I’m the one next to my dad. He’s the one wearing the collar. I was in 6th grade when this picture was taken in Berkeley, CA.
I was really proud of that outfit and I loved my shoes. (me, 3rd from left)
That’s me being Ordained in the United Methodist Church.
My dad is the one in the red robe.
Really, both my parents brought me to church. Not just my dad.
Most every week of my life except for vacations. Church.
Who brought you?
The Wedding at Cana is my favorite text because there is a lot of humor in it. There’s humor in a mother approaching her son and telling him to do something without ever actually telling him to do it. There’s his pouty resistance to his mother’s non-demand while she completely ignores him and paints him in a corner. There is humor in a raucous wedding reception where the people are so “lit” that the wine has run out. And, for me, it’s particularly humorous that there’s this huge, beautiful secret of which only a few people are aware.
Those people include Jesus’ mother and the select servants who help him pull off the miracle that inaugurates his ministry. Servants are normally meant to be inconspicuous, so I wanted to focus on the servant who goes to the chief steward with a cup full of what, as far as he’s concerned, is water.
If Jesus—whose ministry has not started, so there haven’t been any wonders associated with him yet—tells you to fill jars with water and draw from the jar to give to the chief steward, what is going through your mind at that moment? I invite the viewer to focus on this servant and all his curiosity and expectation, and think of a time when you were surprised by something God did. What actions preceded the miracle? Did it make sense? What did you know, and what was hidden from you? What “secrets” might God be keeping from you now as God works clandestinely on your behalf?
—Rev. T. Denise Anderson
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