Homily for 2nd Sunday of Ordinary Time Year C 2016
Isaiah 62:1-5; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-12
Introduction
Weddings are generally joyful occasions. You get teary-eyed when you see the lovely
bride and her fine-looking bridegroom.
You enjoy the copious amounts of food and the bountiful supply of drink,
unless of course you are paying for it all.
It is no wonder that Jesus often uses the
image of wedding banquets in his teaching about our relationship with God. And in today's gospel he actually goes to a
wedding and performs his first miracle there.
This wedding image teaches us to see God as a bridegroom who provides
generously for his bride.
Scripture and Theology
Whenever the Old Testament asks the
question: “Why is God interested in human beings?” the answer almost always has
something to do with marriage.
- That is why in Genesis God creates, Adam and Eve "and the two of them become one body." It is to them both that he entrusts care of the world.
- When that plan fails, because they sin, God turns to Plan B, by choosing Israel as his own people. Even here marriage is front and centre. God's plan of salvation is centred around the marriage between Abraham and Sarah, between Isaac and Rebecca, between Jacob and Rachel.
- Perhaps the clearest use of the marriage image comes from the Prophets. Hosea and Jeremiah remind Israel that she has been an unfaithful bride. Isaiah, from whom our first reading of today came, paints a brighter picture. He tells Israel that the bridegroom has forgiven her. God is coming to take his wife Israel back, to resume the joy and love of newlyweds. Isaiah prophesies that this is going to happen very soon.
Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of that
promise. He is the one who has come to
restore the marital relationship between humanity and God.
That is why John's gospel places this
incident of the Wedding at Cana and miracle of the wine, at the very beginning
of Jesus' ministry. His presence at the
wedding is no accident. John says: "Jesus did this . . . and so revealed his
glory, and his disciples began to believe in him." In other words, Jesus' being at this wedding
points back to the spousal relationship of God and Israel and now announces that
God has decided to take back his bride, Israel and all of us.
But besides his presence at the wedding,
what Jesus does there by providing more wine is equally meaningful. Archbishop
Fulton Sheen used to joke that perhaps the reason the wine ran out was because
Jesus and the disciples had crashed the party.
Jesus did not understand that "plus one" does not mean that
you can bring all your friends. But more
seriously, by providing the wine, Jesus shows God as the bridegroom who
provides so generously for his bride.
- God's providence can be seen in the number of jars. There were six jars filled with water for purification, one number short of the perfect number seven. By changing these fewer than perfect number of water jars into wine, Jesus is suggesting that he has come to improve upon the Old Testament purification rituals. His work is going to cleanse the people in a more complete way and fill them with the full joy of the new wine.
- Even the quantity of the new wine is significant. Each of the six jars held about 20 to 30 gallons of water. I did some math and when changed into wine, those jars contained 120 to 180 gallons or 600 to 900 bottles of wine and as the headwaiter testified, really good wine. Perhaps only celebrity weddings today could manage such extravagance. But the prophets had foretold that when the Messiah came, God would lavish good things upon his people as a bridegroom takes care of his bride. Like the feeding of the five thousand and the plentiful leftovers, this miracle of the wine at Cana signifies the lavishness of the new life, of the new way of Jesus.
The Wedding at Cana, is therefore the sign
of a completely new relationship between God and humanity, a new relationship brought
about by Jesus Christ.
Christian Life
And so, Jesus has played match-maker between
us and God. And in baptism, we each said
"Yes, I will marry you." What
remains for us now is to live out this marriage-like relationship, by
fulfilling our marital obligations to God.
Let me offer three qualities that should define our response: love, humility
and gratitude.
First, like a faithful bride, we should
love God back deeply. God's love should
not remain unrequited. Each of us needs
to ask himself or herself: "Am I really in love with God or am I merely in
love with what he says and what he asks me to do?" Like an arranged marriage, perhaps it was our
parents who brought us to the faith. But
eventually, we have to personally fall in love with our bridegroom.
In the movie, Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye asks his wife Golde: “Do you love
me?” She brushes off this question,
saying that with all the trouble going on in the town, with their daughters
getting married, why talk about love? Besides, "For twenty-five years I've
washed your clothes, cooked your meals, cleaned your house, given you children,
milked your cow. After twenty-five years, why talk about love right
now?" But Tevye presses her; he
wants to know. "Do you love
me?" Finally she admits: "I suppose I do [love you]." And so, must we.
Second, if we truly love God as a bride
loves her man, this love will be shown in how we pray. Mary has shown us how to pray. All she does is go to Jesus and appraise him
of the situation, saying, "They have
no wine." She does not badger
him or demand anything from him. And
when he seems to brush her request aside, she is quietly persistent, telling
the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.”
Similarly when we pray to God, mere mention
of our needs is enough. It is okay to
cry, lament, persist in our prayer, but there can be no bribing, no cajoling,
no demanding that God does this or else.
As our loving spouse he knows what is good for us and he will act
accordingly and in our best interests.
Our third response to God's love should be
gratitude. From childhood we are taught
to say "thank you" for all favours done for us. Even more must we say "thank you"
to God for his love, which we don't deserve.
- We say "thank you" at the Eucharist, a word which itself means "Thanksgiving." When we come to Mass, we are coming, not only to ask and receive things from God; we are also coming to offer him our words, songs and actions of praise and thanksgiving.
- These Eucharistic words of gratitude must then be accompanied by actions of gratitude. That is why the priest dismisses us saying: "Go in peace, glorifying the Lord by your life." In this Jubilee Year of Mercy, we might consider showing our gratitude by carrying out the corporal works of Mercy: feeding the hungry and giving drink to the thirsty; clothing the naked and welcoming the stranger; visiting the sick and the prisoner, and finally burying the dead. Like a married couple do not love just each other, but love their children and their neighbours as well, we share with others the abundance God has lavished upon us.
Conclusion
Finally, did you notice that Jesus called
his mother as "Woman." If I said
this to my mother, well let's just say I might not be here to tell you about it.
But in the case of Jesus, by calling her
"Woman" both here and on the Cross, he is pointing out that she is
the new Woman, the new Eve. While first
Eve was unfaithful, Mary is faithful.
Mary is the best example of how to be a bride. May we follow her example, as we respond to
God's abundant and generous love for us.
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