Patrick Comerford
The celebrations of Epiphany-tide continue today, the Third Sunday of Epiphany (21 January 2024), which is also the fourth day of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Christmas is a season that lasts for 40 days that continues from Christmas Day (25 December) to Candlemas or the Feast of the Presentation (2 February).
Later this morning, I hope to sing with the choir at the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church in Stony Stratford. But, before today begins, I am taking some time for reflection, reading and prayer.
Today’s Gospel reading tells of the Wedding at Cana, one of the traditional Epiphany stories, and Charlotte and I chose this as the Gospel reading at our wedding celebration in the Harvard Chapel in Southwark Cathedral.
In keeping with the theme of today’s Gospel reading, my reflections each morning throughout the seven days of this week include:
1, A reflection on one of seven meals Jesus has with family, friends or disciples;
2, the Gospel reading of the day;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary.
1, The Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2: 1-12):
The Wedding at Cana (John 2: 1-12) is one of the traditional Gospel readings during Epiphany-tide, and is the first of the signs in the Fourth Gospel.
Along with the Visit of the Magi (Matthew 2: 1-12, 6 January 2024, The Epiphany), and the Baptism of Christ by Saint John the Baptist (John 1: 29-34, 7 January 2024), these three themes at Epiphany tell us who Christ truly is: truly God and truly human.
This morning’s Gospel story is so familiar that we forget what its first impact may have been.
The saying about serving the good wine first is so well known that we forget that this is not what happens at all.
Sometimes, we convince ourselves that at this wedding in Cana they plan to first serve the good wine, and then when people are drunk they can put up with cheap plonk.
Not so.
Think of how many festive meals finish with the good wine.
I was surprised rummaging around after Christmas some years ago to find two bottles of fine port I had forgotten about: one from Portugal and one from the cellars of Sidney Sussex College, Cambridge. Beside them was a good bottle of desert wine that I had received as a present in Greece. They were such appropriate ways that year to finish off some good meals and celebrations at Christmas and the New Year.
No good wedding would finish without opening the champagne to toast the happy couple.
In Greece and in other parts of the Mediterranean, where wedding celebrations can last for a few days, perhaps even three days, the good wine comes out at the end, to toast the couple and to send the guests away knowing they have been welcome.
And this wedding story is about one other, long, weekend wedding, like so many that Jesus and the Disciples must have enjoyed.
Because he enjoyed a good wedding, Jesus uses the wedding banquet as an image of the Kingdom in two other Gospels (see Matthew 22: 1-14; Luke 14: 15-24), and it helps to understand why he is referred to as the bridegroom at least 14 times in the New Testament (e.g., see Matthew 9: 14-15; Matthew 25: 1-13; Mark 2: 18-20; Luke 5: 33-35; John 3: 29; Revelation 18: 23; Revelation 19: 9; Revelation 21: 2).
As with all good wedding stories, we might expect today’s Gospel story to be one about love, and one in which they all live happily ever after.
Imagine the happy couple who turn up for this wedding. This should be their great day. People have come from far and wide to celebrate with them. And, in good Mediterranean fashion, after two or three days, when everyone is about to go, there is a last dance, and a last toast: to the Bride and Groom. Or, so it was planned.
But before they get to that stage, the wine gives out (verse 3).
Is this because everyone has had too much to drink? Is it because the groom, despite expectations, did not buy enough wine? Or, is it because the groom has bought enough wine, but someone is siphoning it off, hoping everyone is going to be too drunk to notice?
It is an embarrassing occasion. But for whom?
Certainly for Mary, she takes action immediately. You can just picture her as the concerned aunt, like so many aunts at a wedding, not wanting her nephew or his new wife to be embarrassed.
But it is not embarrassing for Jesus. Nor is it embarrassing for the servants either. They seem to have done just what they were told to do.
Wine fraud is one of the oldest frauds in the world. Perhaps the finger of suspicion points at the chief steward, the master of the feast, the ἀρχιτρίκλινος (architríklinos) in verses 8-10. He has not been paying attention to what has been going on. At best, he has been negligent, at worst he was complicit, perhaps even the organiser.
Have the newly-wed couple and their guests, and their servants too, been the victims of a smart con trick by the chief steward? Is he inefficient? Does he not realise what is going on? Did he not buy all the wine that he charged for? Or, perhaps, has he been siphoning off the wine?
He is certainly not a model of probity as a wedding planner, avoiding some potentially tough questions when he claims dismissively: ‘Everyone serves the good wine first’ (verse 10).
That is patently not so. And he never even asks where the wine comes from. He just accepts that it is there. Perhaps he suspects he has been caught out.
I can see him throwing his arms up in the air, denying responsibility and trying to shift the blame onto someone, anyone, else. He seems to behave in a way like senior management in the Post Office shifted the blame for system failures onto sub-postmasters.
In his column in the Church Times this weekend (19 January 2024), Paul Vallely writes about ‘the Patronising Disposition of Unaccountable Power.’ He says ‘barely a month goes by’ without seeing examples ‘of the disregard of those in power for ordinary people.’
He continues: ‘This week it was the victims of child sexual exploitation in Rochdale. Last week, it was the sub-postmasters … Before that, it was teachers bullied by Ofsted inspectors, one so severely that she took her own life … Then there were the survivors of the Grenfell Tower inferno, the Windrush scandal, and the contaminated blood scandal.
‘The common factor in all these cases is an arrogant disdain for those whom they are supposed to serve. There is an all-too-familiar pattern of denial, cover-up, and deceit – and a default response, above all else, to protect the reputations of powerful individuals and institutions … It is only the prospect of a General Election later this year that has temporarily brought those in power to public account.’
So often in life, ordinary people are cheated out of what is theirs, deprived of what they are entitled to, left without hope.
The ‘Queen of Mean,’ the late Leona Helmsley (1920-2007), once said when she was on trial for tax evasion: ‘Only the little people pay taxes’ (1989). So often in life, it is ‘the little people’ who pay their taxes, and pay the price when it comes to cuts in public services, the collapse of banks, inadequate finding for the NHS, schools and public transport, or bear the brunt when it comes to floods, natural disasters and the consequences of war and climate change. There are no heads of state or CEOs from large multinationals among the refugees seeking asylum in Europe today or risking deportation to Rwanda under the latest legislation.
Imagine the embarrassment of the couple who are among ‘the little people’ and who are cheated out of the toast to the bride and the groom at the very end of their wedding celebrations.
But Christ is with us at the moments when we feel cheated of our hopes for the future.
As for that wedding at Cana, as with all good stories, we might well ask: Did they live happily ever after?
Well, the lectionary compilers end this story at verse 11. But the next verse, verse 12, says: ‘After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there a few days.’
They go to the wedding together, and they go back together, but things have changed. After the wedding, someone is a new brother-in-law, a new sister-in-law, is going to be a new aunt or a new uncle. In time to come, a new family is structured.
It was a long walk back: 27 km (18 miles), and in the conditions of the time it would have taken a good day’s walk or longer.
What did they talk about on that long walk? Was that your cousin? Is she your new sister-in-law? Who did he dance with? Will they fall in love? Are they really in love?
When we publicly show our love for one another, when we form new families, when we allow the ripples of love to spread out in ways that we cannot control, in ways in which we lose control, then we are truly partners with God in creating the Kingdom of God.
Even if the couple at Cana broke up afterwards, grandparents would continue to share the same grandchildren.
We make family at weddings, but we cannot control family. When we go to family weddings, we have no choice about who is going to be a new brother-in-law, or who nieces or nephews decide to marry; we certainly have no say about who our grandparents were, the decisions they made or the way they behaved. And that is so for the generations to come too.
I imagine the Kingdom of God is like that. Those who are invited to the heavenly banquet are going to include people I at first may be uncomfortable to sit with at the same table. But I am not the host, I am the guest, and the invitations are sent out into the side-streets and the alleyways (Matthew 22: 9-10). ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb’ (Revelation 19: 9).
I cannot choose who is invited to the wedding, but I can accept the invitation to the meal, and the invitation to be part of the new family, the kingdom.
And if we accept the invitation, we have no right to pick and choose, to discriminate against my fellow guests, to cheat them out of their place at the table, to refuse to eat and drink with them.
It was a common in Jewish thinking and imagery at the time to speak of wedding banquets as a foretaste of God’s heavenly promises. The Mishnah says: ‘This world is like a lobby before the World-To-Come. Prepare yourself in the lobby so that you may enter the banquet hall.’
But then, so often throughout the Gospels, we find that great meals and wedding banquets provide a foretaste of the Heavenly Banquet.
We are invited; but are we ready, are we prepared, to be wedding guests? (see Matthew 22: 1-14; Luke 14: 15-24). Think of the Ten Bridesmaids, and how the foolish ones are not ready when the bridegroom arrives (Matthew 25: 1-13).
On the other hand, plush dining can also tell us a lot about what the Kingdom of God is not like. Consider the story of the rich man, who dined sumptuously and alone, and left the starving, sick and dying Lazarus to go hungry at his gate (Luke 16: 19-31). This is not what the Kingdom of God is like, as Dives finds out. But he finds out when it is too late for his own good.
The great Biblical meals celebrate not only what was, as with the Passover, but what is, in the present, and what is to come, as with the wedding banquets – new promises, new covenants, new families, new expectations, new hopes.
John 2: 1-11 [12] (NRSVA):
1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 4 And Jesus said to her, ‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.’ 5 His mother said to the servants, ‘Do whatever he tells you.’ 6 Now standing there were six stone water-jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, ‘Fill the jars with water.’ And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 9 When 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 10 and 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.’ 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.
[12 After this he went down to Capernaum with his mother, his brothers, and his disciples; and they remained there for a few days.]
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 21 January 2024):
The theme this week in ‘Pray With the World Church,’ the Prayer Diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is: ‘Provincial Programme on Capacity Building in Paraná.’ This theme is introduced today by Christina Takatsu Winnischofer, Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil:
The Province of Brazil programme this year is supporting the capacity building of clergy and lay people in the Anglican Missionary District (DMA) and the Anglican Diocese of Paraná (DAPAR), aiming to expand the church in both areas. DMA is an area made up of three states in the west of the country, and DAPAR covers the area of the state of Paraná in the south of Brazil.
Through different trainings and meetings, the church is deepening its reflection on personal and community commitments to the mission. By raising awareness of the role and responsibilities of Anglican Christians and providing the tools needed, the church intends to face the challenges of the Brazilian context on the many missionary fronts.
In each area, the communities have very diverse backgrounds; however, DMA and DAPAR are heavily involved in activities for social justice – supporting youth, women, landless and indigenous people. For the sustainability of these projects, more labour force is needed, not only technical professionals but leaders that understand the Gospel call.
The USPG Prayer Diary today (21 January 2024) invites us to pray reflecting on these words:
Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And surely, I am with you always, to the very end of the age (Matthew 28:19-20).
The Collect:
Almighty God,
whose Son revealed in signs and miracles
the wonder of your saving presence:
renew your people with your heavenly grace,
and in all our weakness
sustain us by your mighty power;
through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord,
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Almighty Father,
whose Son our Saviour Jesus Christ is the light of the world:
may your people,
illumined by your word and sacraments,
shine with the radiance of his glory,
that he may be known, worshipped, and obeyed
to the ends of the earth;
for he is alive and reigns, now and for ever.
Additional Collect:
God of all mercy,
your Son proclaimed good news to the poor,
release to the captives,
and freedom to the oppressed:
anoint us with your Holy Spirit
and set all your people free
to praise you in Christ our Lord.
Yesterday’s reflection (Saint Jude)
Continued tomorrow (The feeding of the multitude)
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995, National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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