The Wedding at Cana 2004

*Preached at Grace North Church January 18, 2004 by John R. Mabry*

The morning sun shot through the little courtyard with the force of a revelation. It was the second hour, and the air was still cool, the leaves a little wet. It was Deborah's wedding day, and Mary was in the house washing up. Jesus wandered the courtyard, giving her some privacy, enjoying the brisk feeling that morning always gave him. It was his favorite time of the day.

He was circumambulating the little yard, with his hands clasped behind him, sniffing, feeling the sun on his beard, enjoying. Or trying to enjoy. He hadn't slept well, and had awakened with a sick feeling of dread that he could not pin on anything. So he carried it like an awkwardly-shaped package, easily, but with some discomfort.

Just then he caught sight of a beetle marching from one end of the courtyard to the other. It was black and shiny, about the size of his thumbnail, and appeared to be driven by some transcendent sense of purpose. It was relentless in its trek, and Jesus squatted to get a better look at him.

"Where are you going in such a hurry, little beastie?" he asked it. "Are you afraid you'll be late? What could be so pressing for a creature who still lives in the Garden?"

The beetle did not stop to answer. It was travelling faster than Jesus expected, and he found himself doing a duck-walk to keep up with it and still be close enough to converse.

Just as the little creature approached the halfway point, Mary came out of the house carrying her washbasin.

"Mother, let me get that," Jesus rose when he saw her.

"I've got it, you keep-" she realized then that he had been squatting when she first came out. "-you keep doing whatever it was you were doing."

She poured the water out, and Jesus wondered at her strength, her self-reliance. Ever since Father had died, she had seemed to inherit his strength of body as well as character.

The beetle caught his eye again, and he watched with a little thrill of horror as he realized that the water from Mary's tub was racing straight for him. Or rather, he was marching straight for it. "He is still safe," Jesus thought. "He could stop or go a different direction." But the little beast seemed determined and sped straight into the path of the water. The water collided with him, and Jesus saw the little black legs flailing furiously. The little river carried him away, and bore him out of the yard, into the alley.

His mother did not notice this little drama and looked at him, still squatting in the yard, wondering if her worst fears were right, if perhaps he were mad. "Are you going to wash before we head over?" Asked his mother.

"Is that a hint?" asked Jesus.

"If you wash, I'll make breakfast for you."

"You'll make breakfast anyway."

"Not this morning I won't."

"You're a hard taskmaster, Mother."

"Here's the tub."

It was hard to predict what his mother would do. At first he thought she was annoyed with him this morning, but when he had finished washing-and carefully disposed of his water so as not to carry off any wildlife-he found that she had prepared a breakfast fit for a feast-day.

There was porridge, of course, which was all he was really expecting this morning. But she had also soaked some smoked fish so it was soft and salty, and there was a bowl full of figs and dates. He sucked the pits from a couple of dates and dropped them into the porridge. His mother had a fondness for biscuits made from dried locust flour, and had just made a batch up. He had always thought they were a little gritty, but he was used to them, and they had honey in the house, which covered a multitude of culinary sins. He poured a little on the biscuits, and a lot in the porridge.

His mother set a little cup of wine by his elbow and sat across from him. She grabbed a couple of biscuits and picked at them while he ate. "When are you going to start?"

"Hmm?" he looked up. Oh, dear, he thought. Here we go again.

"When are you going to do-whatever you are here to do?"

He chewed and considered her in the soft morning light coming through the window. She was still beautiful, he did not even see her age. They had had this conversation before-many times. The best policy, he had found, was to simply listen and nod and seem sympathetic. And to try not to take it personally. He knew she considered him a bit of a failure. He was certainly a misfit. He considered himself a happy misfit, though, and he smiled at this thought. Except that it wasn't true-his future hung over his head like a thundercloud, and he was always waiting for the lightning to strike.

"What are you smiling about?" She rocked back in her seat. "Are you making fun of me?"

"Oh, mother, no, of course not. A man is entitled to his own thoughts."

"You never listen to me. Your time is running out. You're thirty-most men don't live to see forty. I can't stand to see you-to see it all-" she wanted to say, "All I've been through," but she didn't want to say something so selfish.

So they sat there while he chewed and the knot in her stomach twisted tighter. "Are those friends of your coming? Those John people? It seems to me that you're spending an awful lot of time with them."

He gave her a smile and reached for another biscuit. "They're good men," he said.

"They're deadbeats and radicals. I'm afraid you'll go off to the desert again. That you'll become like John. When he quit his job at the temple and went out to that desert, it broke Elizabeth's heart. I'm just glad Zacharia was dead already." Then she realized what she had just said, and looked cowed for a minute. "I didn't mean that. You know what I mean."

"I know what you mean. It's all right, mother. I've done the desert thing. And I came back, didn't I?"

"You're not back," she said bitterly. "You left a part of yourself out there. I can see it in your eyes. You're restless."

He stopped chewing and felt the knot in his own stomach start to hurt. He really hated this, and wondered if it was the lot common to all sons. "Jesus, God wants you to do something great. Truly great!" She said, looking like she was about to cry. "But I'm afraid that at any minute you're just going to cut and run. That you are going to say 'no' to God."

He wanted to say, "How can anyone say 'no' to God?" but he knew his tone would be too testy, so he shut up and tore at his fish.

He was silent for several minutes, and that was when she knew she had pushed too far. She had made him mad. When he was really angry, he just clammed up. She went to the sideboard to clean up. At least this was better than what Susannah had to deal with from her son-he hit her when she angered him. She could endure silence. It was his absence that scared her. She had hoped he would marry, have children, become a great teacher, hold yeshiva.

Instead, he was a middle-aged man with no prospects. He hung around with other men, seemingly unemployed, the kind that followed John. His other brothers were out of the house, with jobs and wives. James was rich, Judas was struggling, but independent, as he always had been. Even Salome, her youngest, was betrothed and living happily with Elizabeth until her big wedding day. But Jesus was a different animal, and seemed to be cut from different cloth than his siblings. She needed to believe that Jesus could still be great. She had suffered so much, after all. And the angel-the angel had said so. Life seemed suddenly so unfair.

He had time, she told herself. And she would have hope. Joseph was depending on her. It was up to her to support him untiluntiluntil he did whatever it was he was supposed to do. She watched her son play with a bone at the table and swallowed back the bile in her throat.

When they arrived at the wedding, most of the guests were already in evidence. Jesus had found his friends-who hadn't washed this morning, Mary noted with a snort. A little gaggle of them gathered in one corner, arguing Torah, laughing and teasing that little one whose name she couldn't remember because it was a gentile name. How could a parent do that? She asked herself.

"Mary, you look beautiful, my dear." She groaned inwardly but turned and gave the speaker a gracious smile. Deborah's father bowed a shallow bow, and beamed at her. "It's a beautiful day, and my Deborah is a beautiful bride."

"Yes, Simon, she is beautiful." She stopped and looked across the yard at the bride. She was drunk with self-importance, and the sun seemed to be shining on her alone. It was exactly as it should be on her wedding day, Mary thought, and allowed herself a tingle of excitement looking forward to Salome's wedding in the fall.

"Is your son giving you trouble? You look annoyed." Was she really so transparent? She gave him a smile, and shook her head. "He's fine. Justdistant." Simon was sweet, but was also subtly courting her. He was a sweaty, oafish man who did not treat women with the deference Mary had become accustomed to from her own late husband, and so she kindly rebuffed his advances whenever they were made, which was often several times a year.

"He's an odd one, that's for sure." Those people who liked to murmur about Jesus' odd-timed birth and seeming illegitimacy were mostly dead and buried now. Few people whispered "bastard" behind his back anymore, but everyone thought it. And of course, everyone thought Mary a little loose because of this history, true or not, and it had fueled Simon's fantasies for years.

"Don't let me keep you, Simon," Mary said to him kindly, "There are more guests to greet."

"You could greet them with me" he gave her a kind and vulnerable look, and then turned away, embarrassed.

She wasn't sure if this was an oblique proposal or if he simply wanted a woman to lean on today, since he was losing his daughter. His nervousness betrayed that it was probably the former, but she acted as if it were the latter. She took his arm and steered him towards the crowd whooping and laughing in the center of the yard. "Let's mingle," she whispered, and pretended not to notice when he wiped at his eyes.

The ceremony itself was splendid. There wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the sun shone through the hoopa and transfigured the couple as the priest pronounced his blessing. Micah, Deborah's betrothed, smashed the cup, a great cheer went up from the assembled throng, and suddenly she was his wife.

The menfolk grabbed Micah, tore him from his new bride's arms, and lifted him on their shoulders to parade him around the courtyard. The women surrounded Deborah and showered her with flowers and kisses and flattery.

Jesus and his friends sprinted around the circle, passing Micah from shoulder to shoulder, singing and clapping and calling for wine. The dancing went on for hours.

Mary watched her son as a darksome longing moved in her breast. Except for the beard, she could have been watching him at Esther's wedding twenty years ago. He danced with the same abandon, drank with the same ferocity. He seemed just as disinterested in women, and just as devoted to his playmates as ever he was then. "He's a well-educated little boy," she thought, and then banished it for fear tears would come in its wake.

"What??" She heard Simon bellow. "How can that be? Are you trying to ruin me?" She shot one more glance at her fool boy dancing like David before the ark, and turned to see what the matter was. At least, unlike David, Jesus was keeping his clothes on.

Simon was shaking with rage and sweating like a new bladder hung out to dry. "How can there be no more wine?" The servant looked like he might crumble beneath Simon's verbal assault.

"Master, I'm sorry. We ordered plenty. There were simply more guests than we expected."

Mary felt a twinge of guilt as she thought of Jesus' friends, who had not been invited, but who had come along anyway, simply because he had. She was about to say something when she realized that Jesus had only brought three of them along, and they were not alone responsible for the shortage. Then she thought of how much Jesus could pack away when he let himself go, and pursed her lips, uncertain what to do.

"Simon, has the wine run out, then?"

"I'm sure I ordered enough. What could have happened? Deborah will never forgive me." He paced back and forth like a caged animal, wringing his hands with worry. He had to make a plan. He could send some servants to market, but it would take them some time, and then everyone would know. Then suddenly the crowd was calling for him. It was traditional for the father of the bride to lead off one of the dances, and he looked like an antelope torn between two lions, panic flickering in his eyes.

"Simon, dance." Mary told him. "I'll take care of this."

Jesus was coming around the bend, hair flying wet and streaming with sweat. She waved at him, and caught his attention. "Come here," she mouthed, and he nodded, continuing his dance until he reached her.

"Having a good time, Mother?"

"We have a problem," she said simply.

"Nobody likes to hear that," he laughed.

She chewed on her lip and struggled with how to approach him. She could send him off to the market with instructions to be speedy and circumspect so that the other guests would not catch on. You could not trust a servant to be careful-they are always looking for ways to make their masters look foolish. Jesus could do it, and properly, and quickly. But another option nagged at her. She remembered how, as a child, he would adjust the wood in Joseph's shop. Joseph would scold him, tell him he needed to learn to do things properly, but then he would muss his hair and kiss him on the cheek when Mary wasn't looking.

Judas was the born carpenter in the family. James cared only for books and Jesus, well, Jesus was quite simply terrible at it. But he could make those boards grow. And the birdshe thought often about the little bird Jesus had made out of clay, how he had breathed on it and thew it into the air; how she had almost fallen over in a dead faint when with an audible "crack" the wings unfolded and caught the current of the air and flew up and out of sight.

Jesus saw the look in her eyes and steeled himself. "It's time, baby," she said with finality. Jesus didn't know what she was talking about, but the look in her eyes told him that the corner he had not dared to turn was looming before him.

James is the rabbi, not me, he thought. I'mI'm nothing. I do child's tricks, I dream, I talk to God, but I am no rabbi. Men will not follow me. Don't make me do this. But when he opened his mouth, all he said was, "What do you want me to do?"

She looked at him, her frail little bird. He was not going to leave the nest on his own. It was her duty to push him, she told herself. God demands it. It was a hollow rationalization, and she swooned a little at the thought of it.

"Simon has run out of wine, and Deborah will never forgive him if she finds out."

"So send some servants to market."

She gave him that look, "they'll take all day and you know it."

"What do you want me to do?" he asked again.

"You can make wine." He stared at her as if she had suddenly revealed she was Moses himself.

Yes, he could probably do that. But then people would talk, people would know. They would come looking for him, asking for miracles of their own. They would make assumptions. His quiet life, it would all be over. Right now he was a ne'er-do-well. If he did this, he would be like John. He would be called Rabbi and master and people would want things from him.

He considered his mother carefully. Was this his own mother pushing him towards his doom? Or was this Satan in disguise? He looked around the courtyard. Mary thought he looked like a cornered cat, seeking an escape route. Actually he was looking for another Mary, his real mother, some evidence that this was the Deceiver standing in front of him and not his own dear mother asking him to end his wonderful life.

"Love," she said, and brushed his cheek. "It's time."

No, that was his mother all right. He caught her hand and held it. Maybe it wasn't Satan speaking through her. Maybe it was God. Maybe it was.

Just then a dove cooed and lit on the ground. It walked in a circle and pecked at the dust. And then it looked up, straight into Jesus' eyes. He felt like it had been pecking at his soul.

He turned to a servant who was passing by. "Can you fill those jars with water?" He pointed at the empty wine pots in the corner of the patio. "Yes, but why? There's plenty of water"

"Just do as he says," Mary commanded in her voice that permitted no argument. The servant shrugged, picked up one of the jars, and started towards the well. Mary caught the attention of some other servants and enlisted them in the task. Quickly, several jars had been filled and returned to the patio.

"Jesus, what are you doing? You're missing out on the big dance!" His friend blew in from the throng breathlessly.

"Go, ahead, I'll be there in a moment," he smiled wickedly. "Just getting some more wine."

His friend smiled knowingly and leaped away again, taking Jesus' grin with him. For a moment he just stood there staring into space, wondering what to do next. There were the jars, full of water, waiting for him toto do what. He looked up at Mary uncertainly. "I don't know what to do."

"What did you do when you made the bird real? What did you do when you lengthened those boards? Or when you found my necklace last year?"

"I prayed."

"So pray."

Jesus held his hand out over the jars, lifted his eyes to heaven and began a blessing in Hebrew. And then there was no going back. It had begun. He wasn't her little boy anymore. He had set forth on whatever painful track Simeon had warned her of so many years ago at his bris.

Before he had finished blessing the jars, she felt sick, guilty, scared. She reached for the wall to support herself as her head swam. Jesus asked for cups and dipped one into one of the jars. He gave it to one of the servants and said, "Here, take this to Simeon. Tell him we found more wine under the stairs." He winked at the servant, who stared in awe at the red liquid in the cup. "Today, if it's not too much trouble," Jesus added. The servant nodded and rushed off.

Then her son who was not her son handed her a cup and forced a smile that she imagined said, "You asked for it."

She was afraid to look in the cup he gave her. In that moment she would have done anything, given anything, for it to have been only water. She forced a smile-a bitter grimace, and she raised the cup to her lips.

It tasted like blood.