Mid-Week Lenten Service

Wednesday, March 5, 2020

The Simple Gift of Wine

St. John 2:1-12

Small bottle of wine are at each parishioners pew or seat.

Song is sung:

'Tis the gift to be simple, 'tis the gift to be free

'Tis the gift to come down where we ought to be,

And when we find ourselves in the place just right,

'Twill be in the valley of love and delight.

When true simplicity is gain'd,

To bow and to bend we shan't be asham'd,

To turn, turn will be our delight,

Till by turning, turning we come 'round right.

Thank you Karen for singing and our violinist!

Simple gifts – our Wednesday Lenten meditations contemplate the simple gifts of Lent.  This joyful Shaker tune and lyric goes against the mood of Lent – which is one of solemnity and penance. 

And most Lutherans love Lent.  Any Lutheran worth their salt will not allow themselves to be happy for more than 20 minutes.  If you are a German Lutheran – that is really pushing it.  Garrison Keillor says:  “Lutherans are in a perpetual Lent.”

Yet, to delight and be joyful is central to the Christian faith.  And there is a tradition – a long standing tradition that the 4^th Sunday in Lent is known as laetare Sunday.  Lent is half over and Easter is enticingly near.  So right in the middle of Lent – for Roman Catholics – purple vestments are exchanged for rose vestments and Sunday worship is dedicated to rejoicing. 

"Rejoice, Jerusalem! Be glad for her, you who love her; rejoice with her, you who mourned for her.”  (Isaiah 66:10)

So, we have permission from the liturgical calendar to meditate on joy. 

God delights in God’s people.  God delights in you.  God is a constant companion us in our joys and in our sorrows. 

The Gospel according to St. John makes it abundantly clear that Jesus came that we might have life and have it abundantly.  Now God’s kind of abundant life is not the American dream, or a Wall Street version of success.  God’s dream is pictured in a universal gathering – a vast feast at which all of creation works in harmony and delights in the grace of God.

The Jesus according to the Gospel of John enters rejoicing.  The first miracle or sign given in the Gospel of John is what we just read - the miracle of water into wine.

Now John uses lots of imagery.  John speaks in metaphors.  This story is not simply a literal miracle – but a St. John himself says – “this act was the first ‘sign’ Jesus gave.  There are 7 signs in John’s Gospel and this is the first:

“A Wedding Feast” – the prophets use this imagery in describing God’s relationship with his people – God the groom, God’s people the bride.  And wedding feasts at Christ’s time lasted days.

Mary asks Jesus to help the bride and groom in an embarrassing situation.  Jesus tells Mary that the time for the real rejoicing has not come – John sees the cross as Jesus ultimate glory and sign.  Yet, he accommodates Mary’s request. 

So he requests the servants to take the 6 stone water pots used for ritual washing and fill them to the brim and then take them to the host. 

Here again John has Jesus use the pots of the religious leaders to make wine!  Might Jesus be saying that those rites of purification are not God’s ways or the way of the Kingdom, but life in God is a celebration – a delight in God and God’s delight in God’s people?

The water pots are brought to the host.  And sure enough – it is the best wine and the host whines about how it should have been served first.

So wine is a symbol of God’s loving reign.  In this miracle Jesus is replacing the old rituals of purification with a wedding feast where the best wine comes at the end in great abundance.  And this is the first sign of what Jesus will be up to in his ministry.

Wine for Israel was used in Passover - a celebration of God’s liberation.  Jesus in turn shares bread and wine with women, sinners, and other outcasts.  The fellowship meals of Jesus are one reason he gets put on a cross.

On the night Jesus is betrayed he give thanks and over several cups of wine – there was more than one during the Seder – he speaks of his death – his giving of his life – as the way to new life.

 “My body is going up on a cross and my blood is being shed for you.  Now here is a covenant meal to remember the way I’ve chosen to set you free and bring new life.”

So Holy Communion is a covenant meal bringing all God’s people and all of creation together in the valley of love and delight.

Early Christians had a variety of ways of conducting this fellowship meal.  For 300 years is ranged from an agape meal to a more formal liturgy –all for the purpose of celebrating the presence and reign of God. 

God’s gracious presence entered the lives of the early believers through this meal of remembrance. 

It wasn’t until later that the whole ‘sacrifice of Christ’ somber Communion practices entered into the church’s liturgy. Lost was the celebration and delight – replaced by mystery, sacrifice, and an untouchable God. 

The Holy Eucharist became treated with fear and trembling.

“Be careful how you treat the host – don’t chew it – let it melt in your mouth.”

“Be careful that you do not take this Sacrament unworthily!”

The liturgical renewal instigated by Vatican II in the 1960’s made a radical shift for both Roman Catholics and Protestants.

Imagine all the altars in all the Roman Catholic churches were ordered to be moved from the wall.  No longer was this meal just a sacrifice – but a celebration of the presence of the risen Christ among us.

For Protestants, too, this changed.  No longer was Holy Communion a once a year or quarterly celebration, but a ‘feast of victory’ to be celebrated regularly.  “This is the Feast of Victory for our God for the lamb who was slain has begun to reign.”

So you hold in your hands the simple gift of wine.  God delights in us.  God’s grace is given in, with, and under the grapes of this wine and the wheat of the bread of Holy Communion. 

Take this home – put it at your dinner table to remind you of God’s abundant grace.

Amen