The miracle at the wedding at Cana isn’t the most important part of the story. It’s what Jesus shows us about God’s dream for the world.
Making enough into enough
Epiphany 2C | John 2:1-11
When I first served at a table alone as a priest, it was the kind of weekday mass we do at noon on Thursdays. It was a simple chapel attended by a small gathering of faithful people.
We set up the bread, the water, and the wine on a small credence table. Then, when it was time to gather for Communion, I would set the table, counting out the number of small discs we generously call bread. I would solemnly prepare this simple meal for the five or so of us.
And I would think back to the tables I served at during my internship, watching the priest count out the number of wafers to match the number in attendance.
Or, even better, counted out for us, as it was at St. John’s. The number of wafers in the bread box already matched the number of people they counted.
It was easy to count at these Wednesday nights. I usually only needed one hand.
It wasn’t long that I started thinking of another custom. Some of you may know this practice of keeping Elijah’s chair free at the table. In case the prophet came back, you’d set up an extra spot at the table.
The beauty of Elijah’s chair is that sometimes he would surprise everyone. Of course, not the literal prophet, but an unexpected guest coming to join us for dinner.
I started preparing for Elijah at our weekday Eucharists, counting out an extra wafer in case Elijah showed up.
The very next week, he did.
Elijah
In this case, Elijah wasn’t a he at all. She was our senior warden, but she came in during the middle of the Eucharistic Prayer. The table set for 6 for the five people in the room. And minutes later, there were six of us.
I praised God for preparing more than enough. That extra became just enough.
And that sense of having enough so that everyone would get their fill was proving itself again.
Wandering, Grumbling
This sense of tension between enough and abundance shows up all throughout our story. But my favorite is when the Hebrew people are wandering in the wilderness after the Exodus.
Their grumbling — that’s the closest word to the Hebrew we have, they were grumbling — complaining about their lack of food. They’ve just been saved from slavery in Egypt by a God who showed them what God was willing to do for them. But they’re too hangry to hear it.
Give us food, Moses! You think you’re so great, don’t you? What good are you if you can’t get God to feed us? What use is God if we starve to death. Just, the most pathetic, passive-aggressive nonsense in all of scripture. But Moses is too sensitive not to take his concerns to God. And God thinks its all no big deal, so God gives them something to drink, then eat, then more to drink.
They complain three times, threatening to kill Moses over all this and God provides for them anyway. It is crazy! But what God does is give them enough to fill themselves. Not a few scraps to survive. God doesn’t ration it out, making them feel guilty. God tells them to eat until they’re full.
That’s not everybody gets a piece. That’s everybody fill up.
Enough
It’s a weird idea in our world, to think of enough. We’re busy counting and paying attention to what we have and how many we care for. We measure our wealth and the world’s need and then begin. We want enough, just not wasteful.
And you can see the far more common calculous is described by the steward in the gospel story: you serve a little of the good stuff and then break out the cheap stuff. Calculating the costs and benefits on a mental spreadsheet: four people per bottle, 8 people per table by ten tables…That’s how much good stuff we get.
Then we buy a bunch of cheap wine as the backup. In Newnan, we used to drive to Trader Joe’s to get their “Two Buck Chuck” because it was cheap and wasn’t horrible. Just like we’d count out our wafers to make sure we had just the right number.
But this is thinking along the trajectory Jesus steers us away from. Just like when Jesus tells Martha to stop yelling at her sister. Martha was so worried about being the perfect host that she doesn’t listen to her guest. Her mind was on the wrong calculation.
The question isn’t how many. The question is do we have enough. And that is a completely different idea.
When Enough Isn’t Enough
When the senior warden came in, I praised God that I had prepared an extra. But then immediately worried that someone else may show up. Which has happened. And I break the small wafers and make them even smaller: the tiny piece of Jesus that ensures we all get some.
In this calculation, the one we make every week, we ensure that everyone gets some. I’m just not sure we always ensure that everyone gets enough.
When Enough Becomes Enough
Thank God that enough isn’t entirely under our control. Because we’d find a way to let the bean counters determine just how little it would take to ensure “enough” is reached. But Jesus doesn’t play that game.
Jesus has a different view of Enough.
To Jesus, enough is wasteful and ridiculous. Enough is breaking a jar of nard worth a year’s wages and using it on Jesus. All at once.
Enough is Jesus taking these great big barrels of water and turning it all into wine. Every gallon. Every drop. Enough wine to fill a thousand bottles. Way more than they needed, way better quality than they expected, way more miracle than the host deserved.
Even the water itself, used for ritual purification is transformed into abundance. Its very purpose becomes a new blessing. No longer just for purity, not just to satisfy the rules, not just the least we could get away with.
Enough.
And more than enough.
Enough for blessing, blessing us and everyone.
Enough for healing.
…for celebrating.
…and loving.
…for honoring.
…and giving.
The miracle isn’t just that Jesus turns water into wine. He turns the idea of “enough” into a measure of generosity, not carefulness.
Enough Fish
I’ve told some of you the story of the dueling Lenten fish fries. And let’s be honest, there is nothing more ironic than “fasting” for Lent with a fish fry.
This small town we were in had the old classic fish fry at the Catholic Church. It was an institution. The place was packed each Friday every Lent for three decades or more. We tried it out and noticed how many people they fed, how packed the room was.
When we got to the head of the line, they asked if we’d like “1 piece or 2” and then we could “come back for seconds after everyone else has eaten.” Now, I’m not bagging on them. This was a labor of love, but I didn’t eat my fill because the idea of going up for one piece at a time…well…it made me think other people needed the food more than I do. I thought of how much this costs and how poor this church was. “Don’t waste your generosity on me,” I thought. “I don’t deserve it.”
Another Choice
That same year, some friends started a fish fry at the VFW. They had just renovated their kitchen and were trying to host more events, so we thought we’d go support them. They handed me two clamshell containers for our two dinners and then started to fill them. Piece after piece. Side upon side. They filled two more clamshells for the other sides, two large bowls for the beans and two more for salads, and two small clamshells for the deserts.
These two dinners filled two big shopping bags. They didn’t ask. Just filled.
It was almost an insult to injury that even the fish tasted better.
The point isn’t that the Catholics were doing it wrong. There’s no wrong here. But seeing this as a matter of right and wrong is precisely that same scarcity mindset.
Jesus dares us to think differently.
And scandalously, he spoke to me through those beautiful people in the VFW Hall.
A Ridiculous Volume of Love
This is why Jesus doesn’t berate the host or guilt him into giving more: he’s got other plans.
He doesn’t write to complain about the service he received or make a big show of bailing the guy out. He does the opposite. He saves the man’s pride and gives with ridiculous generosity. He transforms the man’s stature by making him look like a generous giver in a world of cheapskates. When in reality, he made an unforgivable social faux pas of running out of wine.
So think about it.
We’re prone to cheapness and Jesus shows us generosity.
And
We’re likely to worry about how we look to one another and Jesus doesn’t shame the man.
But
We’re also worried about how generous we’re supposed to be (Do we forgive seven times, Jesus — No 77 times) and Jesus shows us an over-the-top completely ludicrous example of complete, unnecessary, unsupported, unnatural exuberance that makes the idea of counting seem petty.
How much wine to prepare? Are 7 bottles enough? No! 77 bottles, plus 923 more.
The True Blessing
The true gift Jesus gives us is that nothing we can do can seem half as ridiculous as this. We’re not called to measure our generosity. Just give it. Let it be holy. Let it be sacred. Give. No strings. No report card. Give. Share. Celebrate. Honor. Name. Pray. Offer. Show.
You have a blessing. Claim it. It’s undeserved. So what. Claim it anyway. It’s yours. God blesses you. Face it. Claim the love of God in Christ. It’s yours. God loves you.
But there’s way more blessing than we can ever consume by ourselves. Claim it anyway. Claim the love. And share it with reckless abandon and with all our heart.
And may we keep coming up with even more creative, ridiculous, and exuberantly generous offerings to our neighborhood.