God's Romantic Comedy - Isaiah 62:1-5, John 2:1-11
Sometimes the lectionary and the calendar just line up. For me that’s true this Sunday, when our readings from the Hebrew Scriptures and the Gospel are all about marriage, and just yesterday, Emily and I celebrated our wedding anniversary. 11 years ago to the day, we walked through those doors, up to this altar, and committed our lives to one another in a covenant before God. It was a joyous occasion, but not without its mishaps.
Our wedding, like most, was wonderful and imperfect. And though it didn’t quite add up to a full Romantic comedy, it had plenty of elements that could be included in one. You know the kind of movies I’m thinking of: Father of the Bride, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, Bridesmaids. They all follow a similar plot line: before a couple can say “I do” they have to contend with one obstacle after another, whether it’s a wild wedding planner or an unfortunate case of food poisoning. Whatever the obstacle, the story is one in which, hopefully, despite it all, the couple finally gets to that magic moment of rings exchanged, a kiss, and the promise of a life together.
You may not have read it this way before, but the bible in its whole, is a love story. We could even dare call it a romantic comedy—not of the sort that’s always funny, though there is that, but in the wider sense of comedy, where at the end, no matter what, there is happiness and joy. From Isaiah to Ezekiel, Hosea to Zephaniah—the Hebrew prophets picked up on this theme of love and described the relationship of God with Israel as an engagement for marriage. One day, they proclaimed, God would dwell in happy and flourishing bliss with his chosen people. And through them, God would reconcile all creation within his household of life. Like an eager couple, they talked about the great feast that would come with the wedding. A banquet for every living thing in which lions would lie down with lambs, children would play with venemous snakes, and everyone would have endless refills of wine and good food. That was the plan, mapped out in moments of bliss. But first the wedding had to happen and as we know from every wedding comedy trope, there was much that went wrong along the way.
The barriers to Israel’s union with God were many and varied and not always funny. Israel was tempted by old lovers and curious about new ones. And if idols weren’t enough, they were kidnapped by foreign empires, or occupied in their homeland. God, long suffering and patient, always came to bail them out. But at home, again, Israel would become bored and distracted, and then suddenly turn obsessive, worrying about the small matters of their relationship. They would become obsessed with purity and ceremony, turning their relationship that was meant to embrace into one built on exclusion. Israel often forgot that their marriage to God was a means for God’s love for the whole world to find its footing.
If you are familiar enough with the wedding comedy genre, you know that the couple doesn’t usually get out of their mess alone. It’s always a friend or family member, a groomsman or bridesmaid or some combination of them all, that work tirelessly to foil the obstacles, talk through wet feet, and see the couple to the altar. It’s no different in the biblical story. There are prophets who act like heroic bridesmaids, calling Israel back to the wedding, promising the bliss that will come if Israel would just accept God’s love and take delight in God’s gifts. That’s what we see in our reading from Isaiah, who is speaking to an Israel that’s felt the sting of disappointment and is starting to have second thoughts about their hopes.
It’s a role we see even more so in Jesus, who plays both groom and best man, a cupid carrying God’s message of love into the world to all who would hear it. The metaphors get messy, I know. In scripture they are hard to put together too, and yes, they are very traditionally gendered. But all of them are working to communicate this one message :
That God loves the world and wants to live in continuous, faithful relationship with it. It starts with Israel and it ends with all creation, like a family that begins with the love of two people and continues through generation upon generation, widening the circle. It’s a family made of adoptions and joining and all of it is made possible through the faithfulness of that first love that sparked it all and set the whole world aflame in its light. That’s why the marriage of God and Israel is so important. That’s why marriage has continued to be a central sign of God’s love within the church.
There’s a lot to say about the wedding at Cana and how it fits within this divine comedy of love. It’s key to mention that in John’s Gospel Jesus doesn’t perform miracles, he makes signs. There are only seven of them in the whole Gospel and when we see that number seven, we should pay attention. It’s the number of God and holiness, the number of divine perfection. And the sign of water turning to wine is the very first of them.
What Jesus is enacting here is the inauguration of the wedding party. The feast that the prophets had said would come when God finally and completely came to be with creation. In response to the obstacle of poverty, prodded on by the mercy and compassion of his mother, Jesus performs the action that says to all who hear the story: this is it, the feast has come. And no rites of purity and exclusion, no poverty brought on by empire, no force in heaven or earth is going to stop this party. In one action, after all the wine had been drunk, Jesus provides over a 120 gallons more. That’s the reality he’s come to inaugurate, that’s the truth to which this sign is meant to point—God has come to start a party that will keep on going.
God is on the move and isn’t going to let anything get in the way of his love. Jesus is pouring the wine, even if it means that it is his own blood, because death isn’t going to stop this celebration. And the wonderful thing is that we’re all invited to participate too, not only enjoying the feast, but also helping to over come the obstacles. We’ve all been given gifts, party favors of the kingdom. As Paul describes it in Corinthians, it’s like that plotline in the movies where when all seems lost, the community comes together, each bringing their small offering until the table is ladden and joy fills the air. And the marriages we witness in our world are also meant to be gifts of the kingdom, signs of that coming feast. Each is a kind of wedding at Cana were God’s love is made visible to all.
I said at the beginning that Emily and I’s wedding had plenty of comedy. We had our share of obstacles and it was a journey of ups and downs and heartbreak getting to that final celebration. Even on our wedding day we had just enough happen to cure any hopes of perfection. Our crucifer made it to the front and then vomited his lunch all over the back pew of the chancel. A co-worker we weren’t that close to somehow made her way into all of our pictures. And as we drove away form the church a friend yelled something in front of everyone that I…just can’t repeat here.
And yet, it was a day of joy and wonder, gathered with all of those people throughout our lives who had loved us into the being. When we made our way up to Bowen Hall for the reception, we felt gifts pouring out from every corner. Friends had made the reception dinner, breads baked in half a dozen home ovens wafted their aromas from the tables. Our cake sat, tiered and adorned with butter cream, made as a gift by an old housemate. Our photographer, a friend and doctor with a hobby, captured the whole affair. And the wine never ran dry.
Like the wedding at Cana it was a sacrament and a sign—a moment of joy in which we could feel love overflowing, made evident in abundant gifts. It was human love, yes, but all of it was like rays refracted from a single source. And we couldn’t help but feel hope in the God who writes only comedies and can turn any plotline to celebration and joy. Amen.