Margie Quinn
My parents taught me from an early age the importance of dress up. I can remember walking around the backyard during my Dad’s 50th birthday, seeing adults I knew dressed as Bill Clinton and Monica Lewinski, Hooters waitresses and some hillbillies. I can’t remember the theme of that particular party…
His 60th was a Casino night, with the women adorned in feather boas and flapper dresses. My Dad and brothers wore spiffy suits with fedoras and drawn-on mustaches. My Dad has dressed up as a wild cast of characters for Halloween: The Queen of Hearts, Gene Simmons from Kiss, the Tin Man and this past year, a bag of “Flamin’ Hot Cheetos.”
I miss our old “costume closet” (maybe you had one as well), where my friends and I would dig around, putting on old Halloween costumes: a hodgepodge of plastic knight armor and hula skirts and cowboy hats.
One last example of how much they loved dress up: When I was fifteen, my mom picked me up at school wearing a dalmatian costume. We were going to meet my niece, Gabrielle, at the airport. Gabrielle was about three years old and was obsessed with the movie, “101 Dalmatians.” Naturally, my mom rented a costume to surprise her at the airport, complete with a giant dog head. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I walked my mom around the airport as people, assuming she had been hired by the airport as some kind of “Welcome Dog,” took pictures with her. When Gabrielle saw my mom, she was not as excited as others, but it’s a story we return to often; the joyful laughter and wild absurdity of the day.
You could call Jesus’s first act of public ministry wild, too. We find Jesus, his mother, his brothers and disciples at a wedding in a seemingly insignificant place, Cana of Galilee. At some point during the celebration, the wine runs out; which may seem like a simple party faux-pas, but was more likely a family crisis. There was a lot of stigma around families who couldn’t provide enough for their guests.
Who notices this first but Mary, the mother of Jesus? (Women are always so attentive to party needs, like when Melissa Freeman noticed that we were short on cups at Trunk or Treat this year, and immediately ran out to get more). Anyway, Mary finds Jesus, who seems to be hovering in the background, happy to keep his distance, and lets him know that “They have no wine.”
In a moment not of rudeness, as one theologian points out, but more of disengagement, Jesus responds, “Woman, what concern is that to you and me?” In other words, “So?” Jesus then tells her that his hour has not yet come. Perhaps he isn’t ready to reveal himself and perform a miracle, knowing that once he does, everything will change. I like to think that Mary’s prompting after noticing a need is the very act that gets Jesus’s ministry going.
So, for his first miracle, he doesn’t perform an exorcism or offer healing, he simply keeps a party going. In the midst of the crisis, Jesus tells the servants to fill the stone jars with water and in doing so, he provides the equivalent of about 1,000 bottles of wine; and not the boxed wine from the sale section at the grocery store, good wine. Jesus, once again reminds us that his ministry is not just about the quantity of his miracles, like thousands of loaves and fishes or a thousand bottles of wine. It’s also about the quality of them: fresh bread, tasty fish, good wine.
This, we learn, is what grace upon grace looks like and tastes like: the best wine when you least expect it; abundant joy, when you are afraid there isn’t enough, a reminder of God’s wild, extravagant displays of plenitude and celebration.
The chief wine steward, (let’s not forget him in this story), doesn’t even know where this wine came from. But Jesus doesn’t need the recognition. The steward tastes it and delights in how good it is. And of course, in true Jesus fashion, this goodness is not just for some of the wedding guests, it is served to everyone.
I’ll be honest when I say that lately, I have forgotten that Jesus is the source of abundance, sustenance and grace. I have forgotten that Jesus wants to keep the party going.
Reverend Robert Brearley writes, “Sometimes the church has forgotten that our Lord once attended a wedding feast and said YES to gladness and joy. Our God loves to hear the laughter of people celebrating.” In times such as these, we can forget to live the joy of such a revelation. This sign at Cana tells us that Jesus served a God who infuses life with joy, who thinks it’s worth a miracle to keep the party going as we celebrate each other.
Brearley continues, “God does not want our religion to be too holy to be happy in.”
God doesn’t want our religion to be too holy to be happy in. In other words, we need to stop taking ourselves so seriously and look for the moments where we can gather joyfully as a body of Christ and celebrate that fact that in our faith, life triumphs over death and that weeping may come for a night but joy comes in the morning.
We host such events of joy here. At Trunk or Treat in October, we transform from regular churchgoers to dinosaurs and witches and hippies. We host a Harvest Luncheon in November, where we do our best to answer pop culture trivia as we feast on Cracker Barrel, offering the leftovers to our friends at Room in the Inn. At the Festival of Cakes coming up next month, we turn the Fellowship Hall into a mardi gras celebration as our youth auction off cakes for their summer trip. We always have leftover cake to share with each other because there is always more than enough at Jesus’ parties. At the Pride parade in June, we walk down a busy street with our fellow Disciples, handing out stickers and dancing around, celebrating love in all of its forms.
In the midst of so much political turmoil and senseless violence, it will not do our souls well to live in fear for the road ahead. Jesus reminds us of that by inviting us to choose JOY so that we have sprinkles of celebration and abundance to guide our feet for this long haul work.
So, it is important that we, as a church, remember how Mary gets Jesus’ ministry going. He swings into action, prompted by his mom, to keep the party going in Cana. He determined that it was time after all for the water to be turned into wine, all so a wedding feast could continue. What a way for Jesus to begin his public ministry in John’s gospel!
In the past few years, I have been Marge Simpson and Wilson, the volleyball from “Castaway.” I have been Dumbledore and Yzma from
“The Emperor’s New Groove.” At the Pride parade, I wear feathers and beads, doing my best to channel our beloved Gayle, who is a weekly reminder of our faithful commitment to celebrate this Joy to the World in Jesus. I have dressed up as a washer machine at Trunk or Treat and provided bubbles for every camper at our Fall Retreat at Bethany Hills Camp. I do this as a reminder to others as much as to myself that I am invited to participate in the playfulness of the Christian life, joining Jesus in the Great Abundant Party, a foretaste of the resurrection.
When I moved over the holidays, I got rid of a lot of stuff. But, I couldn’t get rid of my costume bin, even though that thing is getting heavy. I will continue to schlep that thing around no matter how many times I move, adding tutus and wigs to it in order to keep the party going. May my faith and yours never be too holy to be happy in.
Hallelujah!