January 20 sermon: Why Wine?

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)

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     Being a bit of a science fiction buff, I love stories about time travel. My favourite Star Trek episodes were always the ones where Captain Kirk or Captain Picard found themselves in a different time trying desperately to fit in to a strange culture, sometimes even doing things that would change history – things that would have to be corrected somehow or everything they knew would change and maybe they themselves would cease to exist. I love the story “The Time Machine” by H.G. Wells, as the Time Traveller fast forwards more than 800,000 years in time and confronts a nightmare of a future earth. I sometimes wonder – if I had the ability to travel either backward or forward in time, would I actually want to do it, and if I did it, what would I want to do, what would I want to see and who would I want to meet? As I considered the Gospel reading for this week – the story of Jesus turning water into wine – it occurred to me that one person I’d like to sit down and have an in depth chat with if I could go back to the late 19th century is Letitia Youmans.

     That name might not be familiar to you, but she’s one of those people who are largely unknown but who played a significant role in history – both the history of society and the history of the church. Letitia Youmans was basically the leader of an organization that eventually came to be known as the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The WCTU was absolutely and totally opposed to Christians drinking alcohol of any kind. It was the WCTU that caused many churches to start using grape juice instead of wine at Communion services. The WCTU explained that wine contained “the narcotic poison, alcohol, which cannot truly represent the blood of Christ.” The reason I’d love to sit down with Letitia Youmans is because I’d really like to get her take about this Gospel passage in which Jesus acts (for lack of a better word) as a vintner; a maker of wine. Perhaps that’s the reason that this passage often gets overlooked when we consider the great events and miracles of Jesus’ life. We know, of course, that this is his first miracle. The story tells us that. But then we don’t think too much about it. A hint of how beloved a Scripture passage is can be found in how many times a hymn writer chooses imagery from a passage as the basis of a hymn. Voices United has almost 900 hymns in it and do you want to know how many of those 900 hymns refer to this event? Exactly 1! There’s one in More Voices. We’re singing both today. And in all the research I’ve done I’ve only come across one other hymn that refers to Jesus turning water into wine – one written in 1973. This passage often gets ignored, because even in today’s world the image of Jesus as a party-goer and connoisseur of wine seems awkward. But that’s how this passage portrays Jesus. Jesus, his mother and some of his disciples were at a party. They had been invited to what we today would call a wedding reception. And we, the church, aren’t really too sure what to make of a party-going Jesus who makes sure that there’s enough wine for the guests.

     I have to admit myself that this seems to be a strange way for Jesus to reveal his miracle-making ability. I mean – why not calm a storm as the first miracle? Or feed the hungry? Or heal a sick person? Or raise a dead person? Or walk on water? Why not do something really dramatic that future generations of Christians wouldn’t feel at all squeamish about commemorating with songs? Somehow, we expect more of Jesus; better of Jesus. Because – honestly – this is the Son of God! This is God in the Flesh! And he goes to a party and turns water into wine. I suppose it reveals his power well enough. I mean, people don’t turn water into wine. Water is water and wine is wine. You can turn water into something that looks like wine. To do that you need sodium carbonate and a chemical called phenolphthalein. . I doubt that Jesus had access to either in Palestine 2000 years ago and in any event you can’t really drink the stuff made with water, sodium carbonate and phenolphthalein. But the host of the party said that what Jesus had created was the best wine! It was wine – alcohol and all! It’s a dramatic revelation of Jesus’ power, but still – it comes across as a little bit like a parlour trick. It seems like something a magician might pull off. At worst, it seems mundane and pedestrian; unimportant and insignificant. To be honest, I can imagine myself asking, “so what?” So Jesus turned water into wine. So what? It’s dramatic – but what did it really accomplish? What good did it do? What noble purpose did it serve?

     By the time Jesus’ life ends, of course, he’s accomplished a lot and he’s done a lot of good. By the time Jesus’ life ended he had in fact calmed a storm, and fed the hungry, and healed the sick, and raised the dead, and walked on water. But it all started with this curious little miracle of seemingly little importance that seems to have accomplished little of significance except to make a party a big success. Think about that. Jesus’ first miracle was to save a party that had been going downhill because the host ran out of wine. Strange. But you know what? The more I thought about this the more I started to wonder if this might not be just the first miracle of Jesus – but also his most important miracle of all! Not the most dramatic. Not the most helpful. Not the one that touched the most people. But, just maybe, the most important.

     By saving a party that was going nowhere fast because there was no wine, doesn’t Jesus essentially associate himself with the mundane and unimportant things of everyday life? And if Jesus was God in the flesh, doesn’t that tell us something about God? Maybe the first miracle had to be something quite unimportant and even trivial, because if Jesus had started with something big, perhaps the implication would have been that God only cares about the big things in life – and in everything else we’re on our own. We see that idea expressed often. When a football player prays before a game or gives thanks to God after the game, people say “Get real! God doesn’t care about a football game!” Maybe some of you have thought that yourself. But think again. If God cared about a party, God probably cares about the football game. Do you know why God cared about the party? Because God’s people who were at the party cared about the party! Do you know why God cares about the football game? Because God’s people who were at the football game cared about the football game! We seem to want to limit God to only the biggest and most earth-shattering things. Healing the sick and raising the dead by all means! Feeding the hungry and caring for the poor? Absolutely! The particular troubles and trials and tribulations and nuisances and grievances and petty irritations that I’m going through right at this very moment? Of course – because they’re my troubles and trials and tribulations and nuisances and grievances and petty irritations – and that makes them important. But saving a party? Or blessing a football player? Say it ain’t so. It can’t be. But I want to ask – why can’t it be?

     Did Jesus not say, “I am with you always ...” He didn’t say “I’ll be with you only when you face your biggest challenges.” He didn’t say “I’m with you only for the most important things.” He said “I am with you always ...” The miracle of turning water into wine at the wedding at Cana is a sign to us of God’s presence in the everyday things of life that so many people want to think of as off limits to God because God should only care about the most important things of life – as if God’s attention span was as short as ours; as if God were incapable of multi-tasking.

     I will confess to you that in one sense I really couldn’t care less that Jesus turned water into wine. I don’t much care for wine. I really don’t. It’s not a temperance issue. I just don’t care much for wine. I really don’t much like the taste of the stuff. And to be honest I don’t care if it’s a $5 bottle of plonk or a $200 imported French wine – it’s foul tasting liquid to me. Some people drink wine and speak about the aroma or the bouquet or the hints of this and that flavour. I just kind of stifle a shudder as it goes down, and to my taste buds wine will always just be wine. No – I’ll never be a wine connoisseur, so I suppose this miracle fizzles a little bit for me. Until I think about it. If Jesus cared this much about saving a party, how much does he care about the admittedly trivial things that sometimes get to me? In the light of this miracle, is there anything so inconsequential that I can’t “take it to Jesus,” so to speak? The wedding at Cana tells me that, no, there isn’t. From the big things to the small things – Jesus cares. From the earth-changing and life-changing events to the things that just don’t much matter and are barely remembered an hour later, Jesus cares. To me that’s the message of this story, and that’s the point of this being Jesus’ first miracle. It’s to make sure that we understand that Jesus really does care about it all. And, ultimately, this is really just a small start to a bigger miracle. As Alyce McKenzie wrote, “At Cana, the gift is wine. It propels us forward to the hour when the gift will be new life.”

January 13 sermon: The Third Baptism

As the people were filled with expectation, and all were questioning in their hearts concerning John, whether he might be the Messiah, John answered all of them by saying, “I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” … Now when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

(Luke 3:15-17, 21-22)

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     We’ve probably all heard the phrase “baptized by fire.” It’s pretty common. To say that someone has been “baptized by fire” means that they have had their ability to handle a new situation tested to the limit. “If you can handle this, you can handle anything,” is basically the message. Baptism by fire has become such a common catch-phrase in the English language that it’s entirely possible that most people who use it don’t even realize the biblical roots of the phrase, and, because we forget the biblical roots of the phrase, I take it as a given that we don’t really understand the biblical meaning of the phrase, but the concept of baptism with fire has a deep significance to our Christian lives, and it’s important for us to understand this powerful Christian phrase, and we begin to do so by putting the passage we just read into its proper context.

     As this passage began, we find that John the Baptist had gained a significant following of his own. He had been engaging in a ministry of water baptism, immersing people in the Jordan River as a symbolic way of cleansing them from their sins and allowing them to begin a new life devoted to God without the burden of guilt weighing them down. Aside from baptism, John was also preaching – he was proclaiming a message of repentance and judgment to people who had become disenchanted with their country, their society, their political institutions and their religious leaders. Do you see any similarities with our own generation? People were looking for options. They wanted to find something different and they firmly believed that God was going to act to bring something new about. They believed that God was going to send them their Messiah, who would right the wrongs of the world around them, and into that milieu stepped John the Baptist, preaching a message that touched the hearts of those who heard him because he denounced those things that the people had become so disillusioned with. He wasn’t hesitant to take on anyone he saw as responsible for the condition of society, regardless of who they were or how much power they had or what positions in society they held, and the people responded to John the Baptist’s message and, not surprisingly in the circumstances, many began to think that – just maybe – John was the promised Messiah.

     Well, John was not the Messiah, of course. He knew that, and he never claimed otherwise. He simply told the people that they would have to look for someone else. He said to them, ““I baptize you with water; but one who is more powerful than I is coming; I am not worthy to untie the thong of his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” The people surely wondered what John could possibly have meant, because the only baptism they had ever heard of was water baptism. Many people probably still wonder about this. Most Christian churches place their emphasis on water baptism, but when you read a passage such as this one you’re forced to confront the reality that John himself said that water baptism wasn’t really that important in the broader scheme of things. In fact, John said that water baptism wouldn’t even be a part of the ministry of the Messiah. Then, of course, there are other Christian denominations that place great emphasis on the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but they often ignore the fact that John said that baptism with the Holy Spirit would be accompanied with a baptism with fire. So, here we have three baptisms: water baptism, Holy Spirit baptism and fire baptism, and when we try to set aside all the unfortunate and divisive rhetoric about the different kinds of baptism, we’re left trying to figure out what baptism itself is all about, and especially what baptism with fire is all about, because it seems to be the third and final baptism. To begin with, perhaps we need to consider the first two baptisms.

     The first baptism is water baptism. Keep in mind that water baptism was John’s baptism and not that of Jesus. John was very clear: “I baptize you with water.” But what is water baptism? In the United Church, as well as most mainline Protestant churches, water baptism is a symbol of our cleansing by God and of the new life that God offers us. We emerge from the waters of baptism recognized as members of God’s family. This is symbolic, of course. Water baptism has no magical power. Water baptism doesn’t guarantee us anything in particular; neither does a lack of water baptism mean anything in particular. So, water baptism may be an important symbol, but it’s only a symbol. As John said, it’s not the baptism of Jesus, and since Jesus is the head of the church, we need to understand those other two kinds of baptism.

     The baptism of Jesus, you see, is different. John said that, first, the Messiah “will baptize you with the Holy Spirit ...” Baptism with the Holy Spirit is usually a topic that guarantees at least two or three hours of debate among Christians of various denominations and traditions. But, working on the assumption that none of you wants to sit here and listen to me for two or three hours – although I can’t imagine why! - let me try to summarize the two competing views. Mainline churches such as ours argue that baptism with the Holy Spirit is another way of saying that a person has come to Christian faith. In other words, at the moment one comes to Christian faith, one is empowered by the Holy Spirit. There may be other powerful spiritual experiences awaiting a Christian, but Spirit baptism occurs at the moment of conversion. Charismatic Christian churches such as the Pentecostal Church believe that baptism with the Holy Spirit is something that takes place at some undefined point after one comes to Christian faith, and most believe that the sign of Spirit baptism is the ability to exercise the spiritual gift of speaking in tongues. They would also believe that not all Christians experience baptism with the Holy Spirit. Suffice to say that I agree with the mainline view of Spirit baptism. But there’s a third baptism – the one that often gets ignored – and that’s the baptism with fire.

     John said that the Messiah would also “baptize … with … fire.” We don’t talk about that very much in church, and I suspect that we ignore it for the worst possible reason: because it makes us uncomfortable. And yet, it’s these uncomfortable subjects we should be addressing in the church, because these are the subjects that push us to a deeper understanding of how God works. Fire is an uncomfortable and frightening thing. Fire can destroy. We have to be careful with fire. Fire departments tell us how dangerous even the flames of small candles can be, and we regularly see on the news scenes of forest fires and wild fires raging out of control, destroying entire communities as they advance. And yet, it’s this uncomfortable, uncontrollable and dangerous thing called fire that the Messiah will baptize with.

     In Christian terms, when we think of fire I suspect that we tend to think first of hell, and some have suggested that the reference John the Baptist makes to baptism with fire is, in fact, a reference to judgment, and that those being baptized with fire are actually being condemned. They base that largely on the reference in v.17 to the burning of “the chaff … with unquenchable fire.” But I don’t believe that the fire of v.17 is the same as the fire of baptism referred to in v.16, because v.16 seems to very deliberately say that those being baptized with fire are the same ones being baptized with the Holy Spirit. “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.” So it’s believers who will be baptized with both the Holy Spirit and with fire, but what does the part about fire actually mean? I suspect it’s a reminder to us that no matter how hard we try, we can never win God’s favour by how nice we are or by how good we are. If baptism with water is the symbol of our acceptance by God, and baptism with the Holy Spirit is the guarantee of our acceptance by God, then baptism with fire is the final step in our acceptance by God, because it’s the process by which God takes care of those parts of our lives that don’t quite measure up. You see, fire destroys, but fire can also purify, and perhaps this is what John was getting at. Water cleanses temporarily – but fire purifies. The Holy Spirit accepts us as we are – but fire makes us what God wants us to be. Fire makes a lasting impression, and baptism with fire makes a spiritual mark upon us that will never be erased. Fire is that which purifies us and makes us ready for our welcome not into God’s family, which we’re already a part of, but into God’s Kingdom, into which nothing impure can ever enter. And perhaps this is the ongoing part of the Christian experience. The baptism with fire is the ongoing process of God re-creating us into what God wants us to be.

     Fire is powerful. It can destroy or it can purify. Either way, when it strikes it changes our lives forever. Perhaps that’s what makes so many people so nervous about Jesus; perhaps it’s why so many back away from Jesus; perhaps it’s why so many people try to reduce the King of kings and Lord of lords to just another religious teacher or good man, rather than the Incarnate God that he is. You see, Jesus comes with purifying fire, seeking to change us forever. This third baptism is in many ways the key to our Christian faith, because it reminds us that not only does God accept us as we are, God will make sure that we become what we’re supposed to be!

     In Discover Magazine a few years ago, Leeaundra Kealy wrote that “fire is an event, not a thing.” She was referring to fires in nature, of course. But I think it applies to faith as well. The baptism with fire is an event and not a thing. It’s ongoing. Just as in nature the full effects of fire often aren’t seen for many years, so it is with the baptism with fire. In nature, it’s through fire that forests eventually regenerate; in a life of faith it’s the baptism with fire that regenerates us and brings us vibrantly alive, purifying and preparing us for the Kingdom of God.