Running on Empty
By Caroline Dean
January 20, 2013
John 2: 1-11
[ Audio
(mp3, 5.4Mb) ]
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A reading from John 2:1-11
On the third day a wedding took place
at Cana in Galilee. Jesus' mother was
there, and Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine, was gone, Jesus' mother said
to Jesus, “They have no more wine.”
“Woman, why do you involve me?” Jesus replied. “My hour has not yet come.”
His mother said to the servants, “Do
whatever he tells you.”
Nearby stood six stone water jars, the
kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing, each holding from twenty to
thirty gallons.
Jesus said to the servants, “Fill the
jars with water;” so they filled them to the brim.
Then he told them, “Now draw some out
and take it to the master of the banquet.”
They did so, and the master of the
banquet tasted the water that has been turned into wine. He did not realize where it had come from,
though the servants who had drawn the water knew. Then he called the bridegroom aside and
said, “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
until now.”
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at Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory; and his disciples put their faith in him.
Let
us pray: God of Love,
let us be enfolded in your grace this day – that we might know we are beloved
and held in your abundance. Amen.
We
are going to go to an emotionally taxing place and so I want everyone to buckle
up. I want you to close your eyes and
imagine the last time that you were driving on the highway in the middle of
nowhere (zoning out) – only to look down and realize that your gas light is on
& your little red gas gauge is leaning way too far to the left, even
slightly passed the little “E.” And it
suddenly hits you – “I am going to run out of gas!”
What
is the feeling that arises in your gut? Panic mixed with anticipatory grief – what do you think about – I'll be
late. I'll be doomed to sit on the side
of the road forever, who will I call in the middle of Nowheresville
Pennsylvania – and then I follow this ritual with some ridiculous driving
efforts slowing down and speeding up at certain times to minimize gas
consumption while hurriedly finding the next exit.
If this analogy doesn't work for you
try out this scenario, imagine that you have a full house of guests and family
and you are running low on food on a major holiday with no stores open… Or in our time famished culture – this is
almost our normal mode of operation – isn't it? We go through our day managing the panicky thoughts - “do I have enough time to get what I need
to get done today – between family stuff and work stuff and being healthy
and being successful – In all of these scenarios – we are overwhelmed with the
negative mantra “There isn't enough!” It
could be gas, food, time. And then we
start to essentialize these worries and think, “I am
not good enough, smart enough, organized enough.” And suddenly we orient ourselves around the
lie that “I am not enough” or “God is not enough” And then what happens when the car puddles to
a stop, when the last crumb is served, when we collapse from exhaustion and
things still aren't completed, what happens when the wine runs out?!? When the straw breaks the camels back? What
happens when we are spiritually, and emotionally running on empty, and our spiritual gas gauge is way past the
little “E.”
Mary is the one in the story who first
recognizes that the gas light has come on – she looks at the vats of wine and
has a panicky moment - the party is about to be ruined – the bride and groom
are about to be embarrassed and shamed – the joyful celebration is about to come
to a jolting halt. We are about to run
out of wine! Imagine the chaos and the
drama – it would be like a Christ Church progressive dinner without – gasp! – enough wine!
I love the drama of this moment. I love it even more because in the Gospel of
John this is Jesus' first miracle – the first sign of his divinity – his unity
with God the Creator/mother/father. And
I find it almost humorous because later Jesus heals blind people and makes the
lame able, he feeds the hungry and restores the leper. But instead of a blind man or a broken woman
caught in adultery – we find Jesus' first miracle inspired by a party - by a
nagging and yet loving mother. We find
Jesus' first sign of his divinity to be the miracle of avoiding a seemingly
less meaningful social faux pas. In
other words I want to say – really? This
is the first miracle? Aren't there more
important things? Is Jesus just getting
warmed up for the lepers and blind men? Or maybe this first revelation of Jesus' life mission is embarrassing to
him too and this is why he bulks at his mother's request. And then maybe he thinks about it for a
second and says “okay – I'm willing to go down in history as the man who's first miracle was turning water into wine.”
So what's the big deal, what is this
sign pointing to? With blind men seeing
and lame people walking, we can say that God heals us body and soul. That God is in the business of drawing us
into wholeness. With the calming of the
storm we can say that God is in the business of calming us in the storms of
life and being with us when the storms rage. But what does Jesus' first sign, giant jars of wine, tell us about the
business of God?
When Jesus recruits his disciples in
the chapter before this – he tells them that they will see “the heavens will
open and the angels of God will ascend and descend on the ‘Son of Man.'” Now this image
strikes me as a little scary – the heavens are going to rip open and a bunch of
angels are going to fly all around them? But the beautiful thing about this image is that some sort of exchange
happening between heaven and earth. The
angels bring us something and perhaps we give something to the angels. So the question is, if the heavens rip open
in this story so that we have some sort of access or insight into God. What are we receiving? What is floating down from heaven?
The first things that
jumps down from heaven are giant jars of wine. Which for me at first seem silly and
excessive to me. But then I realize that
these giant gallons of choice wine represent abundance! Think about it
the servants fill the jars up to the brim, of 5 or 6 jars that hold 12-13
gallons each! That is a LOT of
wine. And not only is it a lot of wine –
it is the BEST wine.
So
firstly, when heaven opens what do we find? Abundance – is the opposite of this “am I enough” business – no one at
this party is wandering “if there is enough.” Jesus radically shifts that
reality, 360 degrees to say that not only is there enough – there are
leftovers, an abundance to share! Think
about the feeding of the 5,000. Jesus
feeds this crowd and there is not just “enough” there is more than enough – an
abundance to share! And so here we see
that God's love, God's grace isn't like the cheap wine that dwindles at the end
of a weeklong wedding party. God's love
is like the wine that miraculously provides in enormous portions with the best
of the best wine even at the end of the party when most people wouldn't even
notice.
The second beautiful thing that floats
down from heaven in the person of Jesus is the miracle of grace. In youth group on Sunday night we talked
about Grace, we talked about that moment when you were caught in a lie or when
you have screwed up. And that moment is
similar to the feeling of running on empty, it's a sort of dread, what will my
punishment be, what are the consequences of “running out.” And in this story that we saw – we saw a boy
caught red handed in a lie and he immediately ran upstairs to hid in his
parent's bed under the covers. And the
dad comes home from work pondering the consequences for the boy and how the
little boy will need to apologize… but in the moment when he sees his son
huddled under the covers – after he had been there for over an hour! The dad peels off the covers, and reaches out
to his son and simply says, “there is
nothing that you could ever do that would make me love you less.”
And this is the moment of grace. This is the moment when we come before God
with the question on the tip of our hearts, “Am I enough?” “Even when I've screwed up big time?” “Even when the wine has run out?” And God says, “there is nothing that you can
do to make me love you less.” You see,
grace is the moment when you expect emptiness, aloneness, condemnation, and
instead you find an abundant provision of love, connection, forgiveness, you
find God saying things to you like, “there is nothing that you could do to make
me love you less.” “You are enough.”
You see at the moment when the party
was going to shut down and the hosts embarrassed, suddenly the emptiness is
filled. The void is now brimming to the
top with choice wine. Grace is the man
at the end of the story who says, huh – we were supposed to get the cheapest
wine at this point in the party and this is the best! Grace is God's abundant love that covers us
no matter what.
I wanted to add one more caveat before
I close with a poem. If the entire
gospel was this story we might think this whole abundant grace thing was a
piece of cake! What happens in life is
that when our wine runs out – Jesus provides and the party goes on! And the truth is that sometimes this happens
- Sometimes grace manifests in miraculous provision – the tumor goes away, the
burden is lifted, the prayer is answered – YES.
But the other truth is that sometimes the wine actually does run out. And here's the beautiful thing, grace covers
this story as well! Anne Lamott writes in her book “Help, Thanks, Wow,”
“Domestic
pain can be searing, and it is usually what does us in. It's almost indigestible; death, old age, drugs;
violence, senility, unfaithfulness. Good
luck with figuring it out. It unfolds,
and you experience it, and it is so horrible and endless that you could almost
give up a dozen times. But grace can be the experience of a
second wind, when even though what you want is clarity and resolution, what
you get is stamina and poignancy and the strength to hang on.”
You
see grace can be God's provision of a miracle in our deepest moment of need,
but the other miracle of grace is the courage and faith to stand in the spaces
of suffering, Jesus was familiar with this. Mary was familiar with this. That
when his hour came, it meant facing suffering and dying well. And so when, not if, the wine runs out, let
us have the faith to believe that God's grace is enough, even when we can't
taste and feel it quite yet.– Wendell Berry writes,
“Be like the fox who make more tracks than necessary, some in the wrong
direction, practice resurrection.” – That is grace.
So what's the big deal about turning
water into wine? Why would this first
miracle mark Jesus' ministry? The big
deal is God's abundant grace covers us even in the valley of the shadow of
death. When God prepares a table for us
even in the presence of our enemies and our cups overflow.
We close
with a poem by Jan Richardson:
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Blessing the Water, the Wine
by Jan Richardson
You thought
you had learned
to live with the empty,
the hollow.
You could place your ear
against the rim
of the vessel
of your life
and hear its ringing echo
with equanimity,
not expecting
any more
not even bothered
(almost)
to be a bystander
at the feast–
When the water
rushed into the emptiness
you were surprised
that you were surprised,
that you could even feel
the sudden wellspring
when you thought
all had been poured out.
And then suddenly
the sweetness
that stuns you
that tells you
this was not all,
this was not the end
that this blessing
was saving the best
for last.
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Amen.
