Today begins a new weekly practice of writing on the upcoming Narrative Lectionary text. I will be preaching more often in the months ahead, and so I encourage you to share your own thoughts and wonderings around each text, either in the Facebook comments or in an email to me at lewtonwriter@gmail.com. Preaching is more fun when a variety of voices speak into the preparation!
(John 2:1-11 NRSV) On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 4 And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” 5 His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
(www.biblegateway.com)
When our kids were little and wondered about the beer Marcus and I were drinking and why they were not invited to have one, we explained we were having a “grown-up drink.” It seemed to satisfy their curiosity. My son who is nearing the late stages of his teenage years now thinks it’s funny. “How is your ‘grown-up’ drink,” he teases us. “Can we just call it ‘beer’ now?”
Drinking around kids might be a sensitive topic for you. Drinking at all might be a sensitive topic for you. If so, you have noticed, like I have, how much emphasis there is on drinking wine these days. Any home decor store will offer a variety of signs that suggest it’s wine time. I do enjoy a glass of wine with a meal. But not everyone does. Some of you have traumatic memories associated with alcohol. Some of you cannot drink it for various reasons.
And then Jesus goes ahead and makes roughly 900 bottles of wine! It is wildly outrageous, which is not uncommon for Jesus. Jesus is called hyperbolic because he does things to the extreme in order to prove a point.
It is also important to know that in John’s Gospel, Jesus performs signs and wonders. They are not referred to as miracles, but as signs. Signs point. Jesus’ signs point to something we need to know about him. What do we need to know about a guy in his early 30’s who can make an obscene amount of wine at a party? That he’s the Messiah? Honestly that would not be my first response. Instead, I would gather that this guy likes to party! He likes to have a good time and see that the people around him have a good time, too. He saves the best wine for last instead of pouring the impressive wine to make a good first impression. And he listens to his mother. Also important.
But the wine thing. This is a sticky text to preach when every congregation is filled with a variety of responses to alcohol, some extremely painful.
If we follow where the sign points, however, it is not to the wine. The sign Jesus performs at the wedding in Cana is not about the winemaking, but the jaw dropping. His sign pointed ahead, that this ordinary guy in his 30’s was no ordinary guy in his 30’s. Sure, he could make wine. But what else would he do? The wine miracle was remembered long enough for someone to write it into John’s gospel, but it is not Jesus’ most impressive transformation. Turning water into wine is utterly boring compared to turning death into life.
What do you notice in this story?
*It is common for preachers to need to craft a couple of sermons before they arrive at the one that needs to be preached on Sunday. Perhaps the greatest challenge to preaching is narrowing a sermon down to its single most important point. When we deliver a subpar sermon, which every preacher occasionally does, it is often because we did not have time or take time to keep turning the text around and peeling back the layers to discover the one thing God needs the preacher to proclaim.
Lisa Lewton 
Mary KNEW what Jesus was able to accomplish and how important it would be to retell this story. Often times parents need to remind children of what they are capable and to remind them , with stories, of their accomplishments. Even more importantly parents need to remind children of the stories of Jesus and His love an acceptance of them.
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