Called to Risk--January 21, 2025

Called to Risk--January 21, 2025

"[Jesus] said to [the servants who filled the jars], ‘Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.’ So they took it. 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.’ "(John 2:8-10)

Imagine for a moment you are one of the wait staff at this wedding reception, and some stranger (and his mom) just start giving you absurd-sounding directions.  I know we church folks are no longer surprised at the unexpected plot twist of this story, so it's no longer a shock that Jesus turns water into wine, but imagine if you were living through this moment.  Imagine some upstart rabbi tells you to do something that sounds downright preposterous without even explaining to you what his plan is, all while the guests at this wedding are getting increasingly suspicious about the lack of refills at the bar.

And now imagine... that for some reason, you just go ahead and do what the stranger directs you to do.  And something amazing happens.

Like I say, we are so used to this story that we call it "The Water into Wine Story," or the title headings in our study Bibles give away the ending before it's even begun.  But if you didn't know how things were going to turn out--and if you were one of the people asked to do something that sounded insane by someone you had quite possibly just met, what would do?  Would you have followed Rabbi Jesus' directions and filled the heavy, awkward stone jars with water?  Would you have dared to serve some to the wedding planner who was running the party without knowing what had happened to the water from the jar? 

My guess is that it would have been very hard for any of us to follow Jesus' instructions if we had been on the service staff at the wedding banquet that night.  We don't like to make utter fools of ourselves.  We don't like to risk getting people mad at us (as surely, the steward of the catering service would have been if the cup you just handed him turned out only to have water in it).  And to be quite honest, we don't like to be directed out of our usual routines and familiar tasks with nothing more to go on than the instruction of a stranger who hasn't told us his plans.  But there's something about Jesus, I suppose, that makes people willing to go beyond their comfort zones and risk looking like fools.

Maybe that's how we have to let this story hit us: we haven't been asked to fill up stone jars with water in the seemingly impossible notion that it will become wine just on Jesus' say-so. But we have been called by Jesus to risk ourselves, our routines, our reputations as Respectable Religious Folks, in other ways.  When he calls us to share our resources so that the hungry can be fed and neighbors without safe housing can have a warm place to call home, that can sound risky.  When Jesus directs us to love our enemies, or to welcome foreigners, or to forgive the ones who have hurt us, it might well sound as preposterous in our ears as filling up those stone jars with water and waiting for them to become Cabernet Sauvignon.  But we dare those things, as outrageous as they are, because we have found Jesus compelling.  Somehow, when Jesus calls us to go into all nations, to eat with sinners, or to walk on water, we go, because when he tells to dare, we can't help but dare.  Somehow it doesn't matter that Jesus will take us far away from our comfort zones and beyond the bounds of the "reasonable."

I wonder: where his call will lead us today?  And I wonder if our willingness to risk making utter fools of ourselves in the ways we love... and welcome... and forgive... and serve... and celebrate... and proclaim... will turn out to be the most powerful witness we have.  After all, because a handful of servants at a wedding did the crazy thing Jesus asked them to do, a miracle happened, and people came to believe in Jesus from that crazy thing they saw and tasted.  Maybe you and I will turn out to be part of the reason someone else dares to place their trust in Jesus, because they see what happens when we let Jesus direct us as he will.

Lord Jesus, make us confident by your call to do what you direct us to do, and to share in the joyful miracles you have in mind.