The (in)famous miracle

Readings this week (SundayJanuary 14 2007 ) are for the Second Sunday after the Epiphany
Isaiah 62:1-5 Psalm 36:5-10 I Corinthians 12:1-11 John 2:1-11

No miracle attracts attention like the turning of water into wine. It is the butt of all the jokes that cynics and non-Christians throw at believers in Jesus.
Be that as it may. It is also profoundly misunderstood.
We are fixated on getting our water turned into wine
whereas it seems the holy God
might be intent on something else.
A couple of points
Jesus is with us in the ordinary.
Although we think this story is about a magic trick of changing water into wine
it speaks volumes more to see
that it is not the extraordinary
that is the key
but the ordinary.
Here we have Jesus at an ordinary, albeit special, event
a marriage
and being bothered about an ordinary, albeit serious, problem
the wine has run out.
If we hear nothing else in this story
we need to recognise that it is speaks to us about how Jesus
lives with us in the ordinary world.
The world of weddings and bad catering!
We often confine God to "religious" areas
but this story, like much of John's Gospel,
reminds us that Jesus does not take us out of the ordinary
but rather transforms it.
One of the keys to enabling this transformation to happen
is to hear the words of Mary to his disciples
"Do what ever he tells you!"
So two key principles so far in this story are:

• allow Jesus into the ordinary

• and listen to what he is telling you and do itt.
  

This simple advice might stand us in good stead.
It requires simply that we open our ordinary life to God
And that we listen to what he is saying
We are not always good at this.
Do we take time each day, each week
to even think about what we are doing
in our ordinary life, at work, at school
at home
with our family, in our duties,
in our recreation
do we submit that to God
and allow God to add to our experience of it.

NOTE that Jesus does not cane the wedding guests!
he does not say "You are a mob of drunks! and it serves you right."
I have come that you might have lie
and have it more abundantly
is one of the great themes of this Gospel.
There will be times when God tells us to draw back
that we have got it wrong
and there will equally be times
when we are invited to throw ourselves in with zest and flare.
Dare we do this.

This is not so much a story of wayward drunkenness
but an invitation to give every aspect of our life to God
and live it with the abundance he desires for us.