Whatever He Tells You

John 2:1-11

This has been one of my favorite Jesus stories for a long time. It’s fun; it happens at a party; there’s that exchange between Jesus and his mother that feels like a glimpse into a daily relationship that’s not too far from our own experience, and it’s a bit funny.

But maybe my favorite line is “Do whatever he tells you.” It speaks volumes about Mary’s knowledge of her son, of her theological and maternal confidence, that after Jesus announces that this wine problem has nothing to do with him, she rounds up the staff and tells them to do what ever Jesus says.

And it may say something of Mary’s authority - familial and theological - that the staff in fact, DO what Jesus tells them. Because what Jesus tells them to do is ridiculous.

Seriously.

The host is about to have to shut down the party and the servants undoubtedly should be helping with that, but Jesus tells them to fill up all the water jars. To get something between 120 and 180 gallons of water from the well or the river or wherever you get water in Cana, haul them to the courtyard, or the family hall, and fill up the jars (which, by the way, is a LOT more water than even a wedding full of guests needs for the “rites of purification,” which would have taken place before the feast started, anyway).

And they just do it.

They do what he tells them.

And then when they’ve got the jugs filled (it must have taken ages!), he tells them to dip some out, and give it to the steward to serve.

Serve water?? Seriously?

I mean, he’s going to make Mothers Against Drunk Driving happy, but the whole point of his mother’s instructions was to keep the party going, right?

But they just do it. Just do what he tells them, foolish and odd as it is, hard as the work was; 

they do what he tells them. And the miracle appears.

It’s no longer water. It’s wine.

It’s really good wine.  First toast, savor the taste, high quality stuff.

And there is a ton of it (literally, probably equivalent to the amount of wine you get from a ton of grapes - thanks, Google!)

And the party is saved. The party is amazing. And God’s glory is all over the place.

Because they did what he told them. Because they went along with the unusual, apparently pointless, goofy activity of filling up those ridiculous water jars, humored him, maybe, trusted him, maybe, imagined the possibilities or had nothing to lose, and did what Jesus told them.

Did you ever do that?
I know this congregation enough to suspect that at least one of you has a story - often told or kept close to your chest - about when you went out on a limb for God. Maybe you quit your job or took on one you hadn’t planned, spoke up in public - protested, or preached, or told a story you meant to keep private; moved across the country, fell in love with the “wrong” person, came back to church after the church hurt you, donated something you couldn’t spare…

and something impossible and wonderful happened.

When you did something that it seemed like Jesus was telling you to do, foolish or odd or outside your comfort zone, and discovered a miracle.

Sometimes what God asks of us, what Jesus tells us to do, makes sense - fits with our own experience and clear logic: Do unto others what you would have them do unto you, for example. And we live well in God’s call to us when we follow the teachings we understand.

But miracles mostly don’t appear when we’re doing what makes sense.

Miracles mostly appear when we’ve run out of sense, when logic and experience won’t take us any further. When we’re out of wine, and we’ve already spent the whole wedding budget, and besides, the merchant couldn’t deliver more for weeks, and Jesus tells us to dip up water.

Miracles happen when there’s nothing to eat, and Jesus tells us to feed people. When there’s no hope for a cure, and God tells you to take your open, bleeding sores and go bathe in a dirty river. When you have fished all night, and done everything right, and there are clearly no fish there today, and Jesus tells you to cast the net on the wrong side of the boat. When your brother has been dead for days, and Jesus tells you to open the tomb and undo his wrappings - in spite of the stink and the impossibility of healing the dead.

God has a tendency - Jesus has a habit - of telling us to do foolish, uncomfortable, illogical things that add up, in God’s presence, to an unreasonable, extravagant miracle.

And, boy, are these miracles extravagant. 

When Jesus feeds five thousand hungry people, there are leftovers. LOTS of leftovers. The impossible haul of fish overflows the net. A dead man - very dead - lives.

And there’s enough wine to party for weeks, not just an evening.

It’s worth noting that when the host ran out of wine, the wedding party had to stop, and stopping early probably gave you a loser’s reputation. And when Jesus makes new wine, he makes so much that it’s clear he’s not just saving this party, he’s telling us that the celebration never needs to end.  That the joy and unity and fellowship can go on and on and on.

It’s nice, when you need a miracle, to be able to hear exactly what Jesus is telling us to do, to be confident that even if we’re doing something crazy, we’re precisely following God’s instructions.

But most of the time it doesn’t work that clearly. 

I suspect the miracles we read about in the Bible got remembered and retold because of how rare it is to hear our impractical instructions so clearly, to be told, explicitly, to “Fill the jars with water.”

More often, its very hard to figure out how to get “outside the box,” even when we know the usual ways don’t offer any solutions.  The things Jesus tells us to do come through as vague promptings: feelings, impractical dreams, odd recurring ideas that seem to go in precisely the opposite direction from the one we want.

But miracles still happen. Not always clearly, but so real.

Now, it might sound like I’m saying every crazy idea is good. But we all know that only some of our crazy ideas are holy. And we don’t always know which until we try.

But it’s clear that miracles don’t come from our sensible selves, but from our willingness to obey Mary, to do what Jesus tells us to do.

And it’s clear that Jesus uses us to make miracles, so Jesus needs us to listen for instructions that might be irrational, to put our backs into hauling gallon after gallon of apparently pointless water, to imagine the possibilities, and trust with both heart and action.

Because when God makes miracles with us, Jesus brings out the very best: the high quality, top of the line wine, in a glorious abundance, more than we’d ever ask or imagine.