Unwise and Untimely

John 2:1-11                           

          On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. ²Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

               ³When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.”

               ⁴And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”

               ⁵His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.”

               ⁶Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. ⁷Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. ⁸He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it.

               ⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.” ¹¹Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

          On April 12, 1963, a group of white clergymen in Birmingham, Alabama issued an open letter to the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  [slide 2]

          King had been in Birmingham organizing nonviolent protests to the ubiquitous practice of Jim Crow segregation.  [show slides 3-7]  There were sit-ins and public demonstrations and hundreds of persons had allowed themselves to be arrested [slides 8-9] to show the injustice of a system which told black people where they could sit, stand, eat, and drink…and where they couldn’t.

          One of the persons arrested was Dr. King himself.  [slides 10-11] He read the clergymen’s statement while in Birmingham City Jail.

          Those white clergymen were a moderate group, all from mainline and similar denominations.  There was an American Baptist pastor, a Presbyterian Moderator, a couple of Methodist bishops, a couple of Episcopal bishops, a Reform rabbi, and a Roman Catholic bishop.  They actually wanted change, these men.  They supported an end to the Jim Crow era, in keeping with their Jewish and Christian values.

          But they didn’t want the change to come as the result of the sorts of public actions that Dr. King was leading.  They didn’t want the cry for change to be led by “outsiders.”  They urged a more sensible process, one which would come through “proper channels.”

          “When rights are consistently denied,” they wrote, “a cause should be pressed in the courts and in negotiations among local leaders, and not in the streets. We appeal to both our white and Negro citizenry to observe the principles of law and order and common sense.”

            These demonstrations, the clergymen wrote, “are unwise and untimely.”

          This is not the hour for such things.

          Before we judge them too harshly, and alas, history has done that for us, I repeat, these were good, moderate churchmen who wanted to see change.  They wanted to see God’s vision of justice realized in their town.

          Just more slowly.  At the proper hour and in the proper way.

          And they are certainly not the only people in history to urge caution when justice is at stake.  Martin Luther, whose name Martin Luther King, Sr. adopted for himself and his son when the boy was five—Martin Luther had a cautious streak when it came to civil protest.  When the leaders of the Peasants Revolt tried to use his work to undergird their cause, he was furious and declared that the people must obey secular authorities.

          Travel a bit further back in history, and we come to the time when Jesus and his mother were at a wedding, and the wine ran out.

          This may not seem like a landmark moment for justice and civil rights, but think about what you know of Middle Eastern hospitality culture.  And what I’m about to tell you about wedding feasts.

          First, wedding feasts lasted for days.  Second, the hosts were expected to provide food and drink for all of the guests for all of that time.  And by drink I mean wine.    

          Running out of food or wine would bring shame on the household just as it was being formed.  Shame on the parents’ household.  And shame on the guests, who were also expected to contribute to the three day feast.

          That kind of shame was bad.  Righteously bad.  The “mother of Jesus”—that’s her name in the fourth Gospel—the mother of Jesus knew how bad it was.  And she knew the power her son possessed—the power to right the balance of this situation, as a precursor to righting the whole world.  (Think “Magnificat”)

          So she called that power out of him, with a seemingly simple phrase.  “They have no wine.”  That phrase only seems simple, right?  With it she acknowledges that she knows—she sees, to use a word John loves—she sees that Jesus has the ability to utterly change the situation in which the people find themselves.

          His mother sees that power in him, knows that he can right this situation…but for a moment there, it appears that Jesus has other ideas.  “My hour has not yet come,” he tells his mother. 

          [whiny voice] “Mo-om!  I don’t wanna save the world today.  I’ll save the world tomorrow.”

          Who’s been there?  Maybe you couldn’t save the world, or make Chateau Lafite Rothschild out of tap water. 

          But there was a moment you could step into.  A chance to help someone else.  A chance to stand up for right, to show compassion, to declare justice.

          It’s hard to step into those moments, isn’t it?  My goodness, if Jesus hesitates, I think we can acknowledge that we sometimes hesitate too.  We don’t know how to deploy ourselves in difficult situations, or we don’t think anyone cares what we think.  I mean, what difference does it make if one person stands up in this crazy world.

          [Slide 14]

          What difference indeed.

          People of God, our voices matter.  Our bodies matter.  Where we stand, and don’t stand…matters.  Right now, as never before, we have an unfortunate but profoundly clear opportunity to stand on the right side of history, the right side of justice, the right side of God’s kingdom.

          We have the opportunity to build the kingdom here on earth, by standing with the oppressed, the poor, the disenfranchised.  By showing compassion to our fellow humans—mirroring the actions of our Lord Jesus Christ that day in Cana.

          John tells us that the glory of God was seen in his actions that day.

          I am telling you today that the glory of God will be seen in your actions this day and the days that follow.  People will believe in Jesus Christ, when they see you doing something that makes this world more just, more kind, more compassionate.

          The glory of God is within us, just as it was within Jesus that day.  Since his mother is not here to coax it out of us, let me paraphrase her here.

          “They have no justice.”

          “They have no hope.”

          “They have no peace.”

         

[Show slides 15-16]

          I am in Birmingham because injustice is here… Just as the Apostle Paul left his little village of Tarsus and carried the gospel of Jesus Christ to practically every hamlet and city of the Greco-Roman world, I too am compelled to carry the gospel of freedom beyond my particular hometown.

          Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.