few more people to notice.  His next action in John’s gospel is to go to the Temple in Jerusalem and drive out the moneychangers in a very dramatic and very public scene; lots of people noticed that!  But first he performed this small miracle that few noticed, but that had a lasting positive impact on the new couple and their families.

            Using symbols like wine and weddings to talk about God is risky, but not nearly as risky as the risk God took with us.  We might misunderstand, not notice or not care, about weddings and wine.  But what about when we misunderstand, not notice or not care, about what Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross really did for us?  We have a God who cares so much for us that he sent his only Son to pay the price for our sins with his very life, who can feel what we feel, mourn as we mourn, struggle as we struggle, rejoice as we rejoice, and find us when we don’t even know that we’re lost.  And so many of us misunderstand that grace, don’t notice it or don’t care.  And still God holds to his covenant with us made in baptism, that we have been given new birth, adopted as heirs with Christ, set free from the power of sin and death and raised to new life.  Every day.

            What small miracles have you seen in your life?  What gifts of grace have you received and maybe not noticed or really thought about until now?  I invite you to look for God in the small, ordinary places in your lives, and I promise you, you’ll be surprised by what you might find.  Amen.