Epiphany 2C (Is 62:1-5; Ps 36:5-10; 1 Cor 12:1-11; Jn 2:1-11)

I heard Joe Gebbia, the co-founder of AirBnB talking on NPR, “...anytime you see duct tape in the world, that's a design opportunity. Because it's an indicator that something's broken - that something didn't perform the way that it was designed to, and that there's an opportunity to improve it.”  (https://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=478563991) 

I guess most of you would agree with this duct tape opportunity theory. Personally, this duct tape insight helped my wife and me to choose which daycare center we would like to send our son. We had originally planned to check a couple of daycares in the area, but ended up going to two of them only. And how we sort of decided one over the other was the duct tape. The first one had cribs with duct tape around the edges to protect the children from getting hurt, whereas the second one had the cribs that were designed safely. Of course, we went with the one without the duct tape.

In today’s gospel lesson, Mary finds the duct tape. She says, “They have no wine.” She sees something that is quite important to the wedding feast she’s invited with her son, Jesus and his friends. Wine matters to the wedding feast to have a proper celebration. Mary’s finding of the duct tape can be directly applied to our lives. Where are we now in our lives, and where is the duct tape we see? Where and when do we say, “They have no wine?” Where do you see “no wine” or the “duct tape” in your spiritual lives and those of others? 

What’s even more beautiful about recognizing no wine or duct tape in our lives is that we see things differently even if we’re in the same context. I might see some wine lacking somewhere you might not see. You might see the duct tape somewhere I might not be able to see. And this is so, depending on our spiritual gifts that are given and activated by the Holy Spirit. What I see differently than you do is a gift, not a threat for the common good of the Church. And of course, seeing and saying what’s lacking in others should be a prayerful, wise, and discrete matter which must not be proceded before one finds what’s lacking in oneself. This spiritual sharing of seeing no wine in others, seeing the duct tape in others requires a thorough self-examination. Otherwise, it becomes a harsh judgment of others without love and compassion. 

Then what do we do with this finding of no wine in ourselves and others? This finding of no wine should be addressed to Jesus as Mary the Blessed Mother does. Jesus’s response to Mary, however, is a bit odd. He answers her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and me? My hour has not yet come.” He sounds like having no wine at the wedding shouldn’t be a concern to him or his mother. It is none of their business. But I think his reaction, this question he raises is not simply meant to be rhetorical or is used to show some bad attitude towards his mother. On the contrary, we should bring concerns of others, not just of our own to Jesus. As Christians, we not only pray for ourselves, family, and friends, but for those who we might not know personally or might seem to have nothing to do with. 

After Jesus’s response to Mary, she doesn’t say, “My son, you are right. I shouldn’t be bothered by their problem. I have enough problems of my own. Who cares?” Instead, she says to the servants at the wedding, “Do whatever he tells you.” We can imagine she speaks to them with certainty and authority that come out of her deep faith in Jesus. She makes having no wine as her own concern, transforming it to hers. And Jesus changes his mind upon Mary’s request. He wills what Mary wills. Though he says his hour to do God’s work has not yet come, somehow Mary quickens that hour. That hour has come sooner than he expects. Jesus performs his miracle of transforming water into wine. Alexander Pope, an 18th century English poet depicts this miracle as “The conscious water saw its Master, and blushed.” In our time, we can paraphrase it as “The conscious water saw its Lover, and blushed.”

Recognizing no wine, something missing in ourselves is what today’s gospel tells us to pay attention to. It first calls us to bring this depravity to Jesus. What are you missing or lacking in your life? What changes do you want to experience in your life? As Jesus transforms water into wine, you will be transformed. When you see the One who loves you and who you love, you will blush! Once you are loved, having been experienced of God’s desire of your whole being, you cannot but love God. And this love completely changes you and transforms you. This may be so sudden or gradual which depends on each different cases. Having been transformed into wine from water, our concern then goes out to the world. We pay attention to our community, our society, and the world, and see what’s lacking, what’s deprived not in order to judge or criticize but to bring it to Jesus, hand it over to him to transform the world! 

The miracle of Jesus at the wedding isn’t merely in the gospel for the sake of being the first one of all the healing work of Jesus. It urges us to look at what’s missing, what’s lacking in us and around us. It challenges us whether we can see there’s no wine, there’s this duct tape in me, in others, or in the world. Let us ask the Holy Spirit to open our eyes to see and grant us the courage and grace to tell Jesus, “No wine!” We want to witness how Jesus transforms from water to wine in us, in others, in this world. In the collect for today, we are called to shine with the radiance of Christ’s glory. We shine when we are handed over to Jesus and are being transformed from water to wine. You glow when you see your Divine Lover and blush. This transformation that Jesus brings to the world is what it means to be baptized and transfigured. 

May Jesus transform you from water to wine for the feast of the kingdom of God to be celebrated wherever you shine and glow with the radiance of Christ’s glory in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.