Second Sunday of Ordinary Time (C): John 2:1-11
It was the late spring of 2005. The diocese had just announced that I was being transferred from a parish assignment that I loved to a new parish. For a priest in parish ministry, this is hardly unusual. For a priest on the autism spectrum (though I did not know it at the time), any change is very trying.
But that wasn’t the only problem with this move.
One week after my new assignment was announced, the news media reported that an accusation had been made against the pastor of the parish where I was about to go, claiming that he had been sexually inappropriate with a woman parishioner as he visited her in the county jail (an easy walk from the rectory). My transfer was enough to generate a lot of anxiety. This news was like lighting matches in a dynamite shed.
I moved into my new assignment at the end of June, but the anxieties were taking their toll. Not long after that, someone said that I looked depressed. That comment struck a chord. I made an appointment with a psychiatrist. Sure enough, I was diagnosed with a significant episode of depression, and given an anti-depressant.
For two or three weeks, I understood why some people refer to anti-depressants as “happy pills”. I felt like it was the Second Coming of Christ! But then, just as quickly, everything faded to gray. It was hard to feel joy or hope, though in faith I slogged on. Years later, I would learn that anti-depressants were not good for people on the autism spectrum. At the time, I could only slog on, in the faint hope that I would eventually reach the end of this dark tunnel. I asked to be taken off the anti-depressant, as it was doing me no good. Eventually, after going off the drug (and suffering some ‘interesting’ withdrawal reactions), I began to recover.
However, for all that time, I felt as though I had no wine – in the words of Mary in our Gospel account of the miracle at Cana. No wine. No joy. Later on, I would discover that this joy, this wine of God, had never really left me. Though it was very hard to feel, it remained – even in my darkest hour. My ability to see that and to trust it helped me be open again to the great gift of joy and love that comes from God.
In our culture, we usually associate wine with fine dining or as merely one means of getting drunk. In the Old Testament, wine was a symbol of joy. A lack of wine was a symbol of a lack of joy, a lack of hope, an inability to embrace life fully as God’s sacred gift. Moreover, when the Scriptures spoke of God’s promises to renew His people, wine was often a symbol of that gift of abundant joy. The prophets taught the people of Israel to await the banquet that God would provide – a wedding banquet, featuring the best foods and the choicest wines. This banquet represented God’s kingdom that had finally come in all its fullness to His people. All would be invited to come, without cost, to enjoy the best wines and richest foods.
How many people today feel as though they have no wine?
Look at the average Catholic in the pews today, seeing a Church battered by the clergy sexual abuse scandals, torn by deep divisions between left, right, and center, and seeing fewer priestly vocations and fewer younger people in Church. All of these are discouraging – and these are only some examples of troubles in the Church today. It can make their wine run out.
Look at parishioners who is trying to help out in some way in the parish. They may feel as though everyone else depends on them to handle everything, and that few people are willing to step forward to help. Who will replace them when they can no longer offer the ministries they offer? Their wine begins to run out.
Look at someone caring for a spouse who is very ill in body or mind. That spouse wants to honor the promise made at their wedding to love and be committed for life. But the burdens of such care, especially on an older person, are heavy. Exhausting. Overwhelming. The caring spouse may lose patience, and then feel terrible about it. The spouse’s wine can run out.
These are only some examples. Most of us find ourselves in some situation that drains our wine – that makes it difficult to live out of joy or hope or faith. The longer we focus on the challenge itself, the more overwhelming it feels, and the less wine we seem to have.
Jesus, his mother Mary, and his disciples are at a wedding feast in the town of Cana – not far from Nazareth. The wine for the feast is running out. This would be an incredibly embarrassing moment for the families of the groom and bride. Mary points this out to Jesus, then tells the servers to “do whatever he tells you”.
This is our first step: to acknowledge that we have no wine, if that is indeed the case. It can be very difficult to admit, or even to know, that this is the case. Someone had to tell me “You look depressed” before I gave the possibility of depression any serious thought. Admitting this requires faith. One must be vulnerable, open, trusting. Others might see this as an admission of failure. We might feel that way. But we cannot be saved from this place of “no wine” unless we can courageously acknowledge it. We are without joy and hope. We need help. We cannot supply this wine on our own. Yes, drugs and other addictions may give us the illusion of joy. But they lead us into a spiral of deeper addictions linked with diminishing returns.
Jesus then tells the servants to fill these six large stone jars with water. Each one holds twenty to thirty gallons. The jars are filled. Notice how we are never told about the miracle itself. Jesus never says a word over the jars, or touches them. He never tells the servants what to expect. He tells them to draw some water out and take it to the headwaiter. The headwaiter tastes what he has been given and declares to the groom that he has kept the good wine until now.
So we come, with our lack of wine, our faint echo of joy or hope, to Jesus. We may expect Jesus to do something that we can feel, right here, right now. Very often, however, Jesus will ask of us something that will seem to test our faith a little more. He may ask us to keep on doing what we are doing, but knowing that he is with us and will never abandon us. He may ask us to do a little MORE than we think we are capable of, again, in trust. He may ask us to do something that may not make much sense to us at the time. “Draw water and take it to the headwaiter? How will THAT solve our problem?”
But something does happen when we choose to obey the Lord – in such a way that our main focus is no longer on the problem at hand, nor on our inability, but on the Lord Himself. The humble water that we offer becomes wine. We may not know when or how, but it happens. We feel as though we have a spiritual or emotional “second wind”. Someone else we meet perceives a love in us that we may not even perceive, and responds to that. The Lord gives us a moment when we feel a joy, a love, that goes beyond anything that the moment could have given us.
Moreover, the Lord is not stingy with His wine. Look at the story. Do the math. 120-180 gallons of wine is a LOT for any wedding celebration! Jesus is no miser with His love.
If this is so, why do many of us have a hard time feeling this, or noticing this, or trusting this? It is very hard for most of us to allow ourselves to be loved un this way – even by God!
Some of us may have been hurt when we offered someone love or trust before. Some may have been violated in some way as children or even as adults. Some may have learned to just live on a minimum of love, as seeking more opens one up to hurt. There are fewer things more challenging for us than to allow ourselves to be loved in the way that Jesus wants to love us – fully, with abandon, a Niagara of love washing over us, cleansing us, renewing us and everyone we meet. To be open to such a flood of love requires vulnerability, the risk of being hurt. Yet, when we are open and the Lord gives us a taste of such love, we no longer fear being hurt or taken advantage of or misunderstood. Even that seems like a small price to pay for the loving presence of God in our hearts, minds, souls and bodies.
This wine of God’s love is on offer to us all the time. It is no accident that Jesus used bread and wine at the Last Supper, or that we use them at Mass. This wine of God’s love, which becomes the very Blood of Christ at Mass, becomes in us a fountain of love, joy and life in each of our hearts. Jesus told His disciples at the Last Supper that He wanted His joy to be in them, and their joy to be complete. What better way for Jesus to show this than to use wine, transform it into His very Blood (the symbol of life itself), and give it to us to drink?
Have you no wine? Is it hard for you to live from joy, love and trust? Come to the water of Christ’s love. Let Him tell you to take it, to sip it, and to trust that it will become wine for you – a wine that will give you a joy that no one can take from you, a faith that can move mountains, and a love that can renew all things in Christ. The Lord has indeed saved the good wine – the best wine – until now!