1 Corinthians 12:1–11 and Saint John 2:1–11
A priest friend of mine, who served an extremely wealthy parish on the far northwest side of Chicago used to always begin his first meeting with brides and grooms planning a wedding with the words: “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”
He was too good of a priest to suggest that they not get married or that the ceremony should not be in the church but he was issuing a warning about all the other events surrounding a wedding that they were getting themselves into.
He was talking about the dresses and the tuxes. He was talking about the flowers at church and banquet hall and the limousines that were required to prove that your family wasn’t on the dole. He was talking about the rehearsal dinner, the wedding reception, and now the seemingly obligatory Sunday brunch that is expected to be provided the following day.
That’s what he was talking about when he asked the couple if they really “wanted to go through with this” and instead have a nice little wedding in the church’s beautiful chapel surrounded by family and close friends.
The couples never opted for that option. Instead, they lived out the words of Spencer Tracy as Stanley Banks in the first “Father of Bride” when he looked straight into the camera and said to the audience: “I'll be honest with you. When I bought this house seventeen years ago, it cost me less than this blessed event in which Annie Banks became Annie Banks-MacKenzie. I'm told that one day I'll look back on all this with great affection and nostalgia. I hope so.”
The rest of the movie is given over to the craziness surrounding almost any but the smallest of weddings causing Tracy to remind the viewers: “Weddings are either confined to the bosom of the family ...or held in Madison Square Garden.”
The Banks-MacKenzie wedding was clearly going to be of the Madison Square Garden variety causing Tracy to remark when they were going through hundreds of invitations that were all yeses. “Apparently Kay picked a day... ...when nobody within 400 miles has got anything to do.”
We’ve been to those kinds of weddings. The kinds where, I at least, look around the room and say to myself, “This couple has more friends than people I have met in my lifetime.” Jesus was at one of those weddings too.
It may not have been as crowded as the painting that appears at the top of this post and where in a painting by Italian Renaissance painter Paulo Veronese a barely identifiable Jesus is surrounded by what seems to be every single person in a village.
That may not have been what it was like, but it probably was what it felt like.
Saint John goes to great pains to point out that not only Jesus was there, but his mother was, and to add to the crowds, even his disciples. This has always made me wonder who got the invitation. Was it Jesus? Mary? One of his disciples? When they responded did they indicate not only “plus one” but maybe “plus twelve” or even more.
It doesn’t matter because apparently “nobody within four hundred miles had anything else to do on that day” and this wedding was not one that was going to be held in the bosom of the family but was a “Madison Square Garden variety.”
Everybody who was anybody was there enjoying a celebration that was in its third day of a scheduled seven when something terrible happens. The wine runs out.
Social scientists tell us: “The fact that the family hosting the wedding has run out of wine threatens a serious loss of honor.”1 Were they too poor? Too cheap?
It also causes no small measure of anxiety among the servants and especially the wine steward. They must have gone limp when they discovered that the wine supply was not just low but that they were out. This kind of miscalculation could have cost them their jobs. This lack of wine would have cost both the bride and groom’s families their reputation in the community. This breach of hospitality would be talked about, remembered, for years.
But most of all, for those gathered the joy would be left out that wedding like air out of a balloon for wine was and is a symbol of joy. “One ancient rabbi stated, ‘Without wine there is no joy.’”2
Mary notices and decides for whatever reason that her son, Jesus, can do something about it. “She sees what’s amiss. She perceives the high likelihood of scandal and humiliation brewing beneath a seemingly glossy surface. If John’s account is trustworthy, Mary notices and registers concern before Jesus does.
I can’t help wondering exactly how Mary says it. Quietly, urgently, after pulling her distracted son away from his friends, away from the music and the dancing, away from the servants working hard to hide their growing panic as countless wedding guests swirl obliviously around them. I imagine Mary takes Jesus into an inner room, fixes his attention with a stern stare, and whispers the shameful news into his ear: “They have no wine.”3
Much has been made of Jesus’ response probably by scholars who didn’t have mothers. For every one of us who had remember that at one time or another we have had to respond to an unreasonable request from our mother with “Is that any of our business...”4 Put a long “Mom” on his lips and all of us probably have said the same things to one or both of our parental units when they suggested that perhaps there was a problem somewhere that we could solve. “Mom, that’s none of our business.”
Mary makes it his business. In full mom mode she pays no attention to her son, and she goes to the servants and provides us with one of the greatest pieces of advice in all of scripture and perhaps literature: “Do whatever he tells you.”5
That’s great advice for that moment and for all time. Look at Jesus. Read the words of Jesus. Follow Jesus and then “do whatever he tells you.”
The servants do just that. Looking around and wondering what this wedding guest is up to they do what Jesus tells them to do. They fill up the water jars only to wonder and wait. When the wine steward looks back at the jugs and tastes the wine a miraculous discovery is made.
Jesus does not just make a little bit of wine. He does not just do what he needs to do so they can get through the event without the hosts being embarrassed. No, John reports Jesus makes between 120 and 180 gallons of wine. The quantity screams abundance and extravagance. But ... what made this moment even more extravagant was not simply the quantity. Quality mattered too. Apparently the wine Jesus made was more like gallons of Chateau Margaux rather than gallons of Bota box Merlot.6
The sommelier, who has no idea where all this new supply has come from pulls the groom aside and asks in effect, what’s going on here. “Everyone brings out the choice wine first and then the cheaper wine after the guests have had too much to drink; but you have saved the best till now.”7
Imagine the relief. On the face of the headwaiter who can keep his job. On the part of the couple’s parents because they won’t lose face in front of their neighbours. And most of all, on the part of all the party goers because this Madison Square Garden variety shindig can go on for a few more days.
This story is about a party that continues to this day and we are a part of it.
Yes, I know we may not always feel like we’re at a party.
Sometimes we may feel as anxious as the hosts of the wedding, the servants and the wine steward over what might happen to us. We may be literally worried about what tomorrow might bring and the day after that, and the day after that. We might not only be worried for our nation, but about ourselves, our church, our world.
We may be worried about how some in our wider families will recover from the loss of their homes, their loved ones, their livelihoods, because of the wildfires.
There will be no quick solutions to any of these problems, but we will be on our way, on the right track, if we follow Mary’s advice and “do whatever he tells you.”
That’s the church’s job as it has been for the last 141 years in this place.
As Dr. William H. Willimon, former bishop in the United Methodist Church reflected recently:
If you are a mainline protestant Christian ... it’s hard not to be nostalgic, to look back at our yesterdays as better than our prospects for lively tomorrows. Yesterday’s wine was better than today’s, a lot better than tomorrows.
Trouble is Jesus Christ, the same one who produced the good wine at the end of the party in Cana in Galilee, keeps providing for us ... and insists on having the last word over our future.8
So, we come to the table and discover that the bread and wine at our little wedding feast has never run out. We go forward, confident that Jesus may be indeed saving the best wine for last, for now.
We go forward know that the party will go on and at the center of it all, as our host, our gift, and our guest, will be none other than Jesus Christ our Lord.
So, I say. Let the feast continue.
________________
1. Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social Science Commentary on the Gospel of John (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2007), 66.
2. Brian Stoffregen, “John 2.1-11 2nd Sunday after the Epiphany - Year C,” John 2.1-11, accessed January 17, 2025, https://www.crossmarks.com/brian/john2x1.htm.
3. Debie Thomas, “They Have No Wine,” Journey with Jesus, January 13, 2019, https://journeywithjesus.net/essays/2053-they-have-no-wine.
4. St. John 2:4. (MESSAGE) [MESSAGE=Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 2004).
5.St. John 2:5. (NRSV) [NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition]
6. Shannon J. Kershner, “Who Has Time for Joy.” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago on January 17, 2016.
7. St. John 3:10. (NIV) [NIV=The New International Version (Colorado Springs, CO International Bible Society, 1984)]
8. William H. Willimon, “Saving the Best for Last,” Pulpit Resource, Year C, 53, no. 1 (2025): 9-11.
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