Spiking the Punch: Jesus' Sense of Humor

Lectionary reflections for the Second Sunday after Epiphany (C)

by Louie Crew

Readings for Epiphany 2, Year C, Jan. 18, 2004

If you were going to make up a story to show how your friend had the power to perform miracles, what miracle would you have the friend do? End war, or at least the conflict in Iraq? End terrorism? End poverty, or at least the poverty in your community? End disease, or at least cure one person whom you know and love from an "incurable disease"?

Instead, for his first miracle, told in the story of the wedding in Cana of Galiliee, Jesus spikes the punch at a wedding! Lighten up -- what a hoot this is! The Lord of the universe has a sense of humor and wants us to have one too.

Jesus takes six jars that hold between 150 to 180 gallons of water and turns all of that water into wine. Could you fit 180 gallon jars into your car? We're talking about some serious libations here.

Jewish weddings in the first century often lasted for several days. It is clear they are nearing the end of this one in Cana, because they have run out of wine. Jesus takes six jars that hold between 150 to 180 gallons of water and turns all of that water into wine. Could you fit 180 gallon jars into your car? We're talking about some serious libations here.

The locals are not only surprised, they are a shocked. Normally they use the strongest wine early in a wedding, and when people are already feeling good, weaker wine is served, perhaps adulterated with water. But Jesus has made his wine the strongest. What effect would you guess this would have on the sobriety of the guests?

Baptists and other naysayers dear to us might prefer that Jesus have said: "Mother! Here you go messing in my business again. They don't need any more wine. After all, they have been drinking for over a week. This is precisely the kind of occasion for which God made Welch's grape juice. After all, this scene must look very proper, because the Polaroids will be here to preserve it as an icon for Christian marriage. Now smile for the camera."

Instead, the first miracle of Jesus is a huge joke, and one that with God we are meant to enjoy. (It's no accident that the Baptists sometimes call us "Whiskeypalians.")

My bishop (John P. Croneberger, Newark) says that he has finally figured out why Episcopalians talk about sex so much: We are afraid that otherwise we might have to talk about scripture.

Marriage in our own time is under great stress. Many marriages are falling apart, and many single persons prefer to live together without marriage. How ironic that in this setting more and more lesbians and gays want to marry. Conservative journalist William Safire recently wrote in The New York Times: "I used to fret about same-sex marriage. Maybe competition from responsible gays would revive opposite-sex marriage."

Both heterosexuals and gays alike are very much in danger of what I call the "Theology of Brides Magazine": The image most people have of marriage is closer to the 1950's television sit com "Leave it to Beaver" than to biblical reality, and certainly not close to Christian history.

Both heterosexuals and gays alike are very much in danger of what I call the "Theology of Brides Magazine": The image most people have of marriage is closer to the 1950's television sit com "Leave it to Beaver" than to biblical reality, and certainly not close to Christian history. Consider some facts:

• For most of the Christian era, marriages were not held in churches.
• The formalities were much more about property than about affection and mutuality.
• The vast majority of people had common law marriages, as there was no real property. As late as the 16^th century, Austria and Bavaria had laws banning marriage for servants and day laborers.
• Adultery, not marriage, was the norm of the Courtly Love tradition in the High Middle Ages.
• Marriage services, when they did evolve in the 12^th-14^th century, were modeled on the ceremonies of monks making vows of friendship.

"The actions taken by the New Hampshire Episcopalians are an affront to Christians everywhere. I am just thankful that the church's founder, Henry VIII, and his wife Catherine of Aragon, his wife Anne Boleyn, his wife Jane Seymour, his wife Anne of Cleves, his wife Katherine Howard, and his wife Catherine Parr are no longer here to suffer through this assault on our 'traditional Christian marriage.'" From The Los Angeles Times for August 16, 2003, quoted in The Christian Century on September 20, 2003.

I can speak more authoritatively about my own marriage than about yours. Like our courtship, it was conventional. It was love at first sight when Ernest and I met in 1973 at the Atlanta YMCA. Ernest was a fashion coordinator for a local department store, I was a professor at a state college 100 miles way, deep in the peach and pecan orchards. One of us black, the other white; both native Southerners. We commuted every weekend for five months. Our friends were not surprised when we decided to marry.

We would have wasted our time to send an announcement to the local papers. Besides, the bank employees spread the word just as effectively when we took out a joint account. Our wedding itself was private, just the two of us and the Holy Spirit. Parents, although loving, would not have welcomed the occasion; our priest would not have officiated even had he been granted the Episcopal authority, which was expressly denied. Two neighbors, historians, sent a bottle of champagne; a psychologist friend dropped in earlier to propose a toast; others sent welcoming tokens.

We unloaded the heavier gear from the car before beginning the ceremony. Then we carried each other across the threshold into the dining room, where the table was set with two wineglasses from Woolworth's, one lone and lighted red candle instead of our customary two green ones, a vase with one early narcissus, and an open 1928 Book of Common Prayer. We read the service nervously, its fearsome bidding and pledges. The words woman and wife translated readily as spouse, man, husband, Person. All took only about ten minutes.

That formal commitment began on February 2, 1974, thirty years ago. My, oh my, how time flies! As African Christians are fond of saying, "God is good, all the time!"

Or as Psalm 36 says in today's reading:

How precious is your steadfast love, O God!
All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings.
They feast on the abundance of your house,
and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
For with you is the fountain of life;
in your light we see light.

 

Louie Crew is a writer and a well-known collector and disseminator of statistics and little-known facts about the Anglican Communion, which may be found on his website. He is a contributing editor to The Witness and publishes a regular column on "A Globe of Witnesses." Louie may be reached by email at lcrew@andromeda.rutgers.edu.