Water or Wine?

Sermon

Weddings are not for the faint of heart.

If you were to gather a group of pastors, organists, and wedding coordinators, you would be entertained for hours by stories of weddings gone wrong, stories that often include last minute sewing, fainting, and possibly throwing up.

Everyone is on high alert at weddings – the people up front worry that they might embarrass themselves; the happy couple has moments of doubt about what they’re getting themselves into; family tensions surface at just the right time, meaning just the wrong time.

Weddings are not for the faint of heart today or in Jesus’ time.  While the wedding ceremony and feast were celebrations of the joining together of two, it was the joining together of two families rather than two people.  As scholars Bruce Malina and Richard Rohrbaugh note, “Wedding celebrations were of immense significance as public demonstrations of family honor.  Families often went deeply into debt trying to outdo each other in the honorific competition to provide the best wedding the village had ever seen….  To run out of food or wine at a wedding involved a serious loss of family honor.”  (Malina and Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Gospel of John, p. 70)

So there’s some urgency in her voice as the mother of Jesus tells him that the wine has run out.  Once the wedding guests realize this, the rumor mill will start and the gossips will spread the word that the groom’s family has utterly failed in its obligations of hospitality.  Shame will come upon them, and for those with long memories, the failure of the event will forever tarnish the marriage.

I choose to think that Jesus’ mother (who, by the way, is never called Mary in this gospel) mentioned this to Jesus not because she knew he would miraculously fix things, but because she was worried about the groom’s family’s reputation. It was up to everyone to make things right.  It takes a village to maintain honor.

But there’s more to this story than meets the eye.  The hosts have run out of wine, and a few of the guests, aided by the servants, are trying to fix that.  Jesus, though, does something worse, or better, depending on your point of view.  He sees six stone purification jars.  In the Jewish tradition, stone jars were used for purification rites, for ritual washing that helped people to keep clean according to religious laws.  Stone was used because it could not be contaminated the way clay could, and each family would usually have one large jar, the kind that could hold 20-30 gallons.  It’s safe to assume that the groom’s family borrowed jars from neighbors and friends to ensure that all the guests – the whole village – would be able to engage in the purification rites.

Then Jesus takes all that water, set aside for religious purposes, set aside so that the people can ritually wash, and turns it to wine.  Now if you are a clean-freak, if you’re the type who is concerned about following the letter of the law, this is terrible.  No one can wash, and the jars are ruined.

But if you’re the kind of person who likes surprises, who likes good wine, who maybe says tending to people is more important than following religious ritual, then you might say that Jesus does a good thing.  He saves the honor of the host; he provides not just wine, but really, really good wine.  He saves the day.

So with this story swimming around our heads, I want you to imagine that Westminster is a wedding.  It’s the joining together of different people, different families, who commit to being in community, who commit to discerning together what God’s will is for us, who commit to raising children and caring for the elderly and serving not just the needs of the individual but of the entire proverbial village.

And it might be fair to say, that like weddings, Westminster is not for the faint of heart.  First, you have to figure out how to get into the building, and if you can’t manage stairs, you get to learn the labyrinth of accessible routes from here to there.  Then there’s the part of following worship traditions that are easy and familiar to some of us and really strange or off-putting to others.  There’s formal space that is beautiful and inspiring and maybe not always so family-friendly or coffee-friendly.

And then there are the people.  Now I am of the opinion that the people of Westminster are absolutely marvelous.  In no way are the people of Westminster perfect but you all are marvelous.  Some people are in their fourth or fifth decade of enjoying friendships with those they first met at church.  The talent here is ridiculously abundant. But if you’re venturing up to coffee hour for the first time (remember when we used to have coffee hour?) and you see little clumps of people talking to each other, and no one says hello or even acknowledges your presence – well, that’s not a great experience.  And heaven help the introverts among us.

And if Westminster is a wedding of sorts, the wine is running low, friends.  Set aside all the challenges that this pandemic has brought us – not meeting in person, not having coffee hour, parents of kids who cannot be vaccinated wisely keeping their children home – set aside all these particular impediments to our community, and let’s look at where we’ve been in the last five to ten years.

We can be specific with data, for those who appreciate hard numbers.  Financially, giving continues to be generous, but the bulk of donations come from those who are seventy and older.  What does that mean thirty years from now?  We have wise people who manage our budgets, but the truth is that utility costs go up every year, and insurance – both health insurance and property insurance – goes up and we can’t do a thing about it.  And to be just employers, we need to give our staff cost of living raises.  We can’t give merit raises the way we might like, but the least we can do is have salaries go up as costs do.

In terms of membership, like just about every mainline Protestant church in North America, our numbers have gone down in the past decade.  At the beginning of 2012, our membership was 729; at the last session meeting just a few days ago, it was 636.  We could easily remove a hundred people from the roll, people whom Gregg and I have never met in our ten years here, people who have made no connection with the church in the past decade.

One of the refrains we heard in the Deep Dive survey and related conversations was a lament about the community.  We wish we had more millenials.  We wish we had more diversity of age, race, economic status, education levels among our members.  We wish we were less clique-y.  Those are not new concerns, not be any means.  And whenever Gregg and I hear those laments, we wonder: do we want those things so we feel good about ourselves – look how many young families we have!  Look at all the racial ethnic diversity we have!  Look at how anyone can fit in here at a church!

Just why do we want those things?  If it’s about institutional maintenance, that’s not a good enough answer. If it’s so we feel good about ourselves, that’s not a good enough answer.  But if it’s about turning water into wine, that’s another matter altogether.

In the Hebrew scriptures, wine is usually associated with celebration and joy.  When the prophets speak of God making things right, there is wine overflowing in the celebration.  Wine is a good thing, an acknowledgement of God’s blessing and abundance to a beloved people.  And if you don’t like wine or can’t drink, imagine whatever your favorite beverage is – fresh squeezed lemonade, or ginger beer, or a cup of coffee.

How might God be changing water into wine here at Westminster?  How might God be calling us to take the basics that we have, to let go of empty ritual, and create something new both in response to God’s goodness to us and in hope of sharing that goodness with others?

We need to make some changes in order to remain faithful to the God who called Westminster together in the first place and in order to share the abundance we have experienced.  We could keep doing things as we have, enjoying the water, and that would feel comfortable and comforting and it would be easy.  Depending on how old you are, we could keep the status quo and everything would be as it is for the rest of your time here on earth.

But that is not the faithful thing to do. Very rarely does God call the beloved people to comfortable and comforting situations. Usually God calls us to go to places that are full of sadness and despair and hate, to bring some grace and justice and love there.  Rarely does God call us to be comfortable; every week God calls us to confession and I don’t know about you, but that is not very comfortable to me.  But like the little pain that comes with wiggling a loose tooth, it’s a good discomfort.

I believe that God is calling us to a “yes-and” season in the life of Westminster Presbyterian.  Yes, we treasure our hymn singing and our gorgeous organ music, and we know that not all are fed by that. We have the gift of a musical congregation – how can we add to our repertoire and offerings so that more people are fed?

Yes, people have made life-long friends here because of things like Mariners groups and mission trips and retreats.  And some people who’ve been here a decade or longer still feel left out.  How can we continue to nurture relationships and connections and provide more opportunities for new relationships to blossom and deepen and grow?

Yes, we have a treasure in this building which has so much space, which is used by congregation and community, which houses stunning stained glass and nine pianos and one elevator and a great Great Hall.  And we have learned during this pandemic that our mission and ministry are not dependent on the building.  How can we use our space as a tool for ministry and not be utterly tied to it?

What do we need to let go of, what do we need to keep, and what do we need to add so that God can use Westminster as a vessel of good news in the decades that unfold before us?  In the coming year, the session and the deacons, the trustees, task forces and teams and ad hoc committees and little groups that pop up are going to be asking those questions, coming up with answers, and making things happen.  There will be change, and that might be hard.

But we have come through enormous change in these past twenty-two months, change we didn’t plan on, so change we do plan on might be a welcome relief.  Because, you marvelous people, God isn’t finished with Westminster yet.  There are more confessions to come, and more celebrations.  Let us set aside our faintness of hear so that we can be ready for the miracles God does even here.