Homily - Sunday, January 20, 2019

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Fr. Bryan Howard
2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time – Year C – 20 January 2019

    Have you ever been reading a book or newspaper article or watching a movie and come to a section that made you think, “Why is this even in here? What purpose does it serve? What’s the point?”  It would be easy to think that about today’s Gospel of the Wedding Feast in Cana. The Gospel of John begin with a theological explanation of who Jesus is as the Son of God and Word-Made-Flesh; then, John begins to talk about the Baptism of Jesus in the Jordan, the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, and the gathering of the first disciples. Then, he takes what seems to be a random tangent and talks about a wedding feast that Jesus happened to attend with His Mother and first disciples. The Gospel of John is the only one that records this event. I think the reason that this story was placed here, at the beginning of Jesus’ public ministry, is to show us that if we invite Jesus into your life, and place our trust in Him, then we will be transformed, as Jesus says in the Gospel of Luke, “I have come to set the earth on fire, and how I wish it were already blazing!”
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    I remember hearing a homily once where the priest said that Jesus had to make more wine for the wedding feast because He and His disciples had crashed the party, but I guess that priest didn’t read the Gospel very carefully, because it specifically says that Jesus and his disciples were invited. Jesus is always inviting us into a relationship with Himself, but He will never force Himself on us, we have to return the invitation. What happens because Jesus was invited to this wedding feast? Jesus doesn’t just make some wine, He tells the servers to fill the 6 stone water jars for the Jewish ceremonial washings and turns that water into wine, 120 to 180 gallons of wine. That’s a lot of wine, and it’s not just any old wine. The headwaiter says, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” 

    We are the wine. Jesus wants to help us to be more and better than we are now; better than we ever thought we could be. It takes the humility to admit that we need to be better, that we have problems, faults, and sins, and that we need help to overcome them. We know that when we sin, it always leads to pain, either immediately or in the long term. It has every time in the past and there’s no reason to think that it won’t every time in the future, and yet we continue to sin. God wants to transform us through His grace and to set us on fire with love for Him and for everyone around us, but we have to let Him do it. I’ve experienced what His grace can do in my life. When I’m praying and going to confession regularly, I’m a better priest and a nicer, more patient person. When I’m not, I struggle more, because, in our pride, sometimes we think we can do it all ourselves, without God’s help. 

    There’s another meaning in this passage, as well. I skipped over the part that usually draws people’s attention first, Jesus’ response to the Blessed Mother mentioning that they have no wine. Now, she obviously know that He’s going to help, since she tells the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” Which, by the way, it what the Blessed Mother always tells us, “Trust Him! Follow Him! Do whatever He tells you.” Listen again to what Jesus actually says, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.” First, everyone asks why He calls her “woman.” In English that sounds insulting, but it isn’t insulting in Aramaic, the language Jesus was probably speaking in. What I want you to notice is that Jesus references His “hour.” His hour refers to the hour of the crucifixion and the events that happen around it. More clearly, Jesus is saying, “This isn’t the time for me to perform a miracle with wine. That will come later.” This miracle of turning water into wine is pointing directly to the only other time that Jesus performs a miracle with wine, which is at The Last Supper, when He changes wine into His blood, saying, “Take this, all of you, and drink of it, for this is the chalice of my blood of the new Covenant which will be poured out for you and for many, for the forgiveness of sins.” 

    When Jesus comes into our lives He brings the Cross with Him. He transforms us through the power of His blood that was shed for us and through His Resurrection, and the only road to the Resurrection is through the Cross. From the very beginning of His ministry Jesus was plotting a curse straight to Calvary and to the Crucifixion. Jesus invites us, “Take up your Cross and follow after me.” We take up our Crosses in reaching out to those who are in need, in patiently enduring suffering for the sake of righteousness, and in willingly embracing suffering for the good of someone we love. 

    At the end of every day we stop for a few minutes, find a quiet place (if that’s possible), and ask ourselves, “What graces did God give me today? How did I respond to those graces? How can I do better tomorrow?” It won’t happen all at once, but if we keep responding to the invitations of the Lord, Jesus will transform us by bringing, more and more, the fire of His love into our lives.