Prov. 3:10; John 2:1-11  “It Wasn’t Grape Juice”  1/14/07 Ordination Sunday

            This is a true story.  In the early 1800’s the Indiantown Presbyterian Church in Williamsburg County, S.C. outlawed dancing.  It was seen as a sin that incited the emotions of people.  An elder in the church disagreed on the vote.  He pointed out that David danced.  He said that sometimes you can dance by yourself.  In fact, he went out the next Saturday night and purposefully danced in front of some other church members.  The next Sunday the elders convened and brought the other elder up on disciplinary charges of not listening to the brothers and sisters of the church.  The next week the elder went to the main crossroads of that community, and danced by himself for about an hour.  A few months later, the charges against the elder were dropped, the elder returned to church, and the community was calm again.  The church had not seen such excitement since thirty years earlier when the British burned down the first church building.  I am not sure it has seen such excitement since.  The Presbyterian elder made a point.  The point was we do not need to add moral rules to the scripture and expect everyone to keep them. 

            This passage about Cana has special meaning for me.  Kay and I were able to go to Israel on our twentieth wedding anniversary, and we vowed our vows again in Cana, where Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding.  This was the very first miracle of Jesus, and to our American ears, it seems like a foreign thing to do.  Why would his first miracle be turning water into wine?  Eighty six years ago this week the United States prohibition against possession, selling, and transporting alcohol passed and last thirteen years.  Jesus didn’t get the message of prohibition, because apparently he was a wine maker.  I had a seminary professor once tell me that Jesus really didn’t turn the water into wine, but he turned it into grape juice.  But non-fermented grape juice didn’t last in that area long, and the steward commented that the wine was not just good, it was the best.  More than that, wine in the Bible is not a symbol of drunkenness, but of God’s abundance, provision and joy.   

            There are a couple of things that we should learn from this passage in which Jesus began to reveal who he really was.  One is that Jesus cares about human relationships.  Marriage is a wonderful human relationship, and Jesus blessed this institution by his attendance at this wedding, but also his helping to add to its refreshment and joy.  Jesus spoke of marriage often, and spoke of it as between a man and a woman- saying that a man should leave his mother and father and cleave unto his wife.  The word wife is feminine.  Jesus  did not call divorce the unforgivable sin, but he also protected marriage by saying that divorce should not be for trivial reasons.  Jesus was concerned that people get along in marriage and outside of marriage.  Some of his greatest sayings are about interpersonal relationships- turn the other cheek; love thy neighbor as thyself; forgive your brother not just seven times but seventy times seven.  One of his greatest concerns was human love.  One of the reasons we have deacons to lead us is that they are to care for those who are in need- giving pastoral care.  They visit the shut-ins, the sick, the infirm.  Our elders and deacons pray for those who are hurting, but also for those celebrating the birth of babies, or who are about to get married. 

            Jesus never told us to not dance or not drink wine or to take a vow of poverty or celibacy for our lives.  However, the Bible has a lot about not overdoing almost anything.  Joy is found not in over-indulging but in the moderate enjoying of the gifts God has given us.  Jesus came not to give us water and bread.  He gave us joy.  He said he came to give us the abundant life.  The abundant life does not depend on what you eat or drink or watch.  It depends on what really is inside of you.  If you are looking to add more joy to your life in 2007, the answer is found in the God who gives joy, and the One who turned plain old water into great tasting wine.

That’s what he can do with our plain old lives, that tend to lose their flavor, their hope, and tend to get stuck into ruts and routines.  I do not know about you who were ordained today, but I can tell you that my life since my ordination has been anything but dull.  This is Martin Luther King weekend.  I do not mind telling you that I grew up in the south hearing a lot of bad things said about Martin Luther King.  I still remember the day he died.  We were coming back from Lake Murray on a fishing trip when someone dropped a brick on an overpass of I-126 onto our windshield because we were white.  But Rev. King would not have condoned that.  I have to say compared to Malcolm X and the black muslims, Martin Luther King was a great blessing.  Malcom X preached violence and revolution, while King preached non-violence and changing the legal system.  He wasn’t perfect- no prophet, no preacher, no person is.  His words made your ears tingle.  But when he came to Montgomery Alabama, he was just trying to be a minister, not a trouble maker.  The bus boycott of Rosa Parks began and the United States is not the same.  Answering the call of God means responding to God’s providence around you with boldness and grace. 

            Jesus ministry began with his baptism, but his ministry in earnest began with his first miracle, when people began to notice him.   Jesus ministry was really a response to human need.  WE had a need for a miracle.  When I say that I mean that you and I needed Jesus to turn that water into wine, just as much as the people at that wedding party.  We needed him to get going and do something about the lack of joy and lack of hope in the world.  He seemed a bit reluctant to do it at first, but his mother helped him to get out of the nest and start flying.  She helped him answer his call to ministry.  We are the ones who have run out of wine, joy, hope, laughter.  We are the ones who need a Savior to help us get rid of the guilt in our lives that’s like a ball and chain around us.  We are the one who need someone to answer our prayers with a miracle.  We need a reason to hope beyond the grave- we need a resurrection.   

            Jesus described the kingdom of God.  One of his favorite images was a wedding banquet- a reception dinner.  It’s like the biggest party you ever have.  One minister said that Presbyterians take this idea of banquet literally—wherever two or three Presbyterians gather together- a chicken dies!”  But our Christian life is like a wedding banquet- full of joy, dancing, reunions, friends, hope for the future, little worries about the problems of life.  Maybe your life is not like that.  Oh, I don’t mean that once you become a Christian all your problems disappear.  I know they do not.  But I do mean that there is a joy that cannot, CANNOT be taken away by the problems of this life.  The joy of the Lord is our strength. 

            The kingdom of God, Jesus said is like wine.  But you don’t put the new wine into old wineskins.”  The kingdom of God is growing and changing like new wine that is expanding.  Old wineskins are stiff and brittle.  The church is never supposed to cold, hard, tough, sour, bitter, it is full of the abundant life, the joy of the Lord. Taste and see this.  You new elders and deacons, taste and see that the Lord is good while you minister.  Do not answer this calling without calling out to God for strength, wisdom, and joy. 
            One minister who preached at this church years ago told an interesting story about seeing the Queen Mary on the west coast.  He said that when he went there the people on the ship were all actors- the crew, the cooks, the captain.  The actor/captain said, “The greatest ship that went to sea is now the greatest ship to come to see.”  This great ship is now a museum.  If the church of Christ does not learn to continue to be the great light yet adapt that light, we will be like a museum.  They have turned a lot of magnificent church buildings into museums in Europe.  You who are elders and deacons are called to steer this great ship of the church through the waters into a place of growth and joy.  We need to make sure that we find fresh new ways to tell the old, old story.  Not to change is to die.  70%  of the companies that were in the Fortune 500 in 1955 don’t exist today.  One of the things that appealed to me about Lake Murray Presbyterian Church was the willingness of the church to try new things.  I hope we will continue to do that for the sake of the gospel.  The old way is when we give out of wine, start drinking water.  The new way is when we give out of wine, expect the Lord to provide more—nothing is impossible with God.

            My last church was called Georgetown Presbyterian Church.  Many wanted to call it First Presbyterian Church in Georgetown.  But that was not so.  The first Presbyterian Church in Georgetown was started in 1706 and died in 1810.  It moved out to the river 20 miles inland where people traded and got away from malaria.  But when the people of the area moved back to town, the church stayed out there and refused to move.  They did have the best building around- but the problem was no one lived there anymore.  The church died about 80 years later.  It was 100 years before there was another Presbyterian Church started in Georgetown county.  I hope that we will learn a lesson from that old church that died.  I hope we will not settle for drinking water when Jesus is alive and around.  As we begin 2007, my hopes are strong and bright for our future here as a congregation.   I think we are like Mary standing beside Jesus.  Jesus, we need you to do something for us.  Come turn our water into wine, our plainness into joy.