Role Call

Sermon

January can be hard. It helps to say it, so we know we aren’t alone in struggling to write 2025 instead of ’24. There’s a needed recovery from the holidays that is burdened by the business of a new year, while many of us have winter viruses. And I don’t think we feel how hard January can be until now, in the middle of it, because January is long, and at the start we get fireworks, and stars, and a holiday of newness… and tomorrow it’s a holiday again?

And tomorrow is only the second time ever we will inaugurate a president who has been president but isn’t the president right now—it’s been over a century since we’ve done that.

And tomorrow is also only the third time ever that MLK Day has been on Inauguration Day. It’s been over a decade since we’ve done that. It makes sense to feel out of sorts, like you don’t know what timeline you’re on, whether you’re remembering or experiencing.

Many of us will not only feel out of sorts but will justifiably lament tomorrow’s events.

I found courage this week in the words of a Baptist pastor and writer, Timothy Adkins-Jones. He wrote to preachers: “MLK Day on Inauguration Day is a moment we can boldly proclaim the futility of our systems to fully enact and bring about the Beloved Community.  …this time charges us to continue to work together to reveal God’s kin(g)dom… to continue to use our voices to speak truth to power… to move through lament to restorative justice.” We do this as a community in worship; we proclaim the goodness of God, see our humanity, and hear the full breadth of emotion, joy, and concern; we move from lament to restoration.

It may seem odd, even frustrating, to have this wedding showing up now, in January—I was thrown a bit when I found it in the lectionary for today. But this wedding is included in the liturgical calendar in the Epiphany season as a part of showing Jesus’ restorative work; this is an epiphany story, an episode in which Jesus arrives and the kin(g)dom is revealed.

Everyone I talked to about this text seems to love this text, though it’s difficult to describe why—because it’s not really about the wedding. The couple’s story isn’t mentioned, and we don’t even know how they know Jesus or Mary or the disciples. It’s like a great episode of television where the location isn’t really the location; because, of course, historically, good television has been filmed in Los Angeles, regardless of what a script says. The location is more like the context of the problem. And because the best TV episodes often feature an ordinary problem but with an extraordinary and/or hilarious resolution, TV is often one of the best mediums for relational storytelling. As someone who has worked with all kinds of people, at all kinds of places and different ages, I’m always amazed at how television can bring people together—how it can act like a story or song shared around a warm fire.

My wife and I recently watched many episodes of Cheers, and decades later, it’s still warm and you don’t want to leave. Cheers is a bar, and it was a show set at a bar in Boston (filmed in Los Angeles, California). Cheers focused on the bar’s waitstaff, serving beer, wine, and a sense that you belonged there, people knew your name, as their TV theme song went. And because my brain is filled with bits of TV themes, when we’re getting through the day, I’ll think to myself: “Making your way in the world today…” Other times when I accomplish a task, I’ll think: “You’re gonna make it after all” and I’ll throw an imaginary hat in the air, like Mary Tyler Moore… which was a show set in Minnesota (and filmed in Los Angeles). TV is one of the best mediums for relatable storytelling. This wedding could be a great episode; we’re able to imagine ourselves in one role’s position, taking in the ordinary conflict.

Running out of wine would’ve been a typical, maybe even a rerun of an episode, at an ancient near-eastern wedding like this one we read about today. Attendants would have traveled from far away so the festivities could have lasted for any number of days, and the expectations for hospitality would have been high, as that was the cultural standard. You could, thankfully, if you were hosting, be hopeful that others would bring food and drink, as hospitality was often expected to be a shared responsibility. But there wouldn’t have been an exact science to knowing who was bringing what and how much and when. Eventually, even the best hospitality runs out. And though that is a very common problem, and maybe even a nice way to tell everyone to go home, it could have also been very embarrassing.

Enter Jesus’ mom, in the role of persistent prophet. Again, we don’t know why any of these folks attend this wedding, but we know Mary knows they are running out of wine. And we know that Jesus’ mom knows an excellent solution, having given birth to the Son of God last season and/or millennia ago, depending on your timeline, but Jesus is not interested.

Interpretations of this scripture make clear Jesus saying “woman” here was more familial than insulting, so it’s possible we can hear Jesus saying something more like what we’d hear in a family television sitcom: Aww, MOOMMM. Regardless of the decade or the politics at the time, or even the gender, or parentage of roles, there are an infinite number of good TV shows with actors saying: Aww, Moommm. Think of the grown sons in Everybody Loves Raymond, the young sons in Fresh Off the Boat, or all the Golden Girls. At different points, all the Golden Girls play mothering roles to each other, whether mothers or not. So goes the role of prophet as nagging mother; a role I, myself, am trying to restoratively claim.

Jesus’ own mother reminds Jesus that God cares about what we eat and drink. The Hebrew scriptures are riddled with evidence, and implorations, of God caring about what we put in our bodies, and God wanting us to trust we’ll be provided with good food, and even lavish banquets to celebrate the revealing of the kin(g)dom of God. Mary reminds Jesus that God cares about what we care about, even if the problem may seem trivial to some viewers.

Enter the role of the changed person, or the person who is moved to make a change. The person moved to make a miracle happen in this episode is Jesus. We do not see the water turn to wine, it happens off screen—maybe Jesus snaps his fingers or wriggles his nose like a TV witch, or maybe he sends his disciples to buy out every Cheers nearby, but however it happens, it happens. It could be foreshadowing other miracles, like the feeding of the five thousand. Was the miracle then that Jesus was able to pull all that food from his pockets or was it maybe that the community around Jesus realized they had enough to share all along? Either way, in this episode, Mary protests, and persists, and then Jesus is moved to act.

Enter the role of the waitstaff. We, like the waiters, possibly the disciples and some other guests, have been watching this episode between Mother and Son, Prophet and Powerful, play out. We know where the best wine came from. Without being able to taste the wine, I can still get a sense of what it would’ve been like to oversee that banquet—to laugh at the tasteful solution to an embarrassing problem. We don’t hear about it, but I can also imagine the bridegroom who was complimented, simply nodding politely as the party went on.

“Yes, this wine was the best pick to save for last—that was always the intention.”

And like the Golden Girls, each playing prophet as mother to the others, at some point, I can imagine any of these roles switching to other cast members. We saw Mary play the role of an amazed servant a few weeks ago, at Christmas. She said yes to being Jesus’ mother, and we’re told she treasured those things in her heart. In John’s Gospel, Jesus will soon take on the role of frustrated protester, flipping tables in the Temple. Jesus is often protesting in our sacred texts, which makes his modeling being moved here that much more moving.

We will need all these roles to be cast in revealing the kin(g)dom of God in the days ahead. So, if you’re in a privileged relationship and can speak loudly to a person in power because of your gender, or your family or financial status, or the color of your skin—if you are able to protest well, please do. And if you’re able to be moved, like Jesus was, to act, to make a miracle happen, do—and don’t discount the ordinary miracles for revealing the kindom.

We need you take a role here. You can change roles, for sure, but you need to play a part. And if you often find yourself in one of the more difficult roles of protesting, or making miraculous results from ordinary problems, then take a break, please, from those roles. And just show up. Put yourself in a place where you can be the invited, the attendee, the surprised waitstaff. Go to the art museum on a free day, go to Forest Park, Google a bunch of TV theme songs and be amazed that the theme song for the Mary Tyler Moore Show was called “Love Is All Around,” stay for the postlude and enjoy the extraordinary miracle of music. Go to the Great Hall and drink coffee. Coffee is a miracle that used to be ordinary water, too.

January can be hard. You’re not alone if you’re lamenting. But don’t quit the show. We need you, prophets, change agents, and guests to just show up and say: this is the best.

For the revelation of the kindom of God.

Amen.