Adam J. Copeland

FPC Hallock, Minn.

Jan 17, 2009

Plans, Upended

John 2:1-11

It’s difficult to find a native Floridian living in Tallahassee, my home town. A bit different from the Kittson County area, it seemed at least, growing up, that all my friends’ family had moved to Tallahassee at some point not too long ago. And not only that, but they didn’t intend to stay there long.

“Maybe we’ll stay for a few years,” they thought, but rarely did these folks plan on staying in Tallahassee longterm. But there is something about the town that changed people’s plans. Who knows the reason, but I do know there’s many a person now living in Tallahassee–and planning to stay–who in the past hadn’t planned to live there long at all.

Plans change. Heck, plans are often completely upended. Many times for the better. An unexpected child is born and life is never the same. The woman who planned to stay single falls in love with that guy. Or–and I say this as a part-time salesman–you go into the store not planning on buying anything and you end up leaving with a full bag of stuff you didn’t know you needed. Plans, upended.

And, of course, plans also change due to tragic circumstances. Disease strikes. Fire rages. Evil hits. Disaster shakes us almost too hard to manage. Millions of Haitians had never foreseen this week’s horrid events in Port-au-Prince. Nobody plans for natural disasters, particularly not for earthquakes that only strike every 200 years. Or, closer to home, a beloved church building burns to the ground. [For online readers: sadly, the Methodist church in the neighboring town of Humbolt burned down 1/16/10.] We’d never imagine that. Plans, lives, upended.

The gospel of John doesn’t say a thing about Jesus’ life before his public ministry began. We don’t hear if Jesus was a well-behaved child, or if he could identify the alphabet by kindergarten. In fact–get this–the writer of John never even gives the name of Jesus’ mother. John must not concerned with such details. So, perhaps that makes all the more interesting the way John describes the wedding in Cana. Our tale functions as Jesus’ main entrance into public miracles, his coming out party, but it wasn’t what Jesus had planned.

As far as we know, Cana was a pretty small town, about 10 miles north of Nazareth. It’s not clear whether Jesus journeyed to the town to attend the wedding (whoever’s wedding it was, John doesn’t say), or if Jesus and his disciples were just passing through and the wedding party invited them over. Who knows, maybe it was those extra invites that bumped up the guest list and caused the hosts to run out of wine in the first place. But, in any case, John does say: the wine gave out.

No matter what culture you’re in, that’s bad news. Having the wine run out at a wedding is maybe even worse than having the beer run out during a Vikings playoff game. The situation, clearly, was dire.

So Jesus’ mom comes up to him and just casually mentions, “They have no wine.” And Jesus says, “Woman, what concern is that to you and me?” Now his response isn’t as rude as it might seem to us, “woman” was just a descriptive term, not an insult or anything, but his response was certainly not overly warm. “What concern is that to you and me?” Jesus said, “My hour has not yet come.”

Jesus hadn’t planned on making a fuss at the wedding. He just wanted to mind his own business, drink some wine, and enjoy the party. It sort of reminds me of Harry Potter very early in the series when he was just understanding his powers, not intending to make a fuss. Once when Harry was at the zoo in the reptile area, and he was fascinated with the huge boa constrictor. He stared at the snake through the glass and, all of a sudden, it winks at Harry, and Harry realizes he can speak to it. They even have a short conversation–Harry and the snake–before the glass to the reptile cage vanishes and the snake slithers away. Harry always felt a bit different, he just didn’t understand why.

Jesus, who must have grown up coming to understand his own remarkable powers, wasn’t ready to go public. “My hour has not yet come,” he told his mother. But she says to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

[very sarcastic] “Thanks, mom” Jesus yells, and rolls his eyes. –no, the text doesn’t actually say that, but something like that might have happened, because it wasn’t in Jesus’ plans to do anything special at the wedding. But, “mother knows best,” and Jesus sulked over to the servants and asked them to fill six of the twenty to thirty gallon jugs with water. They were to then take it to the chief steward.

So they did that, and the steward couldn’t believe his taste buds. That wine had character, a fruity richness, strong body, and a hint of honeyed maple. Delicious! So the steward tracked down the groom and questioned him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the cheap stuff after they guests gets tipsy. But you have kept the good wine until now.”

You can read the steward as amazed and complimentary of the groom, or surprised and disconcerted for the breach of etiquette, but with either reading the steward is struck with the planning–good or bad, the plans are strange, different, upended.

What a weird way for Jesus to display his first sign. Sure, an epic party is great and all, but wouldn’t a healing have led to even better PR? And what’s up with Jesus playing the, “‘my hour has not yet come’ card?” Is he just saying that to seem hard-to-get? Or is he serious–he had not planned on revealing his glory that night. It wasn’t totally his decision.

One possibility is that the writer of John is less attempting to call into question Jesus’ sense of timing, and more pointing beyond Jesus to the truths that stand outside of time. Truth’s like: God, ultimately, is sovereign and will not let sorrow have the last word. Truth’s like: our sense of time, and our sense of plans see the world only dimly.

Plans change. Even divine plans change. In the story, Jesus shows an impressive flexibility as he turns that water into wine. No matter why he did it the story ends with John saying, “Jesus did this, the first of his signs, and revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.” Jesus turned a hospitality blunder, a wine fiasco, into a sign that pointed to God, a sign that began his journey to the cross. Plans change, but God’s purposes do not.

It’s funny, maybe it’s because I’ve know the story for so long, or maybe it’s the literary structure but when I read it through, I never get worried that the wedding party is going to be a bust. Maybe its Jesus’ mere presence that puts me at ease, I’m not sure, but there’s something deep in the back of my mind when reading of the wedding at Cana that knows God will ultimately shine.

Do you ever get that feeling? Like when you’re seeing a movie and you can’t imagine how it’s all going to turn out for the best but you know, for sure, there’ll be a happy ending. It’s like Thanksgiving dinner that you know is going to be a blast–who cares how the dressing turns out of if the dog eats the turkey, there’s no doubt that the ultimate occasion will be a grand one.

The Christian word for this is “providence,” the claim that ultimately God is in control of creation’s final destiny, that ultimately, God’s goodness will reign. It’s a dangerous idea, because it can lead to passivity on our part. Or, even worse, a strong doctrine of providence causes some to claim that everything–even evil or natural disasters–are God’s will. That’s not the good news, that’s not the gospel no matter what Pat Robinson bellows in his delusion.

But providence, at its best, gets us through the dry spells, when the bottles of wine are empty, and the ashes smolder, and the voices are crying out for help. Providence as this feeling that though the earth moves and kingdoms totter God’s ultimate claim on life is never in doubt.

The crucifixion chapters, later in John, have this same feeling to them. John portrays Jesus as out of control, almost out of his depths, but neither is Pilate nor the crowds calling the shots. Instead, John seems to be saying that God, somehow, is in the midst of even the bloody crucifixion–not quite micromanaging, but never straying far away.

Plans changed. Plans upended. A wedding party without wine, and Jesus with hesitation, jumps to action.

Maybe that’s the message for today, plans change, plans are upended, but God is not. The earthly wine runs out, but God’s grace overfills the brim. Even–especially–when least expected, God jumps into action.

When your cup is empty, when your celebration is in question, when you need God most, God is there. You are invited to the party. Jesus is the host, and all are welcome. Come, pull up a chair, enjoy the festivities for God’s goodness lasts forever.