Second Sunday after the Epiphany
By the Rev. Dr. Calvon Jones
Assistant Minister/Director
Memorial Church of Harvard University
(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Jan. 19, 2025)
For the time that I have with you this morning, I would like to place a tag upon the gospel reading texts entitled Turning Water Into New Wine. Turning Water Into New Wine. The wine has run out. Beloved, we have a problem, but it is a social problem in this text: the wine has run out. Jesus, his friends, his disciples, and his mother have been invited to a wedding in Cana, a town near Nazareth. Jesus has been baptized and has called his disciples, and now he is at a wedding having a good time, a human good time with friends. You see, this is for church folks who feel like they cannot party. You can. Weddings in those days would typically involve the whole town.
Usually, it was a multi-day celebration, and wine was certainly a part of the festivities. But it is important to note here that in the ancient world, wine had a more significant bearing when it came to celebrations, gatherings, weddings, and dinners. It was not treated as a luxury like today. It was a part of each meal in ancient days. It was a part of the food chain. It was needed. It was a necessity. It was a part of the daily spread. And in his commentary of John 2, Andrew McGowan, Dean of Berkeley Divinity School at Yale, writes, "Modern Westerners may think of wine as only a luxury and an intoxicant which can lead to the assessment of its parabolic or historical appearance in Jesus's story as meaningless. Yet, for the ancients in Galilee and Judea, it was an effective way of storing the food value of the vines. It was a part of their lives."
So what happens to this young couple is a wedding disaster. They run out of wine. This is a failed party, a horrible start to their life together. This will be the talk of the town. This will be shame of the highest order, the wine has run out. Memorial Church, in my homiletical imagination like this couple in the text, it appears that the wine has run out in our world. Tomorrow, if I could be honest, Monday, January 20th, 2025, the United States of America will experience the juxtaposition of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and Inauguration Day for the second time in our country's history. I am sure the irony of tomorrow begs the question, is America truly walking in the beloved community that King fought for? I'm sure that a number of people have mixed feelings about tomorrow and have anxiety about what our future holds.
As one writer states, "Regardless of how we may feel about the candidates who are inaugurated, the overlay of these two events calls us to clarify exactly where we put our hope, and what kingdom are we proclaiming." Beloved, the wine has run out. I must say that I often lament MLK Day because each year it is an exercise in taking quotes from King out of context. So many people who would not support what Dr. King stood for will use tomorrow as an opportunity to cherry-pick quotes from King's legacy to proof-text a sanitized version of King that bears no resemblance to the man who was deemed the most dangerous man in America. It begs the question, what King are we really celebrating? If we're going to truly celebrate his legacy, we must remember the King who called America to face its history and turn to justice.
We must remember the King who stood up against the triple evils of racism, poverty, and militarism. We must remember the King that stood up against the war in Vietnam. We must remember the King who from a jail in Birmingham, Alabama, who wrote a letter to white moderate preachers who said that King should be silent and slow down. We must remember the King who in the last days of his life was organizing a nonviolent march on Washington to push Congress to enact a poor people's bill of rights. We must remember the King who, in his last moments on earth, was in Memphis, Tennessee, standing with the poor sanitation workers. Is that the King that people will celebrate tomorrow? We must remember King who called America to look into the mirror to see who we are. And if we're going to transform our nation, we have to remember our history, but we must tell it correctly.
Although we will take tomorrow to quote Martin, the truth is our nation still doesn't want to face its truth and history, the wine has run out. In the Washington Post article by Michele Norris entitled, Germany Faced Its Horrible Past, can we do the same? Norris writes, "Barely three generations ago, Germany hosted horrors that killed millions and left the nation split in two. This was not a legacy that most Germans were inclined to honor, and yet today, less than 100 years after the rise of Adolf Hitler, Germany has made a prodigious effort to come to terms with its past. This collective culture of atonement is captured in the eight syllabus and 26 letters that comprise the German word, [foreign language 00:07:26]." It's a mouthful. I wonder, did I get it right?
But you cannot miss this. In Germany today, children learn through their teachers and textbooks their history, and they're taught to never repeat it again. Plaques and markers in many German cities note the locations of synagogues, schools, and Jewish neighborhoods that were raided and razed by Hitler. Roughly 75,000 small brass stumbling stones are embedded in the streets and plaza of hundreds of towns throughout Germany.
Can we do the same? We must face our history in America, but it seems like we're always trying to ignore it. Post-racial syndrome, we elected President Barack Obama. Shouldn't we stop talking about it? But the wine has run out. When we spend hundreds of billions of dollars of tax breaks to 1% while veterans sleep on the streets in this country, the wine has run out. When we have families across this nation standing at board meetings, fighting that black history not be taught in our schools, the wine has run out. Today, we will see that over a dozen states have introduced legislation to prevent the teaching of history, Black history in schools. It makes you wonder why, why is it that America doesn't want to remember? Because in order to move forward, you have to face what it has been. The wine has run out. When we have more people in jail than any other country on earth, the wine has run out.
When in New York City we spent 127,000 to incarcerate one person, but only $12,000 to educate one person, the wine has run out. When slavery and Jim Crow have taken other names, such as urban planning and red lining, and gentrification, and mass incarceration, and the dumping of toxic chemicals into water in the marginalized communities, the wine has run out. And in the words of Howard-John Wesley, "For when you lie about your past, you miss the opportunity to change it." In the gospel reading, the wine has run out. It looks like there is no hope and that things cannot be changed. The jars are empty. A young couple will surely be embarrassed, the party is over. However, thank God for the women. Mary does not overlook the issue. Jesus' mother, she faces it. The wine has certainly run out. We cannot ignore it. We have to see it for what it is, but she doesn't just see it. She seeks for a solution.
Like a caring mother, Mary, Jesus' mother prods him to save a family from the shame of poor hospitality. Jesus who initially was reluctant because his hour had not come, quietly steps in to meet their needs. Mary says to the wedding ushers, "Do whatever he tells you." Jesus sees six large jars and tells them to fill them with water. In that moment, the extraordinary happens. No chastisement to the bride or groom, or the wedding planner. Rather, he tells the servants to feel the jars to the brim with water. And then Jesus said, "Taste it and take it to the wedding planner." When the wedding planner tasted it, he could not believe what he was tasting. So he went to the couple and said, "Usually at these parties we save the inferior wine for last, but you have saved the best for last."
In this moment, when the wine has run out, Jesus creates new wine. Jesus transforms what is into what can be. When the wine runs out, Jesus invites people to partner with him to provide something new. That's really what I love about this text is that Jesus invites the servants to make new wine together. Dr. Moore writes, "The power of this miracle is not just about the wine. It offers a lesson on the importance of strengthening relationships, fostering collaborative work, and sustaining spaces of joy for a community living under the threat of imperial powers." Transforming people, relationships, and situations is what God calls us to do in order to create new wine. Not everyone may notice indeed, one suspects most of the wedding guests were totally unaware of the extraordinary events.
But as followers of Christ, as followers of Jesus, we get to see his touch upon life. It is a good challenge to look out and allow our own faith to be transformed as we see him at work. Beloved, all of us are called to transform what is into what can be. We can turn this world of evil into a world where justice will roll down like an ever-flowing stream where all people will be able to walk hand in hand, where love will be our guiding force, where truth and equality will reign. For this is the faith and the sign at the wedding at Canaan. For this is the faith of the ancestors who fought to turn water into new wine.
This is the faith and the collaborative faith that flowed from people such as W.D.E.B Du Bois, Ida B. Wells, and Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman, and Ella Baker, and John Lewis. This is the collaborative work that flowed from Fannie Lou Hamer, Ruby Bridges, Maya Angelou and Bayard Rustin. This is the faith that flowed from A. Philip Randolph, Malcolm X, Claudette Colvin, Medgar Evers, Dorothy Height, Robert Smalls, Marcus Garvey and Thurgood Marshall. This is the faith, the collaborative faith that flowed from Sojourner Truth, William Seymour, Henry Highland Garnet, Sarah Raymond, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Zora Neale Hurston, this is the faith of those who chose to transform the water into new wine. This is the faith of a people who dared to transform what was and into what could be. Those in the midst of chattel slavery, Jim Crow and racism joined together to create a new reality. They took what they had and made it into new wine.
When they were restricted to inadequate education, they yet became literary luminaries, turning water into new wine. When all they had were schools and basements, yet they took those basements and transformed them into historically Black colleges and universities, turning water into new wine. When they had to preach by the swamps and praise secretly in the brush harbors they had to worship in the invisible institution, they still declared their faith in a God of liberation, turning water into new wine. When in slavery, they created songs and spirituals that would lead to freedom through the underground railroad, they turned water into new wine. For this is the faith of the ancestors, for this is the faith of the allies who dared to join in the fight. For this is the faith of Christ at the wedding at Cana.
As we celebrate Dr. King's holiday tomorrow, may we remember that this was the faith of Martin Luther King Jr. We must not forget that faith and religion is what birthed Martin. He was born and birthed out of the black church. King is often separated from his faith, but we must remember that King grew up in the church. His father, grandfather, great-grandfather, were all preachers. His only brother was a preacher, his uncle was a preacher. And we must also remember, if I can tell you a story about the importance of his faith and the importance of his father. When Martin Luther King Jr.'s father returned from a trip in Germany in 1934, and they were seeing what was going on around the discrimination to the Jewish community, his father learned about Martin Luther, who was a part of the Protestant Reformation. And when he came back, he changed his name and his son's name.
So Martin's name originally was Michael, but his father, who was deeply involved in the faith and the liberation of God said, "I want to transform your name." The power of his name being changed. Martin's faith was steeped in the liberator of Jesus Christ. For it was King who said these words, "But before I was a civil rights leader, I was a preacher of the Gospel. This was my first calling, and it still remains my greatest commitment." And as I go to my seat, may we remember the faith of Jesus Christ that fueled Martin's work. This was the faith that pushed him to work towards transforming a world of racism, violence, and oppression into a world of love, mercy, care, and compassion.
Martin had faith. I remember this story that at midnight, Martin tells that over a cup of coffee after King received phone calls threatening to kill him and blow up his house during the Montgomery bus boycott which gave a fear-stricken Dr. King a sense of God's unshakable presence. All he had to lean on at the end of the day was his faith in Christ. He had to forge in the words of Dr. King, his own relationship with Christ. King said that night, he was so scared for his life. He was scared that something would happen to his babies. He was scared that something would happen to his wife. And what did King do? He picked up the phone as he always would do to call that Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson. He called Mahalia Jackson and said, "Mahalia Jackson, I feel like I can't do this anymore. I've been fighting, trying to transform water into new wine for too long in this nation. I need you to sing a song."
And the song that Mahalia Jackson would sing would always be, Precious Lord, Take My Hand. As you remember King tomorrow, don't allow the white evangelicals, don't allow people to take King out of context, that you forget that King was rooted in his faith. He held onto a faith that was rooted in transforming what was into something that was radically new. Beloved, there will be times when the wine will run out in our lives. We have some dark days ahead of us in this nation. The wine surely will run out. But I encourage you before I go to my seat, Memorial Church, that when those dark times arise, may we come together as a community and fill the jars with water, trusting that we can work together to change this world into a world of love and peace.
May we come back to this church even when tears are in our eyes, and stand together, and sing the song, Precious Lord, Take My Hand. May we come together in this space with community and declare that we will keep fighting until justice rolls down into this world. Like King, may we lean into our faith and fight for a new world. May we not be blinded by the resurgence of white nationalism. May we not be blinded by the hatred that we'll soon see all over this nation, but may we remember that God can turn water into new wine. May we lean into a faith of the one Jesus who took what was and created a new reality. May we sing the song, Precious Lord, take my hand, lead me on, and let me stand. I'm tired, I'm weak, I'm worn. But through the storm and through the night, lead me on until the light. Let us turn water into new wine.