Sermon on Haiti and the Wedding at Cana

I will not keep silent.  Says the prophet Isaiah.  I will not rest, he says, until the promises of God are fulfilled.

My family and I returned from vacation Tuesday to news reports of the devastation in Haiti.  I, like all of you, listened in shock to the reports of 10s of thousands dead and hundreds of thousands left without shelter, without food, without family.  And within hours everyone realized…and on top of it all, there’s no running water.   Knowing this was going to be on everyone’s hearts and minds I thought to myself “I have to preach Sunday I wonder what the Gospel text is …” when I realized it was the wedding at Cana I thought Great.  Jesus at a big party making sure the wine flows freely.  No one wants to hear that today.  Not today.  Nobody wants to hear a quaint little miracle story about how generous God is when poorest country in this hemisphere lays in even greater waste than it already did on Monday.  Nobody wants to hear of an abundance of wine when people on the streets of Haiti are thirsty.  Who dares speak of a party when our cantor Drew is mourning his friend Ben who died in a collapsed building in Port au Prince? When thousands of mothers are mourning their children? 

This week’s events bring with them a lot of questions about God, and none of them have to do with parties.  One atheist blog I read this week sneeringly used the earthquake to make a case against believing in God at all.  The writer implying that he could not believe in a God who would inflict such suffering on so many people, which made me admit that according to that definition I must be an atheist too because I don’t believe in that God either. 
But after reading the wedding in Cana story over and over again this week I realized that I think Mary, the distraught mother of our Lord , might just be the key to seeing how this text speaks to our mourning and confusion and the death and suffering this week has brought to so many.
Our Gospel text for today has what sounds to us to be a rather abrupt and somewhat awkward interaction between Jesus and his mother.  They’re at a wedding when Mary looks to her son and says the wine has run out.  “Woman”  Jesus says to his mother seemingly dismissive and perhaps even disrespectful, “my hour has not yet come”  To which Mary is like oh yeah?  too bad.  Ok she didn’t really say that, but she did simply turn to the servant and said “do whatever he tells you” 

Mary tugs at the shirt of God and says I will not keep silent. I will obey you and I will tell others to obey you but I will not keep silent. People are thirsty.  See, In John’s gospel Mary is not the young virgin pondering sweet things in her heart.  In John’s Gospel Mary is not surrounded by singing angels.  She is never even mentioned by name.  She is simply “the mother of Jesus”  And she shows up exactly twice in the entire book.
So Mary stands here in a long line of prophets who have not stayed silent.  The prophet Mary stands and says Lord, we’ve run out of wine and people are thirsty.
And Jesus hears her.   So Jesus does this crazy thing: He could have filled the actual wine jugs up with water to be turned to wine.  That would have been the logical miracle (if there is such a thing).  Instead, Jesus takes 6 ceremonial purification jars and has THOSE filled with water to turn into wine. Purification Jars used in his own religion, the religion he grew up in the religion of his own family.
Jesus transforms this purification water into the wine of a new creation, the wine of a radical new family.

They are thirsty says his mother.  And Jesus responds. But he responds in an almost embarrassingly excessive way.  180 gallons. Surely that’s too much.  But that’s how Jesus is.  180 gallons of fine wine which…go back and check…is not called a miracle in John but a  sign.   It’s a sign of what God is doing in Jesus, namely that the very abundance of this gift means that maybe it’s not meant only for you and me.  I mean we can try and keep 180 gallons of wine for ourselves but it will just become something we like to call “vinegar” unless it’s shared.  In Jesus God is reconciling all creation to God’s self, not just his own religion and his own people, something today we might call “having really bad boundaries”

 I think this is why Mary is called “woman”. He refused to abide by society or religion’s definitions of good and bad and pure and impure and family and stranger and who is in and who is out.  His own mother is another woman, Like every other woman, every suffering mother.
So, Mary only shows up twice in John’s Gospel and both times her son calls her “woman. “ Once is here at the wedding when she refuses to be silent because people are thirsty.  The other is when she stands at the foot of the cross.  She watches as her son and her Lord hangs innocent from a cross with the weight of the world’s suffering tearing his very flesh. 

This is our God.  Not a distant judge cruelly indifferent to our pain and not some monster causing calamity, but a God who weep.  A God who suffers not only for us but with us. Nowhere is the presence of God amidst suffering more salient than on the cross.  Therefore what can we do but confess that this is not a God who causes suffering.  This is a God who bears suffering.   God does not initiate suffering…God transforms it.

It is suffering transformed which we see on the cross when again Christ calls his mother “woman” and initiates an adoption between her and the beloved disciple. This is the new kinship we all share.   A kinship in which our identity is not based on country, blood, or religion but on our belovedness as God’s children. 

That passage in John reads like this:

standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said, “I am thirsty.”   

I am thirsty he says.  I am not watching this from a distant heaven. Jesus says I too am thirsty. 

As we hear the cry of our Hatian brothers and sisters let us discern the other voice we hear with them…that of Christ saying  I am thirsty.

The reports that came in that first 24 hours following the quake said that When night fell on the streets of Port AU Prince people were singing hymns and psalms. Blessed be God, they sang.  People were singing praises to God amidst their entire world destroyed. 
Pat Robertson is wrong by the way. There is no reason for this destruction – but there IS meaning. And this meaning is to be found as we again become the human family of God’s new creation without country, religion, boundary or race to divide us. In this moment to the extent that we take up the responsibility of a mother caring for her son, a son for his mother,….In this moment to the extent that we act like Jesus and love and care for those suffering from the earthquake as if they are our own beloved family, we are all Haiti.

So we, with Mary, tug on the shirt  of God and say we have run out Lord. We need wine.  Good wine.  Enough for all, flowing over.  We too will not keep silent.  We will join with the family of God in the singing of hymns and psalms.  And then we will listen to Jesus’ command and fill some jars with water for the thirsty.
Blessed be God.
Amen

Comments

[gracie]

Thank you Nadia. Amen to every word.

[mark]

You are good. very good. wish i could hear you preaching live.
mark

[Karen]

Fantastic, Nadia. I also preached on this passage, but not as well. I also had wanted to say something about Haiti in this, but could not find a way. You found the way. Thank you.

[Kari Henkelmann Keyl]

Such a beautiful interpretation of John's words, especially the word, "woman". And I love the insight of Mary being a prophet. I also preached about Haiti's heartbreaking tragedy, challenging PatR's narrow view of God (the almighty event planner). Any God that I'm going to love and serve is hardly going to be like the worst example of manipulative parenting!Thanks, Nadia, for sharing your expansive view of God with the big wide world.

[Rachel]

Amen.

[Jim]

I'm going to save this sermon for my daughter when she asks me.... Why Daddy?

[Mary]

Oh...my..goodness.

You blew my mind with this one.

Thanks.

and thanks be to God.

[Judy]

Amen is right.
This IS a sermon to be saved. It is so hard to wrap my head around all this. This helps. Thanks Nadia.

[Adrienne]

I wondered why my Pastor on Sunday did not refer to Haiti at all... like the earthquake didn't exist or happen. Your sermon was missing - I thank you for posting it. It was a voice unheard on this past Sunday for me. Thank you.

[Travis Mamone]

Beautiful!

[aquaman]

Beautiful sermon.

The atheist writer is a side-note to your sermon, and so it is fine that you do not answer him. But if you did answer, I would say: God did cause the people of Haiti to be poor: WE did. We accepted a world economy that creates unimaginable wealth for a few, and luxury for a great many more (including me), but leaves the people of Haiti destitute-- their land raped, their children malnourished. Surely God weeps for the children of Haiti, as he wept for the children of Israel in the days of Amos, and the children of Judah in the days of Micah. And surely, God's anger is kindled against us, for allowing this to happen. We must repent. Lord have mercy.

[aquaman]

oops-- God did NOT cause the people of Haiti to be poor.

As typos go, that's a very bad one.

[David Porter]

Right on aquaman.

[Elaine Groppenbacher]

THANK YOU!!!

[MP]

Beautiful sermon, thanks for posting.

[Gunfighter]

and the whole church said: Amen!

[Will McCorkle]

"This is our God. Not a distant judge cruelly indifferent to our pain and not some monster causing calamity, but a God who weep. A God who suffers not only for us but with us."

- Thanks so much for the comments. What you say needs to be seen and experienced not only by those who are suffering, but also by those who are questioning the goodness of God. When we start to question, we just need to look back into the face of Jesus.

[Andre Nievo]

How touching. Very inspirational.

[Gray]

This IS a sermon to be saved. It is so hard to wrap my head around all this. This helps. Thanks Nadia. http://www.hotfileseek.com

[M C FLYNN]

thanks for your inspiration
have been working on a paper
re Wedding at Cana
we are sponsoring school children in Haiti this weekend at our church -and You helped me to hear God's voice today
MC