Opportunities for reaching in love are often missed because we have a schedule to meet, or a deadline to pursue. Sometimes we just get bogged down in the mess of words and opinions and can forget that God’s call to “love our neighbor” can be a simple meal around a table. This week Matt and Eleanor shared God’s love on behalf of all of us at The Table. See the story here: Reaching in love.
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
One Comment
Steve Johnson
I saw the story on news 10 with Matt delivering a chicken dinner to the glbt center, I was greatly heartened after a demoralizing day witnessing the traffic encircling the Fairfield Chick-fil-A, and hearing the victory celebration of the overjoyed revelers. All in the name of a faith I thought we shared. I understand the owner fears some divine retribution for our arrogance in redefining marriage, as though its meaning had not already twisted and turned throughout the biblical record, and the history that followed. But what troubled me was the number and ferocity of people’s reactions. As I watched with my partner I could hardly fathom how anything about our life could so threaten these people, or how denying us our rights could be the basis for such joy. I wish them no ill; I do not understand why these people, our neighbors, wish it to us.
So I was heartened by this action, this reaching out in love, when only anger or outrage seemed possible.