WHEN THE ORDINARY BECOMES THE
EXTRAORDINARY

February 9, 1992

8:30 and 11:00 a.m. Worship Services
John M. Buchanan

Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago

Scripture
John 2:1-11

“There was a wedding in Cana of Galilee...Jesus and his disciples
had been invited." , --John 2:1-2 (NRSV)

There is something about a wedding that stops us in our
tracks. We can't seem to resist it. When the bride and groom
emerge from the church, traffic slows down on Michigan Avenue,
Sidewalk pedestrians gather around to watch and to become, for a
moment, part of a wonderful occasion, when two people, ordinary
people actually, are quite extraordinary. No matter who they
are, where they are from, no matter what they normally look like,
no matter their size or shape or taste in clothes, at this moment
they look elegant. She is always beautiful, and so is he. There
is an instant in the wedding which only the wedding party and
clergy can see, when the bride appears in the narthex door at the
head of the aisle, and they see each other looking like this, and
everything they feel, everything they have tried to say to each
other, everything they hope for the future is in their hearts
which are fairly bursting. It's no wonder people cry at weddings
~ brides and grooms, attendants on both sides, mothers, fathers,
aunts, uncles, and friends, even the minister has to work hard to
maintain control. It is an extraordinary occasion.

And, because it is extraordinary, a lot can go wrong, and
usually does! There are hundreds of details, even for "simple
weddings" - an oxymoron if ever there was one. There is no such
thing as a "simple wedding."

It begins with arrangements for the church, clergy, music.
It includes reception, refreshments, caterers, florist and pho-
tographer. It is all enormously complicated ~- and expensive.
And then the real work begins - deciding who will be invited, a
negotiating process between two families, living in different
states, who don't know each other at all, who might not like each
other when they do become acquainted, whose only common ground is
the fact that their offspring love each other, and of course the
possibility that they may one day share grandchildren. It be-
comes precarious quickly.

~~ And then the time arrives and the possibility for. problems,
disaster even, becomes larger.and larger. On the day itself all’

= the planning, all the details must come quickly and simultaneous-

ly into focus. Everyone must show up at the same place at the
same time,. with the: appropriate attire on; and. like clockwork,

a florist, photographer, caterer and’ frequently the carriage driver —
must perform with. the punctuality of a major military. operation.

‘Alot can go wrong... Someone can forget the license or the-
-rings. -A favorite. aunt from New Hampshire can be late because
she couldn't understand why it should take so long to park the
-car near the church. .° Someone can faint. The weather can be
.. awful - too hot or too cold or too windy. The groom can decide
_ to step outside for a breath of fresh air at the last. minute and
terrifies all the people who are wondering if hé really will go
through with this. The matron-of-honor: who lives ina western
‘suburb can forget her dress, turn around and go back home to
retrieve it, get caught’ in an Eisenhower expressway traffic jam
-and..then, thanks. to ‘Ameritech, call ‘the receptionist every three
- minutes. to report on her location, who tells-the minister. who -
“tries discreetly to tell the organist, who long since “has com-
pleted the prelude music, to keep on playing, while the .congrega-
tion, knowing something is wrong, wonders if the worst has’ hap-

And then, the children, favorite nieces and* nephews, who
“became gorgeously attired if sometimes reluctant and’ very unhappy
flower. girls:and ring bearers, - Mostly they are wonderful.

_ Sometimes they look. down the aisle and say, "Not me! No way! I'm

not going! “Not today!" or get half way down and stop, or turn

~ around and go back, or’climb ina pew for a little rest; .or once
here, -wave~to-the crowd; sit down on the steps,--inspect the
chancel, climb up on’a’seat, help the minister by talking, and on
cone..occasion, throw up. a me eareras -

It is extraordinary.

‘And so it was in ‘a little village called Cana, nine miles
north of Nazareth, 2,000 years ago.. "There was a wedding...the

-- mother of Jesus was there...Jesus and his disciples had been —

invited." The historians can help us reconstruct the situation
because of what they know about the culture. A wedding began
-with =a =procession of: friends and family members, escorting the
‘bride to: the groom's house for the.wedding banquet. or: wedding
feast. Not: unlike our own custom, close friends, neighbors and
_ all the relatives were there. The fact that Jesus, his: disciples
‘and his mother were*there. suggests that this was perhaps a rela-
tive of Mary's ~-her sister's home; the groom - her nephew. The
wedding: feast continued for a week. There was a lot:.of eating
and drinking, laughing, storytelling, toasting and well-wishing,

children playing with cousins, a real celebration.

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The custom was that invited guests brought wine to help the
groom's family who were responsible for the food and refresh-
ments. And it has been seriously suggested that the disaster
which is about to happen at this wedding happened because Jesus
and his friends, being poor, didn't bring any wine and known, as
they were known apparently, for their eating.and drinking, they
had helped drink up the supply of wine, even before the party was
over. Whatever the cause, it is a major disaster. The wine is
gone and the guests aren't. The groom is angry, the father is
embarrassed, his mother is frantic, the bride is in tears. Mary,
maybe an aunt, sees it all happen, considers the alternatives,
turns to her son and says, in effect, "Do something." And if the
assumptions are correct about why the wine ran out in the first
place, what she is really saying is "you and your friends caused
this problem, you solve it..." which is perhaps why he first
refuses and then changes his mind.

"Fill the jars" - the ones in the foyer which hold the water
for guests to wash their hands - six of them. "Fill them up to
the top" - 20 gallons each.. And when the caterer samples the
content, ordinary well water has become fine wine, so good that
in a kind of inside joke, he makes a crack about bringing out the
good wine now, after the party is well under way and no one will
much notice the difference.

What happened? That's our question. It's not the right
one, but it's ours.

c.S. Lewis, in his little book on the miracles said, "Every
year, as part of the natural order, God makes wine. God does so
by creating a vegetable organism that can turn water, soil and
sunlight, into a juice which will, under proper conditions,

became wine. God constantly turns water into wine... The miracle
consists in a short cut." (Miracles, p. 141] The author, the re-
porter, who is telling the story calls it a "sign." That inten-

tionally directs us from the mechanics to the meaning, tells us
at the outset that the whole point of the story is the "sign" and
what it is pointing to. or, as one writer asks it, "Was the
water really turned into wine, or did it just taste that way
because Jesus was there,...when Jesus was there even the ordinary

was apt to turn extraordinary." [Frederick Buechner, A Room
Called Remember, p. 68]

That's the point, I believe with Jesus factored in, the
ordinary becomes extraordinary, water becomes wine and a disaster
turns into a celebration. When Jesus the Christ is present,
ordinary men and women become extraordinary - like the accountant
and school teacher standing in front of us, beautiful and ele-
gant, in tuxedo and white gown, you and I become something un-
likély and unheard of actually - honored, valued, desired guests
at an abundant heavenly banquet...God's guests. That's what the

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sign points to - to Jesus, God's son, God's Christ, who has the
power and the authority and the love to do that.

Think of it. John the Baptist, out in the desert in his
loin cloth eating locusts, with whom.Jesus was always compared,
wouldn't have been caught dead at that wedding. Nor. would many
people who wish to be his disciple today. Catholic. scholar
Raymond Brown observes, in a studied understatement, "Many feel
uneasy with the implication that Jesus changed 120 gallons of
water into wine." [The Gospel According to Jad, Vol. I, p. 100]
I'll say! But the sign is pointing to a Lord whose Lordship is
precisely his ability to create the extraordinary out of the
ordinary, who takes a very human occasion crowded with human
frailty, pettiness, love and hope, and makes of it a holy occa-
sion. The sign points to a man who doesn't know the difference
‘between the secular and the sacred, who finds holiness in the
commonplace, who sees God in the love parents have for their
prodigal child, and in an old woman's generosity and a shepherd's
loyaity to his sheep. The sign points to a Christ who doesn't
know he's supposed to begin his ministry in the temple, not a
week-long party, or at least that he's supposed to teach, preach
and moralize, not create 120 gallons of wine to keep the party
going. Extraordinary.

The secularism of our culture is not the denial of God, but
an insistence that God stay in the places and times assigned to
God.

Secularism is not the denial of religion so much as it is a
determined confinement of religion to its assigned place and role
in society. And here is God's Christ saying that all of life,
not just religion, is the arena of God's activity and love and
judgment and grace.

<< > Soren Kierkegaard said_somewhere that while Jesus turned

water into wine his people Seem determined to turn the wine back
into water. That is to say to confine the liberating, forgiving,
renewing love of God to a Sunday morning religion - which is
often grim and without obvious relevance to the rest of life.
The sign points to the truth, the word from God, that joy, cele-
bration, life and love, humanity are the order of the day; that
God's love penetrates all of life and can transform anything, any
situation, into an occasion of gratitude, laughter and celebra-
tion.

One of the consistent images of God's kingdom on earth, from
beginning to end, from the elders of Israel sitting outside their
Bedouin tents eating the meal of the Passover, to the early
Christian Church hiding behind locked: doors..eating- a: love feast,
to.the time beyond time when God gathers up all human history and
everybody sits down at the banquet table of heaven. Throughout

. the image is the meal, the feast, the glad celebration, the table

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at which food and wine is abundant and at which there is a place
for everyone.

Jesus began his ministry at Cana, began to live out the
truth about God, about life, not in the temple, because not
.everybody was welcome there. Lots of ordinary people couldn't
get in. The women and the children only got so far. The lame
and blind, the unclean and impure, the sinners were outside, so
were people of other races. Jesus, God's Christ, started to live
out the truth at a wedding, a family celebration which called
together and embraced and affirmed each of its members. No one
was excluded and when the celebration slowed down, it was he -
Jesus the Christ - who provided a way for it to continue.

So no matter who your are, no matter how ordinary you think
you are, you are made extraordinary by the hospitality of Jesus.
No matter how rich or poor, male or female, young or old, no
matter what the color of your skin, no matter whether the culture
Says you are "OK" or "not OK," clean or unclean, you are an
honored guest at this feast.

James Forbes, who preached here last Sunday, told a group of

ministers about how it was in his childhood. There were eight
children. His busy mother didn't even try to count at meal time.
Instead she asked "Who's not here - get him a plateful." No one

could begin until there was food on the plate and a place at the
table for each of her children.

The sign of Cana is that there is a place at the table of
the Lord, a place in God's love and grace for everyone, each of
us, ordinary men and women, invited in, transformed by God's
love, into something quite extraordinary - a guest at the banquet
of heaven.

"Jesus did this," the Bible says, "the first of his signs,
in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples be-
lieved in him." ,

Amen.

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