Epiphany 3 2024

 Rev 19.6-10, John 2.1-11

There’s sometimes a danger in our worship for us to get a bit above ourselves, I think. Already today, for example, we’ve heard about great heavenly visions of ranks of angels. Our hymns and songs and prayers are full of grand language, the transformation of the world and so on. It’s stirring stuff but what is it all about in practical terms?

I don’t know what was on your mind as you came to church today, but my guess is that it wasn’t the redemption of the cosmos. It was more likely to be the Sunday lunch, or the deadline at work, or the children’s homework, or that tetchy conversation you had yesterday with a friend that you really ought to sort out.

Daily life for most of us, most of the time is small scale. For me it’s “have we got the right service sheets? Have the Messy Church glue sticks dried out?” Even if you do a genuine life-or-death job – like nurses or doctors – you probably find you spend a lot of time on things that seem trivial; box ticking and form-filling and having meetings that don’t really go anywhere. 

That’s why our Gospel reading today is such an important one. It’s a miracle, of course, so not exactly mundane, but it is a miracle which happens in very ordinary circumstances, to very ordinary people, at an ordinary wedding in an out of the way village in Galilee. In fact, most of those present don’t even know it has happened. “The steward tasted the water that had become wine and did not know where it came from” says John. Neither the newly-weds, nor their families, nor the vast majority of the guests have a clue that a miracle has taken place in their midst. If they were aware that there was a problem with the wine, they probably just assume someone has found an extra barrel hidden somewhere.

Apart from Jesus and his immediate circle it’s only the servants who know what is going on. “The servants who had drawn the water knew” John tells us. He puts it in brackets. It sounds like an aside, but actually it’s not. It’s one of the most important points in the story because it sets the tone not only for what Jesus does here, but for his whole ministry, which is primarily going to be focussed on people like these servants, the poor and overlooked. God almighty, the creator of heaven and earth, the Lord of time and eternity, the giver of all good things is at work in this wedding, but most people don’t spot it.

And what is this miracle for, anyway? What does it achieve? World peace? The overthrow of Roman rule? No, it just saves a family from the shame of having their wedding go down in village memory as the one where the wine ran out. In the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t seem to matter at all. But to that family at that moment, it mattered completely. Their happiness, their ability to hold up their heads in front of their neighbours – not just on that day but for ever afterwards - hinged on it.

This miracle is absolutely characteristic of the miracles of the New Testament. In the Old Testament, miracles are usually done on a grand scale and a very public stage, in the interests of national survival; the parting of the Red Sea, the Manna in the Wilderness, the fall of Jericho. That’s because the Old Testament was written by and for a nation trying to establish its identity. Its stories are mostly about kings and prophets, wars and alliances, national victories and defeats. There are domestic and small-scale stories too, like those of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, but these are people who will become founders of the nation, highly significant.

The focus In the New Testament is completely different. It was written by and for a persecuted minority – the early Christians – a tiny group of people, mostly poor, powerless and insignificant, like the servants at the at this wedding feast. People who would never be remembered by history, and who didn’t expect to be. But Jesus’ message, in words and actions, was that whoever you were, you mattered to God and your concerns were his concerns too. Jesus’ miracles are almost all done for people who are anonymous. Unnamed deaf people hear and blind people see, a woman with a haemorrhage which has kept her from being part of her society is healed, another who is bent double is enabled to stand upright and talk to her neighbours face to face again.  They have no obvious influence on the sweep of history. Jesus doesn’t provide miraculous wine for emperors and kings. He doesn’t meet King Herod and the Roman Governor until the last week of his life, and only then because they have dragged him before them to accuse him.  He heals and helps people because they need it, not because he hopes the to win them over to his cause. He doesn’t seem to worry about whether they will follow him afterwards or help to further his wider mission. He welcomes them if that happens, but it is their need, and his ability to meet it that really matters to him.

There are grand themes in his preaching, of course; the kingdom of God and the healing of humanity, but these things grow, says Jesus, from small and humble beginnings in the ordinary lives of ordinary people, people like us. A tiny speck of yeast, a mustard seed, a grain of wheat, says Jesus; this is where God’s work has to begin. The small things are, in the end, the big things. 

In my experience, too, the holiest places in our lives are often those that others might see as rather trivial – those pesky issues at work, the ups and downs of family life, whether we’ve got enough wine for the wedding – because these are the things that make a real difference to us, and through us to the lives of others too. These are the places where we can hurt, or heal, each other, where we can wrong others, or set those wrongs right, where we can lay good – or bad - foundations for the future.

I’d like to finish with a favourite poem by David Scott. It’s called “Letters from Baron Von Hugel to a Niece”. To understand it you need to know that Baron Von Hugel was a very much respected late 19th Century spiritual writer and guide. He is probably best known, though, for a series of letters he wrote to his beloved niece, a young woman who struggled with her health and eventually died young. 

His day was not really complete until

he sealed with a gentle middle finger

a letter to his niece, heralding the arrival

of books. It smelt of camphor. The advice 

was a comfort to her: “Give up Evensong,

and even if dying never strain.”

It was surprising counsel from one so scrupulous;

whose sharp pencil noted on both margins of a page,

and hovered, like a teacher’s, over spelling. 

Walking into Kensington with the letter,

his muffler tight against the frost,

he reassures himself that directing a soul

is not only a matter of angel’s talk, it is 

also the knack of catching the evening post.

“Catching the evening post” – a small thing but one which mattered. The small things are the big things, because in them we find God at work. Whatever concerns you brought to church with you today, if they matter to you they matter to God. And if you pay attention to them, who knows, you might find that they are the places where God is turning water into wine in your life, making it rich in love which can overflow to others.

Amen