Useless Miracles

Propers: The Second Sunday after Epiphany, AD 2022 C

Homily:

Lord, we pray for the preacher, for You know his sins are great.

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

Alcohol is a defense mechanism.

I don’t mean that psychologically; I mean it biologically.

Microörganisms—yeasts—consume sugars and convert them into molecules of carbon dioxide and alcohol. And that alcohol is a poison; it keeps away competitors and predators that prey upon the yeasts. It’s a bit of a scorched-earth weapon, though, because if the alcohol concentration in the environment gets too high, it’ll kill the yeasts as well.

Humans figured out alcohol around the same time that we figured out agriculture. In fact, some people argue that agriculture, and all that comes with it—mathematics, writing, civilization—is a direct result of alcohol. Some Sumerian had a pot of grain that got left out in the rain and forgotten; and by the time he came across it again it had turned all thick and foamy. Beggars not being choosers, he took a drink, and—well, the rest is history. Quite literally.

See, when grain gets wet, it starts to sprout. Enzymes in the endosperm break down storage starches into yummy sugars, so that the plant can begin to grow. But yeasts in the air will eat those sugars too. It doesn’t have to be grain, of course. Lots of things have sugars and starches. Grain makes beer, but fruit makes wine. Honey produces mead. Molasses, fermented and distilled, results in rum. And so on.

The alcohol intended to protect the yeast and poison predators has a milder, pleasanter effect on mammals and on birds. We get tipsy. If we go too far, we get drunk. But the benefits of alcohol, to the ancient world, were quite obvious. Here is an excellent source of both calories and fluids, which is safe; by which I mean it doesn’t get infected. Bad things can’t grow in there. The worst that can happen to alcohol is that a different yeast converts it into vinegar.

In the Middle Ages, you could brew beer from duck pond water, and it would be safe to drink. Recent studies have even shown that beer contains low levels of antibiotics. Countless lives in ancient, classical, and medieval times were saved by wine and by beer. Even the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth because they were running out of beer, and were willing to brew it out of acorns rather than rely upon the water.

And none of this—none of this—is to dismiss or downplay the struggles that many of our friends and neighbors suffer with regards to alcohol abuse and addiction. But hopefully it offers some context for Jesus’ first sign, first miracle, in John’s Gospel: namely, that He vints well over 100 gallons of hooch for a party.

In our reading this morning, Jesus has been invited to a wedding at Cana, along with His disciples, along with His mother. And weddings back in the day were massive communal feasts; the whole town celebrated together over several days, for indeed, two families were forming an alliance, forming a bond. It wasn’t just about a man and a woman: it was about community, kinship, and peace.

Most folks in the Bible seldom ate their fill; they ate what they had. Feasting was a rarity, a truly special occasion, when you could keep eating, keep drinking, until you were full—and then some! Wedding feasts were provided by the groom’s family. And to run out of food, or run out of wine, would be not just embarrassing but shameful. You mean your family can’t even put on a feast? How then is your son going to provide for our daughter? How then is this alliance of any benefit to our clan?

Plus it’s just a buzzkill, right? Everyone’s having a good time, and then you run out of wine? Bad form.

So Jesus’ mother—whom John for whatever reason never actually calls Mary—comes over to her son and simply says: “They have no wine.” This, I think, is very telling. John seems to imply that Mary knows exactly what her son is capable of from the very beginning. Jesus replies to her, “Woman”—which really ought to be translated as something more like “my lady,” since it is a title of respect—“of what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come.” Nevertheless, she directs the servants to “Do whatever He tells you.” She has confidence that Jesus will act and that whatever He chooses will be right.

At first blush it might seem as though Mary were asking her son to do something frivolous with His power, and that He in turn proves reluctant to engage in something apparently beneath Him. But I do not think it so. In John’s Gospel, the hour of Jesus’ glory is quite clearly His Crucifixion, His death upon the Cross. Jesus here is saying, in effect, “It’s not time to be crucified yet.” And Mary defers to His judgment, nevertheless preparing for what He’s about to do.

One gets the impression that a mother often knows her son better than he knows himself. Whether this applies to the Son of God might be another matter altogether.

My point is this: it costs her something. She is urging Him to begin His ministry in a way He has not up to now. Yes, He has disciples. Yes, He is preaching. But this is the first of His signs in John’s Gospel: the first of seven miracles revealing Christ for who and what He is; namely, God on this earth. By inaugurating this next step, this next revelation, He is beginning His long march to the Cross.

And Mary, at least in John’s telling, appears to know it. Yet she sees a need, sees a moment, sees the opportunity. And she knows in her heart, in the conviction of faith, that her son must be about His Father’s work.

You know the rest. Jesus sends the stewards to draw water from large stone jars set aside for ritual ablution, “the Jewish rites of purification.” This is not drinking water. Yet without fanfare, without drama, without so much as a magical spell, Christ has turned this water to wine—somewhere between 120 and 150 gallons of it—and good wine at that. Indeed, the best the steward has yet tasted. The sign is performed, the wedding is saved, and the mission of Christ has now truly begun.

I love the fact that this miracle is an act of creation: it brings the water to life. Wine is a living thing; that’s why it ages. And in the Scriptures wine represents joy. Not inebriation, mind you—nowhere in the Bible does it advocate for drunkenness. But wine is joy and celebration, friendship and song. And honestly, that’s what I grew up with. Given a British-Irish father and a very German mom, alcohol was always a presence in our house, but was only used for company, for family and for friends. It represented for me then, as it still does today, holidays, happiness, laughter, and joy.

C.S. Lewis wrote that all of Jesus’ miracles are really God’s blessings in microcosm. There’s nothing unnatural about healing, for example; Jesus simply heals people instantaneously. Likewise the water into wine: anyone can do that. Anyone can vint wine. Jesus just does it without effort, with a simple intent, not even voiced. It is indeed a sign for us, a revealing of God’s blessings, made obvious at this wedding but available to all.

There’s something to be said for the fact that this miracle, this sign, appears frankly frivolous to us postmodern folk—useless, as it were. Why waste a good miracle on wine at a wedding? How far we’ve fallen from parting the Red Sea! Yet that’s John’s point. To encounter Jesus as the Christ is to encounter God. And in the Gospels, our encounter with God always leads to shock, surprise, joy, delight, the reversal of expectations, and the scandal of superabundant overflowing grace.

The first miracle here is not “useful” as it is in Mark. And that’s the wonder of it.

You know, John begins his Gospel with a wedding at Cana. And he will end his book of Revelation—assuming indeed that it is the same John—with the wedding feast of the Lamb: the eternal marriage of Christ and the Church, of Creator and Creation, of God and all of humankind. The end of the world is an endless wedding. Then shall there be joy everlasting, and wine overflowing, and a feast beyond the bounds of all of space and all of time.

And the way that we get there is through the Cross. But the glory of that hour shall encompass all the world. And when we get there, we shall surely say: “Everyone serves the good wine first, O Lord. But You—You have saved the best for now.”

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.