Life-giving Wine Poured Out in Cana, Port-au-Prince, and Seattle

It was a balmy 82 degrees, with a slight wind blowing in from the ocean and dissolving some of the humidity which had lingered since the late morning. Under brilliantly clear skies, one could see for at least six miles out to sea, a gorgeous evening was beginning to descend over the city. As the sun began to set in the West, the family of Bea Soulange began to prepare dinner. Standing in the house, it was Bea, a bright-eyed thirteen-year-old girl, who first sensed the floor move slightly underneath her feet and, then, without warning, the swaying turned to a convulsive eruption which tossed her around, the walls and the cement ceiling falling on top of her. Throughout the entire night, she was trapped inside her ruined home, alone, seemingly forgotten by her family and the neighbors as she cried out for help, for rescue. Discovered the next afternoon, some eighteen hours later, her neighbors used their bare hands to dig her out, the danger of collapse ever present in their minds. With a wild cheer, she was, at last, pulled out from the debris this past Wednesday as she shouted in French, “Je n’ai pas perdu l’espoir,” “I did not give up hope. My heart did not race. My heart did not tremble. I kept calling out for help,” she said after she was rescued from the unimaginable misery of Port-au-Prince.

But, then, the television camera turned to the street where the four members of her family were laid out underneath plastic sheets and blankets, dead to this world. She was alive, yes, yet she was alone; courageous, yes, with a heart that did not race or tremble, yet with no idea of what the future would bring.

At first glance, it would seem that today’s gospel offers little hope or consolation or wisdom for anyone, for anyone in “a land called Desolate,” for anyone who has lost a loved one to death, for anyone who has experienced a sudden or violent disruption of their life, for anyone who faces the future alone. We hear of a wedding, one of the most joyous occasions in ancient Jewish life, for in every wedding rested the promise of children and the promise of a parent’s immortality through them. We hear of wine running out and a mother’s instruction, cloaked as an observation, to provide even more wine. We hear his almost off-hand comment, “What concern is that to me?” and this obscure remark, “My hour has not yet come,” and an after-thought about his “glory” being revealed. And, we hear this: the wine steward commenting on the quality of the festive drink as Jesus and his friends begin to walk out the door. If one thinks about it for a moment, this is a very odd story.

As a child, I heard this story and knew what I thought every Christian knew: that the transformation of water into wine was proof positive of Jesus’ divine nature. Or this: that Jesus could dazzle people with his astonishing power, convincing even the skeptic that he was the messiah. Or, this, that in the end, all will be made well, that there will be a happy ending to every miserable story, every failed relationship, every unfulfilled dream we hold, the ordinary water of mortal life transformed into wine of immortality, into the wine of eternal life.

But such is not the case. For what John knows then is what we need to know now. And, thus, as he completes his gospel at the end of the first century, some sixty years after the death of Jesus, what John knows is this: the small community of Christian Jews for whom and to whom he is writing his “good news” has been irrevocably separated from their Jewish brothers and sisters: father separated from daughter, mother from son, sister from brother – and all of them experiencing nothing less than a bitter and tragic divorce from that ancient and rich tradition in which they and Jesus and the first disciples were shaped. They are now outside the synagogue, standing alone on their own, literally out on the street, not knowing, not knowing how they will survive as an illegal movement within the Roman Empire yet – yet fully aware that to be the followers of the One who was executed by the Roman army is to be in a terribly, terribly dangerous place.

It is to this small community that John writes his gospel, a group of people cut off from their home and with nowhere to go, separated from family and friends because, in Jesus, they recognized God’s own life and God’s presence with them. Thus, John includes this story of water being changed into wine – not to demonstrate the divinity of Jesus (as if they actually needed such a demonstration!), not to dazzle the skeptic with wondrous powers (as if the display of majesty and might could ever transform anyone’s affections or enlarge their imagination), not to promise a fairy tale ending to anguish and distress (as if the promise of a better life tomorrow or in heaven could ever dissolve the anxiety, the confusion, the grief experienced today). John gives us this story of water being changed into wine to indicate that Jesus himself will be poured out, poured out “in the hour that has not yet come,” the hour of his death, the hour on the cross, that “hour” which seals and confirms an entire adult life poured out, poured out for the little ones of this earth whose names, not known to us, are nonetheless known and remembered by God. John gives us this story of water changed to wine to say with utter clarity that whenever we, whenever we sense the absence of God in this world – this world where little girls are rescued only to find themselves abandoned – we are to consider his hour, his death, and look to the image of the Crucified One on the wall of this church or in our homes.

For there, in a body secured to the cross, we see, paradoxically (for we hold to a faith filled with paradox) -- we see the glory of God revealed. For God’s glory, dear brothers and sisters, God’s glory is not to demonstrate God’s awesome divinity or God’s power over the forces of nature or human misdeed. God’s glory is not our escape from the experience of trauma, senseless death, human limitations, or failure. Rather, God’s glory is to be with us in our often hidden suffering – which spouse or friend or partner or priest may never know; God’s glory is to be with dear Bea Soulange whose heart did not race yet must have been broken by the sight of her mother and father in the street; Gods’ glory is to be with all the people of that anguished island, and to be with us in this city, with you and me, when fairy tales and wishful thinking cannot possibly bear or encompass our loss and doubts, our anxieties and fears.

And God’s glory is this: to draw us, if we are willing, to draw us toward those places and those people where God is waiting for us, yes, waiting for us to claim the presence of Christ’s risen life within us and, in recognizing that presence, to pour out our lives in love, in whatever way we can, where they are least expected and where they are most clearly needed.

It is of great interest to me, and I hope it is to you, that just after the priest raises the cup of wine at the altar, that wine which will be poured into our lips, we proclaim the Lord’s death among all the suffering of this world and the power of his resurrection in us, that power, that presence which, indeed may not take away pain or doubt or anxiety but simply yet profoundly promise us the one thing we all need, we all want to hear at the moment when the earth seems to be shaking: You are not alone. Look to your right and to your left. Look behind you and in front of you. You are not alone. For, as our patron St. Paul teaches: in the strange and paradoxical wisdom of the holy gospel, God’s power and glory is revealed in the ordinary, in weakness, and in suffering.

As he was studying this reading from John’s gospel, this reading about the surprising gift of wine, an ancient Christian student asked St. Jerome, the famous early Christian biblical scholar, if the pouring of wine ended at the wedding feast in Cana. No, said Jerome, it has never ended. It is still being poured daily at the altar. It is still being poured out daily at the altar so that we might drink it and, if we are willing, be miraculously transformed into its love for this world each and every day.

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