On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. 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 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.” Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him (John 2:1-11).

So let me tell a funny story I heard from our friend, John. It borders on a joke, at least the way it starts: A mother, her Son, and his twelve disciples walk into a bar at Cana. They find a wedding reception underway, and the tipsy groom invites this motley crew to join them. Of course, they have to wait in the back where the servers and kitchen crew busy themselves, and sure enough, the wine runs out. 

Well, the Son just wants to hang out. He’s got big plans, wants to chill for the evening before taking his show on the road with his brand new crew of twelve. But Mom has other other ideas about this wine problem. She watched him with a very attentive, loving eye for about three decades. She saw things no other mother sees. Whenever she tries to tell people about this, of course, they just humor her and let her indulge her motherly bias. All mothers see something special in their children. That’s just sweet.

But Mom sees her chance to prove it at least to his new friends and the help nearby. She says to her Son, “They have no wine,” and he rolls his eyes. He long suspected that she figured out his powers. He regrets cleaning the whole house in a blink when surprise visitors arrived. Or the time the governor made an emergency order to produce and deliver 20 cabinets by morning: Maybe Jesus should not have constructed them with a waive of his hand while Joseph stepped out for a cigarette break to calm his nerves. But how could Jesus resist curing his brother James’s leprosy when the first white flakes appeared on his left hand? 

Those were emergencies. This is just a wedding in Cana and an awkward predicament for a groom they just met. If the Son does nothing, petty guests might give the guy grief, but someday he would laugh it off. 

But no, Mom has him cornered. A waiter and waitress stop complaining about rude customers and stare at him curiously. A cook with a greasy apron eyes him with a half grin. “Aw, Mom,” the Son groans.

After all, the time has come for a Son to move on and make his way in the world separate from parents and neighbors who think of him as Joseph and Mary’s gifted and talented but eccentric boy. Similarly, they celebrate a new beginning, a time when bride and groom take their longings into each other’s arms and start their own life together, their own family with a new life under a new name. But Mom seizes this time for others to see the truth of the Son after all these years. It is time for new wine.

Yet, the Son has his mind on another time: “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you?” Not a special question or a special rudeness for that matter for any mother to endure as her beloved Son stretches the bonds of childhood to break into adulthood. Then he adds something not so typical, one of those odd comments that earned him a reputation as a little bit, well, different: “My hour has not yet come.” The waiter furrows his brow. The waitress does too but with a cocked head because she thinks he’s kind of cute. The cook grins in mischievous anticipation of a mother-Son spat.

The Son is right, of course, as always. Everyone knows it but does not know what to do with it. Always spot on, his insights nevertheless leave questions with the same answer: Just follow me with your eyes and, if you dare, with your feet, and you will see.

“My hour has not yet come,” he says, and we follow him from Cana through the Gospel of John’s telling to that hour that nobody else anticipates here among wedding revelers, servers, and cooks. The hour arrives at Calvary as he hangs nailed on a cross saving the world. Yes, saving the world in the only way possible for such a world, a way nobody in the world can imagine or make up. He saves the world by taking upon himself our countless betrayals of him, this Son who was with God and was God, creating and naming and loving all things, all of us who long for him and betray him at the same time. He dies at our hands, and with his death, the sin that holds us in its grip dies too.

But just before he dies, he looks down at his mother who bears a pain that only those who see their child die can imagine. Also, he sees a friend, a beloved disciple, who bears the image of God, all the goodness in us that sin cannot touch, all the love and faithfulness that sin can hide but cannot kill. He addresses his mother as before at Cana, “Woman, here is your Son,” and his friend, “Here is your mother” (John 19:25b-27). In this his hour, he saves the world, you and I, from sin. He forms us into a family to carry on in the still clueless world, telling about his love, his power, the abundance of his gifts, still unseen unless one loves him as only a mother or a friend can.

Back at Cana, Mom is right too, and she presses the issue: “Do what he says,” she says to the waiters who now number about six, curiosity having drawn them around mother and Son. The Son knows she has a point. 

For now, too, is his hour, in the back of the bar in Cana or any place at any moment, always his hour, always his time. Yes, the very air we breathe, the very pulse that keeps us going, not to mention the very love we share or could share when really awake, all this means that his hour comes now. The humble ones in the back have a special eye for these things. So with a sidelong glance at her and a shake of his head, he grants Mom her wish.

He winks at the waitress and tells all six to use the large stone jars intended to hold the waters of purification, waters that make worshippers presentable to God, and fill them with water. So they do, and before the ripples flatten from the pouring, everyone sees the deep red and smells the rich new wine. The steward, the MC of the party, never knows what happened, just the mother, Son, his scruffy new friends, and the help. The steward, in both criticism and praise, declares that this groom saves the best wine until late in the party with everyone too crocked to appreciate it. The groom has no idea what he means. But oh well, bottoms up!

This was no emergency. No unexpected visitors, no late demands from the Roman governor, no brother with leprosy, no hour of humiliating, absurd death. But it all amounts to the same as the blessing and giving for adoption of a new son to a mother. A family forms in the grace and abundance of the Son who calls them.  The Spirit keeps them moving into each other’s lives and into a world that needs a taste of their joy. Where else but at a wedding? Where else but at the foot of the cross? What better time than the coming hour? What better time than now?

This sermon was delivered at St. James Episcopal Church, Cedartown, Georgia on Sunday, January 19, 2025.

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Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you (Matthew 5:9-12).

Image: “Marriage at Cana,” by Nikolai Mikhailovich Alekseyev Picryl, circa 1881, Public domain.