Our reading from Isaiah 62 and Psalm 36 highlights God’s love, faithfulness, and redemption, and protection, and use wedding metaphors to remind us of the covenant between God and God’s people. Given that last week we were called to remember our own baptismal covenant with God, our promises to live and act faithfully as witnesses to God’s lovingkindness in all we do, we see a common theme between these last two weeks of readings.
The reading from the 12th chapter of First Corinthians emphasizes unity, honoring differences, and the gifts given by the Holy Spirit… and of course is leading up to Paul’s famous, poetic tribute to Godly and Christian love in the next chapter—a reading that is often read at weddings. The gospel portion from John 2 highlight’s Jesus’s first miracle at a wedding, focusing on issues of God’s abundance, and questions of honor at the occasion of a wedding. Jesus, as God’s son at the start of his ministry on earth, makes sure the bridegroom would not be accused of poor hospitality as the start of his married life.
If you step back, there is a tie among all the readings about covenantal relationship, like those between God and God’s people, and like those between two spouses. The recurring themes are about God’s faithfulness and love, and the enduring and mutual obligation that makes a covenant so much more serious than a mere agreement or contract. The same longing to discern and feel God’s presence in our lives is one that we humans still feel today, whether we use the words “God” or “Jesus” or “Holy Spirit”—or not. expressed that I would think most of us have felt—to know that God loves us and is present to us, that sense of immanence that can be all to difficult to find in our profoundly secular and often overburdened daily lives. But there is also an implication here to remember that, as people of faith, we have, at our baptism and henceforth, entered into a covenant with God and with each other in fulfillment of the Great Commandment, which commits us to love of God, and love of our neighbor in all our actions and choices.
Even though Cana is an obscure place (8-9 miles north from Nazareth) that is mentioned nowhere else in the Bible, Jesus’ first two signs as supposedly performed there (the nobleman’s son is cured also at Cana in 4:46-54). This is the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry—and in a tiny little town. But weddings are important milestones in people’s lives. In John, therefore, Jesus begins his ministry with a miracle at a notable event in people’s lives- a wedding. In between these two signs in John, Jesus goes to Jerusalem and cleanses the Temple—yet no sign is performed there. Thus this miracle shows Jesus doing the most unexpected things in the most unexpected places—not surprising for a man from the backwater of Nazareth. This glory Jesus reveals is not performed to dazzle thousands of spectators.
Further, the final verse remarks that, in this act, Jesus “revealed his glory.” This is not the kind of glory that rips apart the heavens or sends choirs of angels to sing over trembling shepherds. It is. instead, the same quiet glory Luke shows us with the babe in the manger. It is the glory of the incarnation itself, with all its earthly implications. It is a story reminding us of the abundance of God, and reminds that there are wonders around us everyday that reveal that glory of God, if only we take the time to look.
Jesus has gone to the wedding of an ordinary couple who is unnamed, not intending to be anything but a guest, as he remarked to his mother about his time not being come. The only people who actually witness the miracle are the servants who are the lowliest witnesses you could imagine. And Jesus takes ordinary elements-- water and stone jars-- and uses them to turn one substance into another--but quietly. No showy waving of arms or appealing to heaven. One second it’s water and the next it is wine.
We can imagine the bridegroom when being confronted by the steward not being able to account for this sudden abundance of good wine either and probably being very confused.
How does this fit into the theme of Epiphany? Once again, Christ’s light is shining forth into the world, no matter how trivial the location, and his love for us is overflowing just as the jars of new wine are. Jesus is “giving himself away” at the wedding; two people give themselves away to each other in our modern understanding of what a marriage is.
Note Jesus’s mention of “time”—that his hour has not come. Biblical scholar Karoline Lewis in her commentary on this passage points out that the wine had run out on the third day of the wedding feast. This is a detail I had missed previously. The language brings to mind Jesus’s death for our sakes, a precious gift that shows the overcoming of evil and death --and leads to his resurrection “on the third day.”
How does this apply to the life of Dr. King? We have to remember that Dr. King’s leadership in the civil rights movement began partly from being in the right place at a critical time: he was a 26-year-old pastor in Montgomery, Alabama when Rosa Parks famously refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus and was arrested, inciting a 13 month-long boycott of the Montgomery bus system by African Americans. Dr. King’s sense of calling to fight against segregation and racism stemmed from his call to be a faithful witness to Christ, who always took the side of the oppressed, the marginalized, and as we saw above, the overlooked.
He was empowered by his deep faith in God at a time when the laws and culture in which he lived sought to disempower and control people of color by legalized oppression. As a direct result of his faith in Christ, he prophetically confronted a cultural hierarchy that denigrated the honor and dignity of the lives of African Americans all over the country, but especially in the Deep South.
Dr. King gradually acknowledged that his time to lead was now, as he said “The time is always right to do what’s right.” Words that we certainly see Jesus embodying again and again through our gospel accounts, and words that remind us of our obligation not remain silent in the face of oppression or need, but instead to “strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being” in the capstone commitment in our baptismal covenant.
Jesus sought to create a community of faith here on earth that encompassed all, regardless of rank or station. Dr. King, too, grounded his work in the image of the “Beloved Community,” bound together by faithfulness and the love of God and love of neighbor. This dream of a Beloved Community was inspired not just by his Christian faith but also deeply grounded in the covenant described in the Preamble to the US Constitution. He sought to create “a more perfect union,” establish justice that would ensure domestic tranquility, create a mutual sense of security, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty for ALL people. His ideals were aligned with the most sacred ideals of our common life together.
May we too remember and live into our covenant with God, and continue in the quest that Dr. King frequently described as being guided by “Soul Force.” To be guided by the Holy Spirit who gives us all gifts, a Paul reminded us, in order to lift up those around us.
On this coming Monday, let us remember that our country was also founded on promises to create a country where all receive the blessings of liberty, as the Preamble to the US Constitution declares. Let us honor the legacy of a great modern prophet who called us to heed the better angels of our nature. And let us always remember that God is a God of abundance, love, and faithfulness, who has called us into covenant with God and each other. Let us remember that the glory of God is not revealed in flashy miracles, but in God meeting us in the everyday needs and occasions of our lives, and performs wonders too glorious to number sometimes by using us as people at the right place for a time such as this to reveal the love of God for all ourselves.
Amen.
Preached at St. Martin's Episcopal Church on January 18-19, 2025.
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