January 17, 2010
‘All That There Is’ Kristin Philipson
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“All That There Is” – John 2:1-11
January 17, 2010
By Kristin Philipson
It is difficult at the best of times in our contemporary culture to lend any credibility to the idea of faith. And how much more difficult at a time like this. The photos coming out of Port-au-Prince after the earthquake that struck the city last Tuesday are disturbing. Most disturbing are the images I’ve seen of wounded children, like the photo of the dust-covered five-year-old boy on the front page of the weekend Globe and Mail. I couldn’t help but compare the image of that five-year-old boy to my own five-year-old, whose room I pass by as I walk back from the front door with the paper. I notice my son lying in the same position as the boy in the photo, though Nicholas lies sleeping under a cozy comforter. I try to imagine Nicholas in the same circumstances as the boy in the photo. How would he have coped? How would I have coped? One second everything’s normal, your house is standing, you are well, and the next you’re scrambling. People must feel so powerless in the face of a natural disaster. They must wonder: what are we left with when we have lost everything? Are the people in Haiti now left with nothing? Is there anything more?
These days we also face another sort of rubble, though this one is human-made – the fallout from the failed international climate change talks at Copenhagen. “Our moment of opportunity came and then went,” writes Mardi Tindal, Moderator of the United Church of Canada, “and here we are now, the fate of civilization and of millions of the planet’s life forms hanging by the frayed thread of inaction.” It is easy to feel powerless to effect change. How do you know where to start when everything needs fixing? Is denial the only option? Is there anything more?
I have been thinking all of these thoughts this past week as I’ve struggled to interpret the gospel of John for today, mulling over his story about Jesus and the wedding at Cana and what insight this story might give us in terms of where we go from here. In the story – which is told with very little detail – Jesus miraculously transforms water into the best wine anybody has ever tasted. Three days after Jesus gathers his disciples, the whole group attends a wedding. Jesus’ mother attends as well. John doesn’t tell us the name of the couple being married nor does he explain Jesus’ relationship to them. The most important detail, it seems – all we really need to know about them – is that they’ve run out of wine well before their party’s due to end. “They have no wine,” says Jesus’ mother. This is it. There are no more barrels in the cellar, no more bottles that haven’t yet been opened, and no flasks that haven’t been emptied. They’ve come to the end and that’s all that there is. And right now you’re probably thinking who cares, why is that such a big deal? What’s so terrible about running out of wine?
Weddings in Jesus’ time were easily the most lavish feasts that anyone would have attended. A wedding was the social event of the year for most families and the festivities carried on for at least a week. Running out of wine would have been unthinkably detrimental to the party taking place. We also need to remember that this story takes place in occupied territory. When the Romans take food and coins that would have gone to feeding your own family, enjoying yourself at a wedding despite their presence is just about the most subversive thing you can do. There is a lot more at stake in cutting a party short if the party is most people’s only opportunity to escape the status quo. But running out of wine isn’t just a logistical problem John wants to write about; it’s a metaphor. If the festivities at a wedding give people an opportunity to experience hope and beauty and joy – all characteristics of a flourishing soul – a lack of wine at a wedding symbolizes the end of the soul’s flourishing. To run out of wine is to run out of hope and give in to despair.
We may not live in occupied territory but I imagine that, in our own way, many of us are no less occupied and anxious than many of the guests I’ve imagined at the wedding in Cana. Take Jane, for instance. Jane is a stylist at the salon where I usually go to get my hair cut. She is 38 years old, single, and one of those women who never leaves the house without her public “face” exquisitely applied – thick foundation, black liquid eye liner, glossy lips. I went to see her last Friday. We talked in the polite way that you do when you visit a salon. “How were your holidays?” gave way to “How was your New Year’s?” and then the conversation took a decidedly despairing turn. “I hate New Year’s,” she said. “I can’t even watch the countdown on TV. This year I invited over a couple of my friends,” she told me, “and we made some great food, and had some great wine, but I told them not to get all crazy with me at midnight – in fact, I told them to not even mention it when the clock struck twelve.” Jane doesn’t want to hear the clock toll the passing of another year. “I lie awake at night,” she confessed, “and I wonder if this is it for me, if this is all that there is.” Working in a salon where the median age of stylists is 23 doesn’t help. Jane worries that she has no ten-year plan. “A client told me I have to get one; that a ten-year plan is the only way to stop life from passing me by.” I say that even people with ten-year plans, who meet their goals and achieve their successes, still come up against the feelings she’s describing; from what I know there isn’t a person alive who doesn’t wonder at the end of the day, if this is it, if this is all that there is. Jane makes me wonder: what gives life meaning when if feels like we are powerless to control what happens to us?
In response to the guests at the wedding who wonder if there is anything more than being left wanting Jesus’ action of turning water into wine stands in for a definitive yes. Six stone water jars sit empty. John tells us more about these water jars than he does about the wedding. The identities of the bride and groom aren’t important to John, but the amount of water that each one of these jars could hold sure is. At a minimum we are talking about 90 gallons. “If there are four quarts to a gallon and each quart yields six glasses that’s a minimum total of two thousand one hundred and sixty glasses (Fleming Rutledge, p. 71, The Bible and the New York Times). “Fill those jars with water,” Jesus says, and the servants filled them to the brim. “Now,” says Jesus, “draw some out and take it to the caterer.” The caterer tastes the water – which has been turned into wine – without knowing where it had come from; the only ones who knew were those who were waiting on tables, since they had drawn the water. The caterer calls the bride and groom over and says, ‘People usually serve the best wine first; then, when the guests have been drinking a while, a lesser vintage is served. What you’ve done is to keep the best wine until now!
The caterer doesn’t realize where this wine has come from, but we are privy to its source. If running out of wine is a metaphor for a despairing soul, Jesus’ sudden transformation of water into wine is a metaphor for God’s extravagant and abundant response to despair. People who feel powerless in the face of natural disasters, people who feel powerless to change, or people who feel powerless to find meaning wonder if a sense of powerlessness in life is all that they can expect. John knows that there is more to the story. He has experienced something “more” through the person of Jesus and chooses to liken the experience to uncovering thousands upon thousands of cups of wine at a party, just when you thought you had run out. John uses the story of the wedding at Cana to communicate this truth: that God’s grace is an abundant reality. In the life and actions of Jesus, John sees the One who creates, sustains, and enlivens all life in the universe. So if turning water into wine is a metaphor, what was it about Jesus that compelled John to tell this story? What was it about Jesus that led people to encounter God in him and to come away feeling that there is more to life than they have previously experienced, to come away trusting – in spite of all evidence to the contrary – that life really is like water that’s turned into wine? The United Church of Canada’s most recent Statement of Faith called “A Song of Faith” describes the love that Jesus lived out in this way:
“Jesus announced the coming of God’s reign – a commonwealth not of domination but of peace, justice and reconciliation. He healed the sick and fed the hungry. He forgave sins and freed those held captive by all manner of demonic powers. He crossed barriers of race, class, culture, and gender. He preached and practiced unconditional love – love of God, love of neighbour, love of friend, love of enemy – and he commanded his followers to love one another as he had loved them.”
When it comes right down to it, Jesus says in the gospel of John, the only thing you need in order to have a powerful, meaningful and abundant life is love. It’s fitting then that in John’s gospel the one and only instruction Jesus gives to those of us in search of “more” in this life – more inner power, more meaning, more grace – is to love one another. “There is no such thing as a charmed life, not for any of us, no matter where we live or how mindfully we attend to the tasks at hand. But there are charmed moments, all the time, in every life and in every day” (Katrina Kenison, p. 224, The Gift of an Ordinary Day). It’s been my experience that life takes on a more abundant and extravagant tenor – like water turned to wine – in the moments when I challenge myself to love more. Love changes our statement about life from, “This is it?!?” into, “THIS is It!”
A natural disaster can break every foundation, but it cannot break a person’s capacity to love, nor can a disaster thwart our efforts to show love. Love is more powerful. Love insists on a better way, even when we feel powerless to change. Love is more powerful than our apathy. And ultimately it’s loving others and being loved ourselves that gives meaning to life. Love this powerful – love that is the flowering and flourishing of the soul when outward circumstances should make the soul despairing – isn’t the kind of love you’ll find described on the inside of a Hallmark card. “No one has greater love than this,” Jesus reminds us: “to lay down one’s life for one’s friend.” It seems counterintuitive, but there it is: personal sacrifice is the means to abundance. The story of the wedding at Cana asks us to trust in the reality of life’s goodness and abundance, to trust that an experience of goodness and abundance is God’s intent for all creation. Like John, we choose to live as though there is more to the story, serving up water turned to wine, mending the part of the world that is within our reach, loving without ego, loving when it’s not easy or convenient, losing ourselves to love that is the balm that soothes a despairing soul.