Second Sunday after Epiphany
Service Date:
10 January, 2010
John 2:1-11
You've heard that saying, ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,' haven't you? Well, that's me. Susanna bat Deborah, at your service, and yours, and yours, but not my own. And most of the time that's fine by me. It's a really stressful day for a bride, you know? Getting the clothes right, and the hair. Saying goodbye to mum and dad, and hello to thousands of his relations all looking down their nose at you for daring to marry their beautiful boy. Much better being the bridesmaid, making sure everyone has enough oil in their lamps, making sure the little ones don't run off or start yelling at the wrong time, making sure the bride gets to synagogue looking her very best.
But sometimes, at the reception, it gets you down a bit. When it's all sorted, and they have their happy ending, and it's over to the best man to sort out any problems, and you can get the weight off those really uncomfortable shoes. Sometimes you look round at all the couples, and think, When am I going to get my life sorted?
There's always a few other singles around, so you look out for good ones, just in case - and this time there were loads of unattached males in the party. The groom's mum's best friend had invited her son, and he'd invited all his mates along. Mostly fishermen, by the smell of it, though I could have sworn I saw a tax-collector in with them. Most unlikely, though - they're so unpopular, no one would ever invite one of them to a wedding.
Lots of laughing and a lot of eating from their side of the room, but at least no one was getting drunk. Then I saw the mum's best friend beckon her son over, and it looked like he was getting a right earful. ‘Do something!' she hissed. ‘Miriam's going to be so embarrassed if the wine runs out!'
I assumed she wanted him to run off to the wine merchant. Amazing how mums like to think they own their sons, even though this one must have been thirty or more. I gave him a sympathetic smile, and got one back. He turned back to her and said, ‘This is really not the time, Mum, but OK then!' And then he turned to me.
‘You look sensible,' he said. ‘Where do they keep the purification jugs round here?' I couldn't think why he wanted to know, but I showed him a whole stack of them, ready to be filled with washing water before the next meal. ‘Ok,' he said, ‘where's the well? We need water here, pronto.' He was going to try to fill them all up himself, and they're heavy jars, so I got the waiters in on it. Now you're going to think I'd had too much myself, but I'm telling you: it was water that went in, but it was wine that came out. Good wine. We got compliments on how good it was - several people wanted to know what vineyard it came from. All I could say was, ‘My lips are sealed.'
I've made enquiries about him - Jesus, his name is, from Nazareth - but from what they say, he's not one for marriage, any more than I am. But maybe that's not the only way I can get to know him. It must take him and his mates a lot of money to travel round the way they do, while he heals people and teaches the crowds. Maybe I could go on the road with them, help them out. I don't want to marry this man, but I don't want to lose sight of him either.
You've heard that saying, ‘Always the bridesmaid, never the bride,' haven't you? Well, that's me. Susanna bat Deborah, at your service, and yours, and yours, but not my own. And most of the time that's fine by me. It's a really stressful day for a bride, you know? Getting the clothes right, and the hair. Saying goodbye to mum and dad, and hello to thousands of his relations all looking down their nose at you for daring to marry their beautiful boy. Much better being the bridesmaid, making sure everyone has enough oil in their lamps, making sure the little ones don't run off or start yelling at the wrong time, making sure the bride gets to synagogue looking her very best.
But sometimes, at the reception, it gets you down a bit. When it's all sorted, and they have their happy ending, and it's over to the best man to sort out any problems, and you can get the weight off those really uncomfortable shoes. Sometimes you look round at all the couples, and think, When am I going to get my life sorted?
There's always a few other singles around, so you look out for good ones, just in case - and this time there were loads of unattached males in the party. The groom's mum's best friend had invited her son, and he'd invited all his mates along. Mostly fishermen, by the smell of it, though I could have sworn I saw a tax-collector in with them. Most unlikely, though - they're so unpopular, no one would ever invite one of them to a wedding.
Lots of laughing and a lot of eating from their side of the room, but at least no one was getting drunk. Then I saw the mum's best friend beckon her son over, and it looked like he was getting a right earful. ‘Do something!' she hissed. ‘Miriam's going to be so embarrassed if the wine runs out!'
I assumed she wanted him to run off to the wine merchant. Amazing how mums like to think they own their sons, even though this one must have been thirty or more. I gave him a sympathetic smile, and got one back. He turned back to her and said, ‘This is really not the time, Mum, but OK then!' And then he turned to me.
‘You look sensible,' he said. ‘Where do they keep the purification jugs round here?' I couldn't think why he wanted to know, but I showed him a whole stack of them, ready to be filled with washing water before the next meal. ‘Ok,' he said, ‘where's the well? We need water here, pronto.' He was going to try to fill them all up himself, and they're heavy jars, so I got the waiters in on it. Now you're going to think I'd had too much myself, but I'm telling you: it was water that went in, but it was wine that came out. Good wine. We got compliments on how good it was - several people wanted to know what vineyard it came from. All I could say was, ‘My lips are sealed.'
I've made enquiries about him - Jesus, his name is, from Nazareth - but from what they say, he's not one for marriage, any more than I am. But maybe that's not the only way I can get to know him. It must take him and his mates a lot of money to travel round the way they do, while he heals people and teaches the crowds. Maybe I could go on the road with them, help them out. I don't want to marry this man, but I don't want to lose sight of him either.
Hymns:
R&S 102: Praise the Lord, his glories showR&S 367: I want to walk with Jesus Christ
At Cana's wedding, long ago
R&S 566: The church's one foundation
Sermon:
Isaiah 52:1-5; Psalm 36:5-10; John 2:1-11; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11One of the things I love about having Douglas as our organist is the unexpected tunes he comes out with in the course of the service. Does anyone remember a few years ago ‘The happy wanderer', when a toddler had run loose for most of the service? But last week, as some of you may have noticed, I did a real double-take, walking out to the Wedding March - for one disorientating moment, I wasn't quite sure what sort of service I'd been involved in! And as Sheila and I stood at the door, I muttered to her, ‘That's the first and last time I go down the aisle to that tune!' When I asked Douglas afterwards why he'd chosen it, he simply replied: ‘In Advent we were waiting for the wedding feast of Christ and the church - now, after Christmas, I thought we'd celebrate it!'
Douglas was certainly chiming in with tradition there. In the Hebrew Bible, talking to the whole people of Israel, God compares the relationship between them to a rocky marriage - instead of making God their priority, they put all their efforts into getting more money, power, sex, success and all the other idols that are still around to tempt us today. In the New Testament, one of the pictures of heaven is a marriage feast for the wedding between Christ and the church. And in our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus is actually at a wedding - though of course the story homes in on the reception.
But while it's important for us to remember that our relationship with God always involves other people too, the hymn we've just sung focuses in on our one-to-one relationship with Jesus - and maybe marriage isn't such a bad way to look at how we relate to God individually, too, because in both cases there are as many different set-ups as there are people.
There's the arranged marriage. The family expects it, you feel embarrassed not to go through with it. You go to church because you were brought up to it. You go through the motions, though you don't know each other very well. You say your prayers, because that's what people do, but you've never really got the hang of a personal God. The arrangement may give some benefits, but while you stay polite strangers to each other, you're missing out on what it's all about.
There's the honeymooners. You've just come to faith. It's all fantastic, and you spend all your time with each other - who needs anyone else? You rather look down on people who don't see things your way. Nothing can ever go wrong again. But of course it does. You have your first shouting match. What happened? It was meant to be roses all the way. You feel let down, disillusioned; or guilty because you weren't good enough. Unless you can work out how to forgive, how to be forgiven, you're in danger of protecting yourself from further hurt by ceasing to trust or care - a self-destructive course of action.
Then there are the old stagers. You know each other almost as well as you do yourself. You make allowances. Through long habit, you trust each other, though you know there will always be surprises. You have been shaped by each other into more than you could be on your own; your relationship will outlast the strains put upon it, even that of death.
And of course there are all the people who for various reasons don't get married, or whose marriages don't work out. That doesn't mean to say they know nothing about love, for that's a plant that grows in many soils. But an unorthodox relationship with another person, or with God, may flourish, or may damage. The test is always the same: what are its fruits? If self-denying love increases, looking outward to others, as well as inward to one another, whatever name others may put on it, it's kosher.
There are many English words that try to translate the Hebrew word chesed which crops up in our psalm this morning: covenant love, steadfast love, faithful love. And it often turns up alongside another word in our psalm: mishpat, meaning justice, righteousness. Each of these ways to describe God's relationship with us has more meaning than one word can hold. But unless our relationship with God gives us some clue about chesed and mishpat, faithful love and justice, we've not really started to get to know God at all; the God who through Isaiah's prophecy promises the oppressed people of Israel homecoming and freedom; who through Jesus' turning wedding water into wine promises us that, with God, ordinary, everyday life can become rich and fulfilling.
Yet there's more to our relationship with God than a cosy me-and-Jesus, for God relates to us not just as individuals but as the whole church together. How can that work out in practice?
Our reading from Paul's first letter to the young church in Corinth may give us some ideas. To give them a working example of this new relationship, Paul reminds them that their very differences, given by God, can help them pull together. So whether you're the sort of person others ask for advice, whether you're someone people look up to because you help so many, whether you have the gift of making people feel better when you're with them, whether you can follow and clarify the trend of a discussion or whether you can communicate with everyone in language they can understand, it's the same God who's given you this gift, and everyone else can benefit from it.
Marion expressed this recently talking about the Budget Coordinating Meeting: when people talk through ideas together, new angles arise that no one would have considered on their own. We see this dynamic at work every time Network gathers us to support some good cause. It will be there in our next church meeting too, when, unhampered by snow, we meet to find out more together of how the life of our church can flourish - that's why it's important you are there, so that your view is heard and you can hear the views of others.
But of course there's more to the body of Christ than us in St Andrew's. Today is the beginning of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, and next Sunday I hope I'll see you at St Mark's at 8pm, as we join with friends in Churches Together in Broomhill and Broomhall to pray that all churches may become one: not that we will all become clones, but that our different gifts, given each church by the Spirit, may help us work out how to serve God and love one another in this part of Sheffield. For unless we meet together and get to know one another, we have no chance of their enriching our relationship with God, or of us helping them. And it doesn't stop there. Before we can truly celebrate the heavenly wedding feast, the hymnwriter Fred Kaan has it right: As guests of God created, all are to each related; the whole world is awaited, to make the table round.
