We all love a good scandal don’t we?The Politician who is caught in a steamy mess… the public figure who says the wrong thing…the televangelist who is revealed to be a hypocrite. There’s something darkly satisfying about the just downfall of someone of importance and power. We love it.You know…golf clubs and gaffs.
Harry Reid may be thankful to Pat Robertson for taking away the spotlight of scrutiny.Robertson ran off at the mouth on his TV show and claimed that the Haitians deserved all the suffering and poverty they’ve faced over the last 200 plus years because they, as he put it,
“…swore a pact to the devil. They said we will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.True story, and so the Devil said OK it’s a deal. And they kicked the French out. You know, the Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they’ve been cursed by one thing after the other, desperately poor.”
Why is it that when one people gain their freedom is it a deal with the devil and when others do, it is called God’s will?We all love a scandalous story that hurts the reputation of someone we dislike for some reason, but how about a scandal that involves your favorite savior, Jesus?That doesn’t sit so well in the stomach does it?
Scandal number one:“Gentle Jesus, meek and mild”… to distant Jesus, rude and contrary.In the Gospel story today we find Jesus, his disciples and his mother (her name is never mentioned in the Gospel of John) at a wedding banquet.You know the story—the wine gives out before it is time, and Mom thinks that Jesus can do something about it.Jesus doesn’t respond in tender obedience, “Certainly mother, you are right.I’ll take care of it.”Rather, Jesus insults her by calling her “Woman”, and then even more abrasively, “What concern is that to you and me?”Here’s a quarter, call somebody who cares, in other words.
The scandal is a scandal of divine reluctance.In the face of need, shame and humiliation for this host family Jesus is reluctant to offer the abundance he later preaches about.What gives? we ask.Perhaps Jesus doesn’t want to become some divine goodies dispenser for any trivial or major need that comes along.Or maybe he is concerned with the timing of things— “there’ll be no wine before it is time”…or healings, or miracle feedings for that matter.
Yet, in a world where so many don’t have even clean water (to say nothing of fine wine for a party)—where is the extravagance of God?When children play inside bomb craters the size of wine vats—why the divine reluctance?In a world where desperate mothers have to tell their children, “we don’t have a home anymore and we have no food,”—why has the hour not yet come?[1]
We can rationalize and theologize about how God acts in this world, but in the face of this reality, there is something of Jesus’ mother deep inside of us that wants to yank at God’s sleeve and say “What gives?They have no wine.”No shelter, no food, no hope.
How do we reconcile God’s potent generosity exhibited in the emergence of the wine in this story, and the tremendous need in the world?The scarcity, poverty, hunger, homelessness and suffering.They have no wine, no shelter, no living relatives, no wholeness to their injured bodies… God seems to look at the world and say, “what concern is that to me?”Earthquakes come, tsunami’s, tornados… floods and epidemics…wars, genocide, oppressions… climate change is devastating whole ecosystems, species and cultures… “what is that to me?” What does it take for God to finally show up? “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”Scandal enough for you?
Yet I believe it is that tug of the mother on the sleeve that holds hope.But unfortunately it first leads us into the realization of scandal number two: the mother of Jesus was the catalyst for the extravagant generosity.The miracle didn’t just happen… it was jump-started by Jesus’ mother.How?She pulled on Jesus’ sleeve, “They have no wine.”She nudged him.She prodded him.Perhaps she badgered him.This haranguing eventually brought about the desired outcome.Even though Jesus initially said “buzz off”, his mother had confidence he would come through for her and this family, as she then told the disciples, “Do whatever he tells you” and walked back into the party.
This is scandalous to us, for as Christians we are uncomfortable with arguing with God—nudging God—wrestling with God.Our Hebrew ancestors however, were more comfortable doing verbal sparring with the divine: in our sacred text we find Abraham argues with God to save a couple of towns from destruction; Jacob wrestles with God and is in fact re-named Israel—literally, one who strives with God!It becomes a character of the people.Job argues with God, and every prophet from Moses to Amos spars with God in their reluctance to ministry. Jesus’ mother comes from a long lineage of folk who were comfortable with nudging, arguing, prodding, cajoling God.Jesus’ own teaching on prayer hints that we should nag God like a woman demanding justice from a corrupt judge, until we get what we want.
Does God rely on human compassion to initiate a divine response to suffering and injustice?Are our cries and heart-felt signs, our prayers, needed as a spark-plug to ignite God’s active compassionate response?And if that is true, where do we find God’s sleeve to tug for the people of Haiti?
Perhaps it is true that it is in this wrestling…this mysterious, pain-filled, gritty wrestling with God that truth, beauty, grace and generosity emerge…extravagant generosity, life abundant.
If Mary’s prodding was a catalyst for the outpouring of God’s grace, then that gives us a hint as to our role as humans—i.e., in compassion, to bring the needs of the world to God and offer ourselves to obedience to “whatever he tells us to” (as the disciples did). The miracle is God’s—yet we have to fill the jars with what we have—water.
Perhaps that this most shocking scandal of all; as humans, we are necessary co-creators of this world, and we shape this place with our nudging, pleading ANDworks of justice and compassion.
Perhaps our problem is that we forget that we are related to God.Just as Jesus’ and his mother had a close relationship, we are intimately connected with and in God.We tend to think of God only as “out there,” separate from us.God is certainly “out there,” but God is also as near to us as our own breath— deeply within our souls, our lives!
Perhaps the sleeve to tug on is each other.
Perhaps the nudging is also part of God’s activity through us!
I don’t have a neat little package to give you at the end of this.To me these scandals remain.They are part of the mystery.But they do lead me to see my role on this earth a little clearer…to do what I need to… to offer my plain ordinary wine for God to transform.Let us sing:
Final Hymn:
When human suffering startles the earth, we dare not claim our God the cause,
For God who loves us shares our pain and wills to comfort us in our loss.
Yet struggling to believe… that God does with us grieve
We call out in our prayers, and plead that others share such needs beyond imagined cost.
The Spirit crosses all doctrinal bounds, uniting minds and hearts and hands.
As Body one the faithful move to meet the call as best we can.
Not only words of prayer, but goods and wealth we share
To help to ease the pain, to live in our Lord’s reign, with passion we in unity stand.
As Christ has come and comes again we dare not turn and walk away.
He calls and leads us toward the hope so many hold in heart today
We know the needs are great…We know the time is late, each day the need grows more
God knows no foreign shore their tears are God's; our hearts the way.
[1] Carol Lakey Hess, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4 p. 264
