2024.01.19 | Fill My House with Hoping

“Fill My House with Hoping”
Rev. Brenda Loreman
Designated Term Associate Minister
Eden United Church of Christ, Hayward, California
Second Sunday after Epiphany, 
January 19, 2025
John 2:1-11

I don’t know about you, but it seems that just about every wedding I have been to, been in, or officiated at, something memorable has gone wrong. Not catastrophically so, like perhaps someone running off with the bride before the ceremony like the end of the movie The Graduate, but something memorable. I have watched several flowergirls or ring bearers have complete meltdowns, and I’ve witnessed more than one best man drop the ring while handing it to the groom. But I think my favorite wedding mishap story was at my cousin‘s wedding nearly 40 years ago. About 10 minutes before the ceremony was to begin, the groom leaned over to get a drink of water from a water fountain, and ripped his tuxedo trousers right up the back. Part of the video footage – and it is on videotape, not digital – is of my aunt sitting there in her mother-of-the bride dress, hastily stitching up the trousers to avoid further wardrobe malfunction. None of these mishaps was catastrophic; the weddings went on. They were joyful occasions, and we all had something good to laugh about afterwards.

So it’s not surprising to discover that first-century weddings were prone to mishaps as well. In our story from John’s gospel, the mishap is a big one: they run out of wine. In ancient times, wine was an important mark of hospitality. Running out would be a great embarrassment, a sign that the host family lacked resources– and likely that the guests did, too, since wedding guests at the time often brought gifts of wine as contribution to the festivities. In other words, John seems to be suggesting that this wedding is likely a modest one, given and attended by humble, ordinary folk. It is likely that these are folks who are not unfamiliar with a life of scarcity. And here they are again, with hopes dashed and joy squelched, victims of living in a world where there is never quite enough to go around.

But Jesus has something different in store. And that’s what we are about to discover for the next six weeks in our new worship series, “Six Stone Jars: the Economy of Jesus.” I don’t know about you, but I have been feeling a sense of dread as I look forward, and it’s no wonder; we’ve just come through a punishing  election season where we’ve heard, over and over again, the rhetoric of fear, the rhetoric of “us vs. them,” and the rhetoric of dread over what will happen if the other side wins. Over and over, we’ve heard—and maybe felt ourselves—that the most important thing in the world right now is the economy. And, depending on who you listen to, there’s only one way to fix it for everyone.

Well, friends, for the next six weeks we’re going to listen to Jesus and his ideas about the economy, because he has something to say about it, too. Time and time again we’re reminded in the gospels that in the kin-dom of God there is no rhetoric of fear or dread or “us vs. them.” We are reminded that our call in this kin-dom is to take care of everyone, especially the most vulnerable. We are reminded that the economy of Jesus was a topsy-turvy one in which wealth was redistributed for the good of all.

As with all prophetic leaders, some were not so happy about Jesus’ message. We might not even be happy about revisiting what Jesus says is the right thing to do when it comes to caring deeply for one another. But his plan was clear from the beginning—to bring good news to the poor. And as his followers, it is important for us to proclaim this and act on it here and now–for such a time as this. 

As our gospel lesson begins, we are told that, “On the third day there was a wedding in Cana.” We could assume that the author of the gospel included this detail about time because this was the third day after Jesus was baptized. But knowing the John’s gospel is highly symbolic, this mention of the “third day” points to the idea that this is going to be a resurrection story, a story about new life in God’s kin-dom.

Next, we are told that the wine has run out, and the mother of Jesus appears and tells Jesus this fact, apparently expecting him to do something about it. I love the terse dialogue here, which  is given with some humor. Jesus calls his mother “Woman,” which sounds to our modern ears like he’s being rude or disrespectful, but he’s actually addressing her with the equivalent of “ma’am, “ a show of respect—although something you’d probably not call your mother, except in jest. Jesus basically says to her, “How is this our problem?” But Mary ignores his complaints, like a mom would do, turns to the servants, and says, “Do whatever he tells you.”

And what Jesus does is over the top. He calls for six stone jars to be brought and filled with water. These six jars are not the size of the ones on the chancel today, which are puny by comparison. We are told that they are 20 to 30 gallons each, used for ritual purification, or bathing. These are not small jars. They are more the size of a small bathtub. Once they are full, he asks the servants to draw some out and take it to the steward, who discovers that not only is it wine, but it is very, very good wine, the kind of wine one serves first, not at the end after everyone’s tipsy.

In John’s gospel, the miraculous things that Jesus does are not called miracles—they’re called “signs.” They are meant to point us to something else, to an idea beyond the action that Jesus is performing. In one way, this sign of the abundant wine points back to the restoration stories of the Hebrew prophets, such as Amos, who says:

The time is surely coming, says the Lord,

    when [...] 

the mountains shall drip sweet wine,

    and all the hills shall flow with it.

I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel,

    and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them;

they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine,

    and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit. (1)

And the sign also points forward in John, when Jesus will say, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” (2) It also points to the wine of the Last Supper, a sign and symbol of God’s grace poured out for all. These huge jars, filled to the brim, overflowing with the best wine, are an image of abundance in the midst of joyful community, a sign for us that restoration and new life are at hand. It is an image brimming with hope.

It is also a sign that points to the economy of Jesus. “Look,” Jesus seems to be saying, “in the kin-dom of God there is no scarcity. In the kin-dom of God, no one has too much. In the kin-dom of God, everyone has enough, and joy overflows.”

In a way, this story is a hard one to hear right now, for those of us filled with dread about what’s to come in the months ahead. It’s easy for us to feel small and inconsequential, to feel that our small actions don’t matter. After the election results came in last fall, I ripped my “I voted” sticker off my shirt, stuck it on the calendar under November 5th, and scrawled “and it didn’t matter.” underneath. I also used an adjective in front of the word “matter,” which I shouldn’t say in church. I was feeling angry and despairing, and that the hopeful future I had imagined had turned to smoke and ashes.

I’m not sure how I worked my way back to hope—I'm not even sure that I have yet. But I do know this: we have a choice to make.

It isn’t lost on me that the day the President Elect will take the oath of office as the leader of our nation is the same day our nation has set aside to honor a different sort of leader—the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. They stand in stark contrast with each other. On the one hand, we have a leader who works tirelessly to tear down anyone who doesn’t agree with him, who will put in place policies that create an economy of the billionaire, for the billionaire, and by the billionaire, who will create a nation hostile to those who are immigrants, those who are trans, those who are marginalized, those who are poor, and those who are struggling for their civil rights.

On the other hand, we have someone who worked tirelessly for civil rights for people of color and the poor, who believed fervently in the kin-dom of God and the dream of a Beloved Community here on this earth, and who gave his life for those beliefs. Which leader will you follow? I’ll give you a hint. The “sign” that Jesus performed at the wedding at Cana doesn’t point to the billionaire.

Whenever MLK Day rolls around, we tend to remember Dr. King for his dreams, and not his harsh criticism of our unjust economic system that he made in his later speeches and writing.

This is one of the quotes of his that we don’t often hear: “When machines and computers, profit motives and property rights, are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” (3)

It’s as true now as it was more than fifty years ago.

He also said this: “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” (4)

I think the kind of “infinite hope” that Dr. King talked about is not really the same thing as mere optimism. It isn’t a mathematical construct where past experience + present striving = future greatness. Hope defies such cause-and-effect constructs. Hope is also not some kind of Pollyanna view of the future that everything will work out fine if we just think positively enough. That’s what the internet meme folks call “hopium.” Instead, hope is more like a muscle that we have to exercise.

If we were to ask the apostle Paul what hope is, Paul might tell us that hope is a pregnant woman in labor, which is a metaphor that he uses in his letter to the Romans. Yes, we are struggling, he says. We are suffering. In fact, the whole of creation is suffering. It is hard right now. But just like a woman in labor, we look forward to the new birth, and that gives us hope. We know that the struggle is hard, but that it will be over one day. One day soon, we will hold the infant in our arms. One day soon, we will see a new creation. One day soon, the jars will overflow with abundance. And that gives us hope. When we struggle, if we see our struggle not as mere suffering, but as birth pangs, and if we understand that out of the struggle and suffering something new will emerge, we can continue to have hope for the future. Hope is rooted in an ability to see what we do not yet see. Hope is anticipating a better world, and not just imagining it, but living in a way so as to bring it about.

In other words, hope takes the long view. In her wonderful  book called Hope: A User Manual, pastor and author Maryann McKibben Dana says of hope that “Each small task that we do doesn’t remake the world. It might make the present moment better, which is no small thing. But hope infuses those modest tasks with meaning, not just to alleviate present suffering, but with the audacious goal to construct a new world.” (5)

Hope is a choice. We have a choice this weekend about which celebration we’ll be paying attention to. I’ll be paying attention to a wedding in Cana, and six jars brimming with abundance. Amen.

(1) Amos 9:13-14
(2) John 10:10
(3) Quoted by Lindsay Koshgarian, “This Martin Luther King Day, Militarism, Racism and Poverty are Still With Us,” National Priorities Project, https://www.nationalpriorities.org/blog/2018/01/15/martin-luther-king-day-militarism-racism-and-poverty-are-still-us/ (posted 15 January 2018; accessed 18 January March 2025).
(4) Quoted by James Patterson, “MLK and the Limitless Legacy of Hope,” The Philadelphia Citizen, https://thephiladelphiacitizen.org/mlk-limitless-legacy-of-hope (posted 12 January 2024; accessed 18 January 2025).
(5) MaryAnn McKibben Dana, Hope: A User Manual (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2022), 57.