Fun things make Lutherans anxious: Miracles, enjoyment, and the purpose that holds it all together

 Scripture: John 2:1-11

            The wedding at Cana is something that Lutherans don’t much care for, because it is something that sounds potentially fun, and we are nothing if not deeply suspicious about anything that might be fun.

            I figured that was a nice, stereotypical half-truth to get your attention, so I’ll get back to that in a minute, but first I’m going to take a detour to confirmation class last Wednesday. Our discussion topic with the 9^th graders was miracles.
            I asked, "What is a miracle?" But I didn’t anticipate at all what they were going to say. Their answers were very interesting. They said a miracle is something “meaningful”; something with a “purpose” behind it; something “good.” I was expecting a definition of miracles that had something to do with impossibility—that they would say that miracles are things that cannot be explained or things that violate the laws of nature. But, whether they knew it or not, they actually saw through the question to the part that really matters. It’s not the possibility or impossibility of miracles that makes them significant but the meaning behind them. This gives me a good deal of hope, because when Jesus does something miraculous in John’s Gospel it is not called a miracle. Every healing and raising of the dead, every feeding or walking on water are just called “signs”—semeion is the word in Greek. They are events that point to something greater.

            A miracle is a thing with a purpose behind it, something meaningful, and good. It’s unlikelihood (or impossibility) is really only something that magnifies the meaning of it. What matters is the purpose.

            I love that the first “sign” in John’s Gospel takes place at the wedding at Cana. I realize that turning water into wine has nowhere near the human impact of healings or raising people from the dead, but I think it is a piece of uniquely good news that Jesus’ first sign is to keep a party going; that he leads with a sign of abundance and joy.

            As I led with this morning, we-Lutherans are deeply suspicious about stories like these. There is something deeply engrained in Scandinavians that is skeptical of anything that could even be loosely considered a good time, and honestly I think that’s part of the reason we like the Jesus who heals people more than the Jesus at Cana. Death and disease are OK subjects, but parties just seem like something for the other sort; the only party for us is a wedding where everybody’s well-dressed and the dancing ends by 10 o'clock. The idea that the Cana wedding was in its third day fills us with all kinds of mistrust. Better to ignore that, thanks to Jesus, they just added something like 130 gallons of wine for the guests to enjoy.

            This is a story of lavish abundance and a sign of something greater, and the sign was not just the transformation of water into wine but the continuation of the party itself. How strange that Jesus encourages the party to continue! How weird that he uses jars designed for ritual purification to do it! If we’re honest, we can’t believe that this can have anything to do with faith. Isn't this the exact opposite of what we preach about being a Christian?

            I can see the confusion. The reality is that we are so good at talking about deliverance from sin and yet so terrible at telling people what that might look like. We ignore stories like these and in-so-doing we miss that the wedding feast is a perfect example of God’s abundance.

            I get why we are the way we are. I grew up with this, too. We are deeply suspicious of fun because it tends to lead to things that are immoral. Even as we all have different ideas of what is moral and immoral, we all understand the kind of situation that leads to those things, and it tends to be situations that are “fun.” We’ve read stories like The Great Gatsby and seen movies like The Wolf of Wall Street and we understand that gratuitous parties numb us to our callings as Christians in the world. We know too well that human beings will make poor choices in certain environments more often than not. So, we have decided that parties are bad, and so what is good must be the opposite of parties.

            Meanwhile, Jesus is turning an obscene amount of water into wine and we’re ignoring the whole episode.

            This week I read the thoughts of a few pastors on this story, and I was struck by how many of them tried to minimize the lavishness of what was going on. One said, “Jesus didn't do this as the Son of God, but as a man in right-standing with God and full of the Holy Spirit." I find it remarkable that the minute Jesus does anything that actually promotes joy we start making excuses for him. I want to suggest something radical: I want to suggest that enjoyment is actually a good thing (crazy, right?). But I actually want to go a little further and suggest that we will experience signs that point to the true miracle of our faith--the cross and the resurrection--when joy becomes an integral part of our life. God shows up in moments of joy; moments that are—God forbid—fun. And this is where it comes back around to what our 9^th-graders said on Wednesday: Fun things only become a problem when they are no longer meaningful.
            If I might add on to our confirmation students’ definition just a little: A miracle is a joyful event with a purpose that points to God.

            This is what happened at Cana and what framed the start of Jesus’ ministry. It’s also what happens in every healing and feeding story we have. These are all signs of something greater—that Jesus came not just to make a party last but to offer purpose that the party needs. If a party exists merely for the drinking, or for eating, or the sake of the party itself, then yes, a party can be a bad thing, but God is capable of working through all sorts of events—even something where we could have a bit of fun. For those of us who are unsure about things that are fun, Jesus’ actions at Cana remind us that isolating ourselves from enjoyment is no guarantee of righteousness. All of us sin and fall short of the glory of God, whether locked up in our rooms or out to the wee hours of the morning.

            The paradox of Jesus’ ministry is that this moment of joy at Cana foreshadows ultimate joy, which happens not at a wedding party but on the cross. And that is the tension of our lives as Christians. We are called to joy, both for the abundance of good things we are given in life and the abundance of salvation that flows from the cross. The fact that we are suspicious of abundant joy at Cana suggests we are also suspicious of abundant grace on the cross, because if we cannot accept that Jesus would grant us abundant life here and now we will always doubt that anything greater lies ahead. Our confirmation students get it: it’s about meaning and purpose; it’s a sign of something greater. Cana matters, just as our lives matter; just as all the things we do for fun matter; but Cana itself is just an appetizer for something greater. So are our lives. So are all our parties. It’s all nothing but a foretaste of the feast to come.

            Amen.