Second Sunday in Ordinary Time, cycle C

John 2:1 - 11

I had an uncle who noticed things.  He was a farmer and I guess that helped; you need to be aware of changes in prices of wheat and livestock; you need to have a sense of what the weather is going to do; you have to be sensitive to animal behavior because animals can get sick.  But he noticed people as well.  He had a sixth sense about you; he wouldn’t ask how you were feeling, he’d say, “You're feeling bad today, aren't you?” and he’d be right.  He belonged to a local farmer’s coop and was famous for pointing out things no one else had noticed.  Some people just notice things.  And I think Mary was like that. 

Weddings in those days took several days and during a wedding, everything came to a halt for a big party.  In the little villages of Galilee, there might be a wedding every few years, and the whole town expected that no expense would be spared.  And you didn’t run out of wine -- that would lead to social death, and a subject of gossip for a long time.  And that’s what Mary noticed.  Not Jesus, not the apostles, not any of the wedding guests.  Mary noticed.

And Mary did something about it.  She has known Jesus for all his life, all thirty years.  We know almost nothing about those years -- except that people didn’t expect much -- when he began his preaching ministry, they reacted with disbelief: “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son?” they said.  I doubt that Jesus worked any miracles in those first thirty years.  And I wonder about Mary.  Obviously, she remembered the events surrounding his birth, and when he got lost in Jerusalem.  Like any mother, I'm sure she thought Jesus was special.  But I don’t think she expected a miracle.  She just took the problem to Jesus.  That’s kind of an example for us as well.  Some of us, myself included, tend to ask God for specific things in our prayer.  We like to help him out so he doesn’t have to guess what we need.  But Mary shows us how to pray - “Son”, she says, “They have no wine.” Maybe that’s how we should pray -- dump the problem in God’s lap and wait for him to respond the way he wants to.  After all, that would by definition be the best for us.

Even after I’ve heard this story over and over, it’s still a shock when Jesus turns to her and says, “Woman, how does your concern affect me?  My hour has not yet come.”  People have tried to soften Jesus’ words -- in some translations, Woman is translated as “Lady” which seems more respectful, perhaps.  Or as some tell us, “Woman” was actually a respectful way to address a lady in those days.  But none of us can imagine addressing our mothers in this way, and that’s true in other languages.  Unless we are really mad, we call her Mom, or at least “Mother”.  So I think Jesus, who is like us in all things but sin, really meant what he said -- “Don’t bother me, This isn’t the place for me to begin my ministry.” 

But Mary persists.  Mother Teresa once asked a businessman for a contribution to her work.  He replied that things were tough and maybe another time.  When he finished his day he walked into his waiting room and saw her sitting there.  She looked at him and said, “This is another time.”  She got the contribution.  Mary does not give up.  She figures that the embarrassment to the young couple was much worse than Jesus beginning his ministry at a time he chose.  And so she gets the help together and tells them, “Do whatever he tells you.”  Now I’m pretty sure that she didn’t say it once. She pushed and prodded and kept it up till they gave up and went over to Jesus.  I can see the servants standing there saying “What do you want us to do?”  And Mary is off to one side smiling.  

Jesus tells them to fill the jugs with water.  This is not as simple as it seems.  Each holds a lot of water.  If you’ve been to the grocery store you’ve seen those Arizona tea containers -- that’s about a gallon.  The servants, in addition to everything else they are doing, have to go back and forth to the town’s well to get about 150 of those jugs full of water and emptied into the six stone water jars.  That’s a lot of work.  In fact, I wonder if Jesus gave them this task to shut them up -- after all, his hour had not yet come.  But I imagine Mary is still pushing -- “Do whatever he tells you to do!”  And in the end the servants do just that.  

Finally Jesus gives up.  At this point the miracle occurs and his hour, his march to his passion and death, begins.  Now we could comment on the abundance of good wine, and how it’s a symbol of the kingdom Jesus is ushering in, a kingdom where there will be nothing lacking, where there will be more than enough for everyone to satisfy every need, every longing.  We could talk about the significance of the number of jars -- six, how there were six days during which God created the world, and he rested on the seventh.  

But maybe the lesson for today is to be like Mary -- to notice when there is something lacking - in our lives, in the lives of our loved ones -- and to bring that need to God.  And then to wait in expectation, doing whatever he tells us, what he tells us through our Church, through our conscience, through the circumstances of our lives.  And to persist in our prayer.  And to trust.  Because we know that the best wine will be coming.  

Baptism of the Lord, cycle C

Luke 3:15 - 16, 21 - 22

I don’t know if you’ve ever been to a live concert by a rock or country band.  It’s the same music you could hear on a recording, but people keep demanding live music, in venues where everyone stands shoulder to shoulder and moves with the music.  I think the main reason is that in those kinds of events, there are moments when you feel at one with everyone else, moments when the barriers fall, and you have a glimpse of a different way of being.  There's Something in us that longs to be one with the rest of humanity, just as there is something that wants to throw up barriers between my group and your group. Humans are weird.  

The Gospels were written in the forms we have today about 60 to 100 years after the Birth of Christ.  Some estimates are even later.  Mathew and Luke tell the same baptism story as Mark, with their own embellishments.  John refers to observing the voice from heaven but the actual baptism isn’t recorded.  In any event, Matthew gives a hint as t6o what will trouble the Church down through the ages.  He has John saying, “It is you who should baptize me” and Jesus replying “Let it be so for now.  It is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness.”  Sister Dorothy back in grade school used this passage to tell us that Jesus didn’t really need to be baptized but was just giving all of us sinners a good example.  As you can tell, that was burned into my brain, leaving me puzzled for the next 70 years.

I’m not the only one.  Many great theologians puzzled over this. It’s hard to view Jesus acting deceptively.  Some decided that John’s baptism had nothing to do with sin or repentance, but instead was an act of solidarity with the ancestors who had crossed the Jordan river into the promised land.  And Catholic theologians, at least, do insist that the baptism of John was not a sacrament, like the baptism instituted by Jesus through his Church.  

But maybe we could look at the baptism of Jesus in a different way.  Picture the scene -- John has just called the crowd a brood of vipers, and we know there were tax collectors and various other sinners in that vast gathering, not to mention pagan soldiers.  Remember when John was asked “What are we to do?” and he gave answers to tax collectors and soldiers specifically. And there were Pharisees.  So there was Jesus, in the middle of a crowd -- a crowd of sinners.  

And the people were entering into the Jordan river -- the same river  where Elijah the prophet ended his ministry and Elisha, his successor, assumed his.  The same river where Naaman the Syrian had been washed clean of his leprosy.  The same river where the people of God crossed into the land given  to them by God, where they became a nation.  

The first public act of Jesus was to indicate his solidarity with humanity -- all of humanity, past, present and future; Jews, gentiles; sinners and those who thought themselves sinless.  

This is the moment when Jesus steps into God’s work on earth.  It’s when he takes on the common human experience of living in a broken world, a world which is bound to disappoint.  He’ll join us in longing for justice and righteousness and the world that could be.  

And this is the moment when You and I are invited to see that in these muddy waters, carried forward down through time in our baptismal fonts, something happens that transforms us, that unites us with the God become man who allows John to wash him as well.  

Saint Paul tells us that there is one baptism -- and when we participate in it, we are there with all those others who have been baptized --many of whom in ordinary life we probably would have nothing to do with.  But we are invited to see that we are not alone, that God is with us, that what appears ordinary, random, unexciting, is actually touched with divinity.  And that is not because of anything we have done, but because God loves us and in Jesus, calls us his beloved son or daughter.  And it goes without saying, that if I’m a beloved son or daughter, then so are you, and I had better take a closer look -- because there is something of the divine in you as there is in me.  Sometimes it seems like the whole message of Christianity is that because Jesus takes on our nature, all the barriers, the tribalism, the rivalry, the class wars, the race thing -- all that divides us is meant to be broken down.  And of course Jesus prayed, “That all may be one, Father, as I am in you and you are in me, that all may be one in us.”  To the extent that we open ourselves to this mystery, baptism, which unites us with Jesus and the rest of the baptized,  is where salvation starts.