There was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons. Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the head waiter.” So they took it. And when the head waiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from–although the servers who had drawn the water knew–the head waiter called the bridegroom and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.’ Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him. (John 2.1-11)
On this Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, we can rightly expect to see some early episode in the mission of Jesus, a prelude of sorts to the subsequent unfolding of his ministry that awaits us in the year ahead. And that supposition is supported today when our selection from scripture gives us the story of the wedding at Cana, the beginning of Jesus’ manifestation as the one who brings light into the darkness of this world.
What is unexpected is that the selection is taken from the Gospel of John, not from the Gospel of Luke, the text that will serve as our anchor for the remainder of Year C on the liturgical calendar. It is difficult to say exactly why it is placed here, except to say that John has no year dedicated to his gospel, as do the synoptics, and so his texts have to be spliced elsewhere, particularly in the Gospel of Mark during Year B.
Next Sunday, we will begin our trek through Luke’s gospel, but for today we have one of John’s stories, a text that appears nowhere else. Perhaps it is provided to us because it clearly is intended by John to herald the beginning of Jesus’ works in the world. John leaves no doubt about its purpose when he tells us “Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs at Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him” (v. 11).
And while it would surely benefit us to see the many motifs that show their face in this story, themes that will regularly appear later in John’s gospel such as signs, belief, and glory, it also seems counterproductive because we will leapfrog into Luke’s gospel next week, leaving John behind until the season of Lent begins in early March.
So, rather than expend a good amount of time exploring John’s top hits, I want us to look at only one of them. It is found in Jesus’ reply to his mother when he tells her “my hour has not yet come.” It is the second part of his response to her statement to him that “they have no wine.” His first answer is “Woman, how does your concern affect me?”
If it sounds like a rebuke, there is good cause. It is intended to be just that, Jesus’ response serving as a reminder that he has been sent into the world by his Heavenly Father, their relationship a world apart from that of his familial bond with his mother. It is to her credit that she simply turns to the waiters to tell them, “Do whatever he tells you,” in this way becoming the first person in the gospel of John to show unconditional trust in Jesus’ word, even in the face of apparent rejection.
Interestingly, Mary–who is never named by John but is referred to as the mother of Jesus–will appear only for the second time in the gospel at its end when she stands beneath her son’s cross when his work in the world is consummated by his crucifixion. In effect, then, she serves as the steadfast believer, the first to believe in him and the last to stand at his side even when darkness seems to have blotted out all the light.
But, as I said, I want us to look more closely at the second part of Jesus’ reply to his mother when he explains to her that “my hour has not yet come.” That word “hour,” first mentioned here, is going to play a pivotal role in John’s gospel from this point onward, kickstarting a movement towards the future when Jesus’ hour will come, its completion realized on the cross.
In other words, the remainder of the gospel will be a steady movement or sequence of events leading to that “hour,” the moment when the full manifestation of Jesus is finally revealed, leaving us either to believe or not to believe, the same choice put before us by the earlier signs or works that he had performed along the way, the first being the changing of water into wine at Cana.
Should we take the stance of belief, as do many others in the gospel, unlike almost all of the Jewish leaders who never believe, then we are compelled by our belief to do the same as Jesus did, that is to bring about a transformation of the world, casting light into the darkness, changing water into wine, and contributing to the glorification of God through our selfless sacrifice.
One of the questions that John puts before believers today is whether or not we rise to the occasion when our hour comes. And when, we might ask, is our hour? It is whenever the wine runs short. It is that moment in real time when we hear a whisper in our ear that says to us “they have no wine.” Our response either proves our status as believers or shows our lack of belief in the Word made flesh who pitched his tent among us.
Since I am suggesting that our hour comes whenever the wine runs short, some clarification may be in order. Obviously, I am not saying we make sure that the wedding reception has plenty of booze or that the local bar always has beer on tap. Rather, what I intend by the statement is that we respond whenever we come face to face with a real need that calls for our assistance.
So, the wine runs short when we hear of hungry people who do not have the means to provide food for themselves and for their children. The wine runs short when we learn that the local food bank is short of funds and food supplies for the many people who have a meal only because it is there to support them in their need. The wine runs short when we find immigrants ostracized and vilified for no other reason than they have sought refuge in a place far from home.
It is not inconsequential that John states that Jesus’ first sign occurred in Cana in Galilee, a place so obscure that its location is lost in modern times. The assumption, based on the story, is that it was a village near Nazareth. However, it is mentioned nowhere else in the scriptures except here in the Gospel of John.
Commentators are quick to suggest–rightly in my opinion–that its obscurity is the very reason for its inclusion in the gospel. Or, stated another way, the significance of Cana is its insignificance. In the same way that the Most High God raised leaders such as David from the little town of Bethlehem or that the Beloved Son of God should be raised in the small village of Nazareth, the choice of Cana as the location of Jesus’ first sign in John’s text is a reminder that God more often than not chooses unlikely places to reveal his glory.
As we will see throughout the gospels, Jesus continually works wonders in these very places, almost all of his ministry spent in the region of Galilee, an area considered to be the boondocks on the furthest edge of Palestine. Cana, like Nazareth, was a nowhere place inhabited by a handful of nobodies. Earlier in John’s gospel, Nathaniel voices the sentiment when he responds to the early news of Jesus’ ministry with the slur, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth.”
In other words, Jesus did the work of his Heavenly Father not in Jerusalem, the capital city and not in the Temple in Jerusalem, the religious center of Judaism, but in the boonies where nothing important was supposed to happen and where nobody important was supposed to live. It was a ministry at the margins where he attended to the needs and to the cries of the diseased, the destitute, and the despised.
These were the places and the people where the wine almost always ran short, where the poorest of the lot lived hand to mouth if they were lucky enough to have something to eat that day and where the widow, the orphan, and the foreigner survived on handouts that they had begged from passersby or scavenged from garbage pits. They had little to nothing and certainly did not have extras of anything.
So, if we want to know if we’re meeting the demands of our hour, doing the work that has been assigned to us as a result of our belief in Jesus as the Son of God, then the surefire sign is that we’re ministering to the people in those places where the wine runs short, not in opulent gated communities where the help enters through the back door of the mansion and where tinted glasses in high dollar vehicles shield the passengers from the sight of unsightly people on the street.
A ministry at the margins requires us to go to the margins. It is there that we will find those who are distressed, despondent, and disenfranchised. If we never find ourselves in these places where the wine runs short, then it is near to certain that we are in the wrong place to do the work that is part and parcel of discipleship. And whatever we’re doing instead, regardless of what we call it, it is not the ministry of Jesus.
In all likelihood, it is a ministry to those much like ourselves, meaning we worship in a country club, not in a community of faith that sees its primary purpose as reaching out to those in need in the same way that Jesus did. If we look around and find ourselves seeing no one in our company whose wine has run short, then we’re not in the right place, or at least not in the right place to do the work of Jesus.
One other detail of the story that should not be overlooked. John tells us that the water jars were “filled to the brim.” That tells us that the work we do in the name of Jesus cannot consist of an occasional handout or a good deed now and then. Instead, the work we do in our hour has to be filled to the brim, overflowing with good and providing an overabundance of hope to those without reason to hope.
When we’re faithfully meeting the hour that has been assigned to us, then we will find that the wedding at Cana is not some story tucked into the pages of scripture meant to show us the miraculous power of Jesus, but is put there to tell us that we also are called to change water into wine at the many Cana’s we find on the road of life, in this way ensuring that the wine does not run short for the people we encounter, those who have no reason to hope for good news unless we bring it to them.
–Jeremy Myers
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