Proclaiming a troublesome message

“…‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” (Luke 4:21)

Nehemiah 8:1-10

Psalm 19

1 Corinthians 12:12-30

Luke 4:14-21

 

New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Year C: Third Sunday after the Epiphany, 23 January 2022

And Jesus went back to his home town and ‘as was his custom’ (v.16) he went to the local synagogue on the Saturday. He ‘unrolled the scroll’ and ‘found the place where it was written’ in what we recognise as the opening verses of the 61^st chapter of the prophecy of Isaiah to make a bold and challenging proclamation with the very clear implication that this applied to Jesus and that this was happening right now in front of the synagogue congregation as well as the people in the region.

What did Jesus say?  He had four messages to announce:

1. Good news to the poor.
2. Freedom and release for those imprisoned.
3. Recovery of sight to the blind.
4. A year of the Lord’s favour.

We can read into this a very radical challenge to the religious and political status quo both then and now. No wonder his own people and religious brethren pursued him to the brow of the hill to kill him once the full implications of what he was saying sank in.

Who are the poor? How do we help the poor?

When Jesus stood up in that synagogue and proclaimed a year of the Lord’s favour he did not waste words.  He went straight to the core of his purpose and mission drawing on a text that would have been very well known to his own people and the synagogue minders.  For some reason the passage recalling this bold proclamation in the synagogue and which is read on this Sunday in the ‘Year of Luke’ stops short at verse 21:

Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

In a touch of enormous irony, the fulfilment of scripture this very day that Jesus stood up in the synagogue meant that Jesus very nearly met death as the locals rose up and took him to the brow of the hill in Nazareth to throw him to his death. His fine words and popularity (refer to verse 15 ‘praised by everyone’) quickly turned to hatred, persecution and exclusion from Nazareth and the synagogue there.  That, too, was a fulfilment of scripture. A bold proclamation backed by practical witness and living out of a set of values brings its own opposition and death.

And what values do we live out of?
What is our manifesto or proclamation?
Does it appear to be any different to those manifestos – corporate, ideological, nationalist, religious etc. that dominate our world?
Does our proclamation make a difference and how and why and where?
Can we tell stories from our own water wells where others may draw the living water?
Is our religion a religion of just words?  Is our religion a religion merely of the head but not of the head and the heart?
Who knows?
Who cares? 

If Jesus made his proclamation in 50 words – give or take that he spoke not in English but, presumably, in Aramaic in his local town – then what is our 50 word-20 second pitch? And how do our words and gestures carry credible weight in a world where cynicism, broken promises and fatalism prevail?

Put another way, anyone who wants to proclaim a year of the Lord’s favour that is more than just words but that involves fundamental change either in the way people live, or think or expect is landing herself or himself into serious trouble. Jesus’ time had not yet come but his time would come and there would be payback time for quoting Isaiah and applying it to himself in such a way that someone in the authority got seriously upset. Did that stop Jesus? No more than his cousin John the Baptist it did not. What defines Jesus is not how he defines himself in the finest of Greek philosophy or the exactitude of Jewish Law but in what he does and how he does it. Therein lies the power and love of God at work through his Word.

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FURTHER NOTES ON THE GOSPEL OF THE DAY (Luke 4:14-21)

Preliminaries

In characteristically Lucan style this extract contains a simple and bold proclamation with the focus on the good news of liberation for the poor. But, this is not done without referring to Jesus being ‘filled with the power of the Spirit’. The Holy Spirit working powerfully in Jesus then and now is announcing freedom to those imprisoned and oppressed.

v. 14-15 The beginning of Jesus’ ministry in Galilea

Then Jesus, filled with the power of the Spirit, returned to Galilee, and a report about him spread through all the surrounding country. He began to teach in their synagogues and was praised by everyone.

According to Luke, Jesus’ public ministry begins in Galilee. It follows a time of preparation and testing in the desert. Significantly, Jesus starts at a local level and ends up in Jerusalem some time later. From Jerusalem a new wave spread out across the world in the following centuries.

v. 16-17 Proclaiming good news of liberation

When he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, he went to the synagogue on the sabbath day, as was his custom. He stood up to read, and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where it was written..

This evidence that Jesus could read. And read he did. He may have already decided to read this particular passage from Isaiah. Is it not significant that this passage from the many he could have chosen was used?

v. 18-19 The prophet Isaiah readout

‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’

This resembles a proclamation rather like what the American or French or Irish revolutionaries might have announced. Here is what we stand for and this is why we have been sent …. so to speak. The quotation cited here by Luke is an edited version of Isaiah 61:1-2. Reference to vengeance in verse 2 is dropped in characteristically Lucan fashion (see for example Luke 7:22)

v.20-21 The Word that is living

And he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of all in the synagogue were fixed on him. Then he began to say to them, ‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.’

This forms a dramatic conclusion to Jesus’ intervention at the Synagogue. He makes it clear that this is no formalistic reading from some ancient text. Rather, what is foretold and announced by the Prophet Isaiah is happening right here in Nazareth. Yet, his townspeople will reject him and he will not perform any miracles there because of their lack of faith. What an indictment of Jesus’ home village.

Life is too short to drink bad wine

“…But you have kept the good wine until now” (John 2:10)

Isaiah 62:1-5

Psalm 36:5-10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

John 2:1-11

 New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicized Edition, copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org

Year C: Second Sunday after the Epiphany, 16 January 2022

 The story we have just read is about a wedding.  It is significant that Jesus chose a wedding feast where he shows his first ‘sign’ to use the term of the gospel writer, John.

As in any wedding party but especially in first century Palestine, weddings were an occasion of much rejoicing. We read about six stone water jars being used for the miracle that Jesus performed. These jars were used for ritual ablutions according to Jewish custom and would have been equivalent to about 600 litres of wine which, if there were 500 non-teetotaling guests, would be equivalent to a bottle and a half of wine or 9 glasses of wine over say a day or two.

Now we must remember that, according to the story in John’s gospel, the wine had already run out after the first or second day.   Clearly, there was a lot of wine being consumed.  One assumes that Jesus’ cousin John the Baptist was not present but busy preaching in the desert or baptising at the Jordan.  One might conclude that this level of alcohol consumption well exceeded present-day government health guidelines on units of alcohol for men or women!

Wine is a very key ingredient of Middle Eastern culture and life as is other consumables such as water, bread and oil. All of these serve as important materials for the ‘signs’ that would mark the life, ministry and Passover of the Christ.

There is no evidence that Jesus showed up at parties with the specific aim of preaching and practicing miracles (however, we might speculate whether hundreds of invitations were issued to Jesus across the land after the Cana event!).  The killer punch of the story was not just the transformation of water into wine but the production of good wine much to the amazement of the stewards.

This particular party was the occasion for a dramatic sign that gave witness to the Glory of God and the presence of the kingdom of God in our midst.  There was something going on here that was much more than about a wedding or wine or even a miracle.  Jesus took a very Jewish and near Eastern custom of celebrating marriage and all that this entails, added some water and made it into wine and left many awe struck (as well as a few inebriated).

The primary message here is not that we should go partying or drinking lots of wine but, rather, that God can powerfully act and transform very ordinary materials, relationships and situations if we let him.

Mary, the mother of Jesus, plays a key role in this story. She alerts Jesus to the impending disaster because the wine was running out and then strongly advises the stewards at the wedding to ‘do whatever he tells you’ (verse 5) after what seems a very abrupt exchange between Jesus and Mary (‘Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?’). That conversation might suggest that Jesus and Mary were not much given to wine.  Here we can hear a rich and deep message relayed by Mary – the first disciple among equals – that we should follow Jesus and do whatever he tells us.  Mary plays a key role, here, at the outset of Jesus’ public ministry as she does at the foot of the cross where Mary is given as a type of spiritual mother to the beloved disciple, John.

To make wine, especially good wine, we need to simply do what Jesus asks us to do which is to fill up the water jars of our life. God does the rest including the transformations into the best of wines.

There is a truth and power that goes beyond the very good things of parties, wine and marriage.

1.     It is the kingdom of God in our midst now, today, here among us as well as deep within us.

2.     It’s time to wake up and see it (‘and [Jesus] revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him’).

3.     Trust and openness are the key and this is the point of the wedding feast story. The signs are there if we look.

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FURTHER NOTES ON THE GOSPEL OF THE DAY

Preliminaries

The story of the wedding feast of Cana corresponds to the first ‘Sign’ contained in John’s gospel.  At one level this story, unique to John, is in a typical three-part piece:

1. The scene is set (there is a wedding in a place called Cana and Jesus and his mother are there).
2. Certain actions are recounted along with a conversation involving various persons including Jesus and Mary.
3. The evangelist spells out the ‘so what’ of the story.

However, there is a deeper, mystical, level of meaning in the text to be mined and chewed over and over again in meditative prayer, silence and listening. Here the disciple is challenged to find a deeper connection to his or her life and that of others.

In the ancient liturgies of the Church – in the East as well as in the West – the story of the wedding feast of Cana is linked to that of the Baptism of Jesus and the Epiphany. We are still, effectively, in Christmastide.  The thread running through these three episodes is that God has been revealed to all the people near and far, present and in the ages to come and not just the chosen ones here and now. The stories look upwards and outwards to a new Kingdom sealed in the water, blood and spirit of Jesus. The fire of God’s Holy Spirit is already among us.

We may note that the wedding feast plays an important role in the coming of God among his people in the Hebrew scriptures (see for example the passage in today’s first ready Isaiah 62:4-5).

v. 1-2   The scene is set

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. 

According to John, the events recounted in the wedding of Cana come after the call of the initial disciples of Jesus. The reference to the ‘third day’ following the call of Philip and Nathanael is suggestive of Jesus’ passion, death and resurrection. The glory of God would be revealed on the ‘third day’.
The disciples knew Jesus’ family. This familiarity and bond is already strong enough to warrant an invitation to a 1st century Jewish wedding. Who was married? John does not say. It was, possibly, a close family member or neighbour of the village of Nazareth. If Peter was present – which is reasonable to assume from John’s story – then why did this very extraordinary event (the transformation of a huge quantity of water into wine!) not find its way into the one or more of the synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke)? Curiously, John never mentions Mary by name but refers to the ‘mother of Jesus’ a number of times in his gospel.

v.3   A concern about the guests

When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, ‘They have no wine.’ 

Moved by concern for a potentially embarrassing situation, Mary alerts Jesus. This was not necessarily a call for a miracle but a communication of concern or observation of fact. However, it could be interpreted as a request for help in a situation of acute need. A shortage of wine beckoned!

v.4-5   A sharp reply and a hint of what is to come

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.’ 

Without a cultural understanding this sounds abrupt to a 21st century ear. John uses the conversation to convey an important theological point, viz., the hour of Christ’s passion and glorification has not yet come but this first Sign is full of symbolism and meaning. In the story, there is an indication that Mary understood something of the import of Jesus’ action and response to her comment about the wine. Is there a link between Mary’s saying ‘Do whatever he tells you’ to what Jesus says to John from the cross: ‘Here is your mother’ (John 19:27)? Could it be that in giving Mary to John, he realised that her role was to remind us of God’s will ‘do whatever he tells you’ (John 2:5)? Yet, if John lived with Mary for much of the rest of her life why do we hear so little about her in the fourth Gospel (compared to, for example, Luke)? Mary remains very present but hidden in the gospel of John.

v.6-8  Jesus acts

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.

The jars used for purification are empty. Could it symbolise the Old Law which was to be transformed into a New Law?

v.9-10  A sign is discovered

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.’ 

The steward did not understand what had happened. Still less did he understand the deeper significance of this Sign. The good wine was kept until the last. God acts in God’s time and can transform our lives in ways that we could never imagine or predict. It is never too late to start again or to set out on new paths or uncover new gifts and horizons.

v.11-12   The response of the disciples

Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

John prepares a way for Jesus. The baptism of John is a very different type of baptism. Luke makes this clear. John declares that he baptises with water but the one who comes after him will baptise with the Holy Spirit and with ‘fire’. Fire is often associated with the Holy Spirit. Moreover, fire is a sign of the purifying impact of God who is all powerful. The Spirit burns up and sorts out what is good from what is evil.

Now, as we transition to the new dispensation we sense that the wedding feast of God in the sacrificial lamb signals a transformation. This is the deeper meaning hidden in the story of what happened in Cana. And it can speak to each one even today. We must be born again. Only the Holy Spirit can transform us.