John 2:1 --11
The country of Bhutan is located high
in the Himalaya mountains bordered by China on one side and India on
the other. It’s a poor country with few natural resources.
Several years ago the king decreed that instead of measuring gross
national product or crime statistics or the fraction of people living
above the poverty level, as is done in most countries, Bhutan would
measure the Gross National Happiness quotient, which may sound silly,
but the number was based on nine dimensions including what other
countries measure. The idea was that the government would put its
resources into improving the happiness of people, and what didn’t
would be discontinued. I’m not sure how it’s working out, but
it’s not a bad idea – happiness as the major goal of a
government.
Today we hear the story of the Wedding
Feast of Cana. The Church has Isaiah’s vision of what God intends
to do with the world as the first reading, and I’m sure whoever set
up the readings wanted us to notice that Jesus is doing what Isaiah
promised that God would do. It’s also interesting that John the
gospel writer starts this story with “on the third day”. You
hear those words every time we recite the creed – on the third day
he rose again from the dead. John, who is writing many years after
the Resurrection and at a time when Christianity is established in
many parts of the Eastern Roman empire, surely wanted us to think
about the Resurrection by using these words. But again, what does
this have to do with you and me?
Once Jesus said to his disciples, “I
tell you all these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy
will be complete.” What is the difference between joy and
happiness? It’s not entirely clear. One idea is that happiness
depends on external circumstances, while joy is an interior state.
But you can find happy people among the poorest people in the world,
and miserable people who are healthy and rich; and I think you have
to have joy in order to experience happiness. Certainly it’s hard
to imagine a joyless person being happy.
John the gospel writer writes his
story around seven signs. The other signs include healing the sick,
giving sight to the blind, raising the dead, you know, stuff we
expect Jesus to do. But for some reason he makes the first sign the
transformation of water into wine at a wedding. At the request of
his mother, don’t forget. I think we can conclude that Jesus
wanted the young couple to be happy, as well as all the guests, who,
if we read into the text, are probably losing their inhibitions and
singing and dancing and maybe even wearing lampshades on their heads.
Because the head steward is surprised that they are bringing out the
good wine when everyone else is at the point where they are unlikely
to appreciate it. And I suspect Jesus and his disciples were all
enjoying the wine and the revelry – in another part of the gospels,
he is accused of being a drunkard and partying with sinners.
You can’t be happy unless you are
joyful. And Jesus, in the first miracle recorded by John,
foreshadowing the Messianic banquet at the end of time; foreshadowing
the joy his disciples will feel on the third day after his
crucifixion, makes it possible for the party to continue, because he
is full of joy and so is his mother who put him up to it. And so are
the saints. Saint Lawrence was said to have said, “Turn me over,
I’m done on this side” when he was being put to death on a
griddle. Saint Thomas More, as he was about to lose his head, asked
the executioner to spare his beard, because it hadn’t done anything
to offend the king. Saint Thomas Aquinas was walking out to say Mass
when the Blessed Mother appeared to him. As she began to speak, the
story goes, he put his finger to his lips and said, “Shsh… I’m
about to say Mass and this is the quiet hour.” You can see that
joy is near the surface and in fact always bubbling over.
And Jesus tells us these things
because he wants us to have joy. Joy means that we aren’t angry,
we aren’t full of regrets, we aren’t anxious. Joy means that we
live in the present, we gratefully accept what God is offering us
right now, we are aware of his indwelling presence. And joy means
that we learn to give ourselves up to others, because that’s where
the greatest joy can be found. Some of my most joyful moments have
come when I am putting myself out for someone else.
The Church is the body of Christ, the
bride of Christ, the bearer of Christ down through the ages. The
purpose of the Church is to carry out the will of Christ and the
reason for the Church is that we might have joy and our joy will be
complete. Not just in some heaven after we die, but right now.
Joy has to do with relationship.
Those of us who have experienced marriage probably remember moments
of joy at least when we first married and if we are fortunate,
continued joy as we grow old together. Those of us who have been
parents, remember the joy of holding a baby in our arms, of watching
our child grow up. Those of us who have deep friendships know the
joy of being with the friend even when there are no words exchanged.
Much of what the church teaches has to do with relationships, summed
up of course in loving our neighbor as ourselves. But of course the
most important relationship is that with God and we Christians
experience that through our relationship with Jesus, our elder
brother, who says “Who has seen me has seen the Father”. And of
course much of what the Church teaches has to do with forming and
strengthening that relationship.
It’s a tragedy that so few people,
even among faithful Catholics, do not take advantage of the treasure
the Church has to offer. We seek joy in power, pleasure, possessions
and prestige – the four p’s – and we struggle to make them ours
only to find that once we have them, we just want more of the same.
The treasure of the church on the other hand is satisfying, it’s
lasting.
Today we should remind ourselves that
Jesus is the lord of joy and has the power to turn water into wine.
For who can not feel joy when they finally hear, deep in their
hearts, those words that brought joy to Jesus and those words God
says of us when we are baptized:: “This is my beloved, in whom I
am well pleased.”
