Our Murky Water, Jesus' Fine Wine...

+ J. M. J. +

Homily Outline for the 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time

Six stone jars were standing back in the shadows, something like 25 gallons apiece. They had held water for the ceremonial washings, but that was all long past… the feast was in full swing. A middle-aged woman, strangely serene and beautiful despite her obvious humility and poverty, a widow… she gestured to a group of servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” The servers shrug… theirs not to question why, but to follow orders, to serve. Ok, good enough, they filled the jars back up. More ceremony, more washings? Oh well… and then, a far stranger order from the woman’s son: “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” Now, head waiters are notoriously testy and dictatorial. I was the headwaiter my final year at the seminary, so I know what I’m talking about. People are always running up and asking nonsensical questions, or asking for special dishes… it’s easy to get a little short. The server shrugged again… who knows what the headwaiter will say when he’s brought a cup of plain water…

Think of the ordinariness of the people involved in this wedding feast, and the strangeness of these requests. Let me propose to you that God is very often, indeed, nearly always, at work in surprising and unexpected ways in the midst of ordinary events. God might even be at work in our midst!

The Wedding Feast of Cana, where Jesus performed His first miracle was understood by the Church Fathers together with the arrival of the Magi and the Baptism in the Jordan. Together, these three events show God’s presence in His world, Jesus’ presence, becoming more and more visible. First Mary, Joseph, John the Baptist, Elizabeth, then the shepherds, then the Magi, then those gathered at the Jordan to hear John preach and to be baptized, and now, all those gathered at this provincial wedding feast. God is revealing Himself, showing us who He is, and how he works.

In Jewish ceremonial washings, care would have been taken to use fresh pure water, and presumably that is what the servers used to fill those large jugs. What God does in us is even stranger… the water of our daily lives, our thoughts and feelings, our actions… this water is often not always fresh and pure. Sometimes it is murky and stagnant. Sometimes we find not the odor of sanctity, but the bitter stink of sin and falsehood. And, yet… even such water as this can be turned into sweet wine! We see it so often in the lives of the saints, many of them great sinners who were converted, like Augustine, like Mary Magdalene, like Francis of Assisi.

In our own time, the water that flows in our land and in our culture and in our lives is often troubled and impure water. The prophet begins today with these words:

For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch.

Isaiah spoke to people who had seemingly abandoned God and His Law… people in exile and far away from their creator. He spoke to convict, to challenge, to convert, and to encourage. A wound that is unacknowledged is a wound that festers, a wound that infects. We live in a wounded land and a wounded culture. There are many layers to the lies we tell, but chief among them is the lie of abortion. Tragically, we mark this week the 40th Anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the Supreme Court decision that has led to the deaths of over 50 million children in their mother’s wombs, and the deep grief and pain of the mothers and fathers of those children. I was born in 1978, and so the Abortion Regime reigned over my generation. Perhaps 30% of the boys and girls I should have attended school with, boys and girls who should have been my friends, never made it to birth. For 40 years, an average of about 3500 abortions every day in our land. Like Isaiah, I could not serve you well or honestly if I was to keep silent. This is an awkward and painful subject to address… not unlike the rumors that must have spread through Nazi Germany about the concentration camps. Have you ever thought, “How did the Germans allow such a tragedy to happen?” Have you ever thought, “How come no one stopped Hitler?” The analogy is imperfect, but I cannot help but feel that future generations may well ask a similar question of us, “How did they allow such savagery?” How did they allow so many men and women to kill their children and wound themselves?

This wound is deep in us, and it is not a wound just in the cities, far away, affecting other people. Abortion has affected our lives, right here in this community. As a young priest, in less than 4 years, I have heard more than a few men and women confess to abortions, often decades after the event, and I have heard the profound pain in their voices, and seen the grief in their eyes. Just as much as I must speak of this for the children, I must speak of this for the mothers and fathers, and for future mothers and fathers. Many, perhaps most, of the people who have sought out abortions have found themselves in very difficult circumstances, but killing their child has not fixed the problems or improved those situations, but has merely added a deep wound to the other sources of pain and struggle.

It is hard for me to speak of this pain, hard to identify this Holocaust in our midst. We shudder at Schindler’s List, and yet we, we have killed or allowed the killing, of far more children then were every killed by the Nazis. This wound cannot heal if it is kept in the dark.

I often fear that those who have been party to an abortion only hear judgment from the Church and from God. We must identify the lie and the sin honestly, but we must also speak of God’s infinite mercy. Every sin can be healed and forgiven if it is brought to the Lord, brought into the light. Isaiah did more than identify the pain of his people:

No more shall people call you “Forsaken,” or your land “Desolate,” but you shall be called “My Delight,” and your land “Espoused.” For the LORD delights in you and makes your land his spouse.

By the Incarnation, God bound Himself to us much more intimately and completely even than the union between a husband and a wife. He took upon Himself our every burden, wound, and sin, and this includes abortion. The world tells us with a honeyed tongue that there’s nothing wrong, that it’s a necessary choice, but that honey carries bitter poison. God speaks to us with love, compassion, and identifies the wound, the sin, the hurt. He desires to draw us to Himself and to heal our wounds. He desires to take the often impure and turbulent water of our lives and transform it into sweet pure wine. The Lord can and will do this, if we will come to Him with open hearts, if we will follow His commands.

Let me close by entrusting myself, and each of you, into the hands of our mother, Mary. Jesus gave Mary to us as a spiritual mother from the Cross, He entrusted us to her care and protection. Mary models for us surrender of one’s life into the Father’s hands, and God brought about our salvation through her. We encounter in our Gospel today her last recorded words in Scripture, and they are words we should take to heart. She brought the servers to her Son and said, “Do whatever He tells you.” She speaks those same words to us. May we turn to the Lord now, conscious of our great poverty, our great need for His mercy and healing strength. With eager expectation may we open the door to His unexpected and surprising gift from this altar now, His own Body and Blood.

+ A. M. D. G. +