Aha! Embracing the God Moments: Family
John 2:1-11
April 17, 2016
Mark S. Bollwinkel
Dorothy Canfield Fisher once wrote,
“A mother is not a person to lean on, but a person to make leaning
unnecessary.”
If that is
the case then Mary did a great job with Jesus.
No sooner
was he twelve years old than he ran away while on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem Temple
(Do any of
you know any young people who have a smart answer for everything?)
In some
ways it appears that Jesus and Mary struggled with each other during the course
of his adult life. Scholars suggest
that Mary is widowed soon after Jesus begins his ministry as she moves in with
her other children (Mark 6:3, Luke 8:19 -21). The fact that Jesus doesn’t take her into his
household, a duty expected of an oldest son, may relate to their inability to
understand each other. Soon after
Joseph’s death, Jesus’ siblings and his mother Mary come to see him in Galilee
and Jesus dismisses them:
While
he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing
outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone
told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to
speak to you.’ But to
the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, ‘Who is my
mother, and who are my brothers?’ And
pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my
brother and sister and mother’ (Matthew 12:46-50, Mark 3:31-35, Luke 8:19-21).
The tension
that the gospel writers faced in presenting Jesus as both human and divine
becomes evident in how they portray his relationship with his earthly mother,
even when it comes to food.
Food and families seem to go
together. When families gather for the
special holidays like Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas it’s all about the
food. For a birthday and an anniversary,
the food is central. There are special
dishes made by your mother or a special dish made by your grandfather; these
can be a great source of memories. They
are a source of love! When a family
member or friend makes your favorite cookies or prepares your favorite meal,
its one of the ways they express their love and concern for you.
That was certainly true in the
family in which I grew up. About the
only time in the course of a day that we would all be together; me, my brother,
two sisters and my mom, after dad got back home from work, would all have
dinner together. My mom was an
indifferent cook. She wasn’t excited
about the domestic arts as a young woman.
She mastered about a dozen dishes that she did real well, very basic,
simple things. One advantage of such a
system was that you could tell the day of the week by what she served for
dinner. On Thursday we would have Spam
and yams, my dad’s favorite from his military service in the Pacific during
WWII. On Sunday afternoons we would
always have pork roast, browned potatoes and sauerkraut. It became like a sacrament; pork roast,
browned potatoes and sauerkraut, my dad’s favorite meal. I lived in that household for seventeen
years. And whenever I have pork roast,
browned potatoes and sauerkraut I always think of those special Sundays when
we’d get together, share the stories of the week, laugh together.
Food in my family was “love”. It’s true for a lot of families. The opposite is also true. Food can be a bone of contention. Food can become an agent of shame, for young
people struggling with their weight as their parents are nagging about what
they are eating or not eating. Food
choices can become battle grounds. My aunt
Ruth and my mom had a huge battle once over zucchini. My brother and I refused to eat that strange
green vegetable one time while visiting my aunt and uncle’s home in Lafayette,
California.
To make a long story short, it led
to a big family harangue between my mom and my aunt. They didn’t talk to each other for
years! Thanks be to God they found
their way back to each other and enjoyed many years as good friends. But zucchini ended up splitting them
apart! Food can be a blessing. It can be a curse. It really depends on what we do with it. In our gospel lesson today, we learn that
Jesus and his mother have a bone of contention about food and what to do with
it at a wedding.
The miracle of Jesus turning water
into wine is found only in the gospel of John.
In first century Palestine, wedding festivities usually lasted a
week. Those invited …especially if they
were family…were expected to bring provisions such as food or drink to be
shared by all. The quality and quantity
of the food or drink shared would then become a matter of pride and social status
within the clan. Such food hospitality
may be Mary’s concern as she asks Jesus to do something when the wine runs out
for the wedding. His response to her
request, “What concern is that to you and to me…woman”…is not necessary
disrespectful although for 21st century ears it can certainly seem
like Jesus is perturbed by his mother.
Regardless of the impression that
the son and mother misunderstand each other there isn’t any argument. Jesus obeys his mother’s request. He instructs the servants to fill six stone
jars with water and turns them into the best wine of the party (scholars
suggest it could have been 15 to 25 gallons each jar!).
Food hospitality may have been
Mary’s concern but Jesus’ concern was that such a display of his divinity was
premature; he says, “My hour has not yet come” referring to his eventual death
and resurrection (4:21 , 7:30 ). The miracle of changing water into wine at
the wedding of Cana is “the first of the
signs” (also see 4:54, 2:23, 20:30) in the gospel of John revealing Jesus’
“glory” (:11) or the presence of God in Jesus’ life (Ex 16:10, 24:15-18,
29:43-46, 40:34-38, I Kings 8:10-11, Ps 26:8, 63:2, Ezek 11:22-23, 44:4).
Whether as a sign of filial love
and respect in sharing the costs of a wedding or a metaphysical sign of God’s
glory indwelling in the Christ, the wine in our gospel lesson reminds us that
the importance of food and drink in our families is all in how we use it. It can be an extravagant gift for a special
occasion. It can be a means of nurturing
love. Or, as an example, as many of us
know all-too-well, the mis-use of alcoholic beverages in our families can be
the basis of terrible suffering and pain.
Confronting the Pharisees’ hypocrisy about Torah dietary
laws, Jesus says, “It is not what we take into our mouths or our bodies
that defiles us but what comes out of our mouths and bodies that make us
unclean…” (Matthew 15:10-11, 17-20). Alcohol
is not an inherent evil in and of itself.
Rather it is how we use it that makes it a good or a bad.
Alcoholism is an illness. Alcoholism is not a moral failure. It is a disease. Alcoholics are dependent not because they are
bad people or lack will power. It affects all races, incomes levels, genders
and nationalities. It is an illness
that affects not only its victim but the entire social system in which they
relate.
For most people who drink, alcohol
is a pleasant accompaniment to social activities. Moderate alcohol use, up to
two drinks per day, is not harmful for most adults. Nonetheless… nearly 14
million Americans - one in every thirteen adults -abuse alcohol or are
alcoholic. Several million more adults engage in risky drinking that could lead
to alcohol problems. In addition, 53 percent of men and women in the United States
report that one or more of their close relatives have a drinking problem. (medicinenet.com)
One of the most insidious symptoms
of this disease is the stigma it engenders that promotes deceit and
falsehood. If a person deals honestly
with the disease the resources for recovery are enormous. But the layers of dishonesty addicts wrap
around themselves make the journey of recovery something begun most often as a
last resort for survival. The lying and
deceptions used to maintain one’s dependency can ruin a life and those most
important to that life.
As a pastor, when someone comes to
me asking if they are an alcoholic I simply respond, “Can you tell the truth
about your drinking? Not to me. Can you tell the truth about your drinking to
yourself?” The inability to be honest
is one of the most devastating aspects of the disease and one of the prime
indicators of its severity. The family
of the alcoholic is so often invested in the lie it is as if walking around an
elephant in the living room that everyone pretends is not there.
Many of us just don’t know what to
say. Blaming, shaming, threats and
bribes are useless. Al Anon, the twelve
step support program for the families of alcoholics and those who love them
teaches that the best thing we can do for our loved one is to be “safe, strong
and free” ourselves. About the only
thing to be said to one with an addiction is, “Do you want help?”
[If you aren’t aware, we have an AA
meeting here on church campus every Tuesday night at 7:00 p.m. and if you want
to learn more about relating to your loved one with alcohol issues I strongly
recommend that you attend one of the many Al Alon meetings in our area, you can
find out their locations and meeting times on line.]
One of the
things I love about our Bible lesson today is that Mary is so honest with Jesus;
“Jesus they have no wine….The servants will do whatever you ask them to
do…” Regardless of his theological
concerns Jesus performs the miracle none-the-less.
In spite of apparent difficulties
between Jesus and this mother during his three years of ministry, she traveled
with the disciples and she was there at the cross. Only a deep, parental love could have made
Mary stand near a son who was being crucified as an enemy of the state. Most of his disciples weren’t there. Jesus’ brothers weren’t there. But Mary stood by him in the last hours.
Just as he dies, looking down from
the cross, he asks the disciple John to care for his mother after he is
gone. At the end of Jesus’ life, all that
mattered between them was the love between a son and his mother (John 19:25 -27).
If you know
or you’ve known a parent’s love, give thanks to God not just today but
everyday. If you didn’t but found such
love and acceptance in other healthy relationships, give thanks to God too, for
such relationships are just as much our family as those who brought us into the
world. Parental care and nurture,
biological or not, is one of the places where God is at work in the world, a
place full of Easter resurrection “aha!” moments of divine incarnation.
And may our prayer be that the food
and drink we share in such community is a celebration reminding us of the
miracle of love, overflowing and abundant.
Amen.
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