Water Into Wine

We’ve all heard the expression:  "You can’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear."  It’s an expression that can be used to put someone down or to give up on that person.  Let’s say a student won’t study, won’t do homework, and is getting failing grades.  Is that student a sow’s ear that can never excel to be a silk purse?  Of course not.  All that student really needs is motivation, encouragement, love, and a good teacher or mentor, then we get a silk purse.  

This expression is a simple metaphor about never giving up on those who perhaps have given up on themselves.  We can all relate to this, especially parents and certainly teachers.  We all have hidden, God-given potential.  We just need to recognize our silk or for someone to see it in us. Silk purses can be made out of what falsely appear to be sows’ ears.

This idea about a pig’s ear becoming a silk purse brings us to our Gospel about the wedding in Cana with Jesus turning water into wine.  We also can turn water into wine.

For example, we may have lost a loved one so we draw away from others and isolate ourselves due to our sadness. We’re water without color.  But when we move out into the world again to share our sorrow and to recover our spirit and our passion for life and love, we become wine – rich, aromatic, and bold.  With the strength we receive from Christ and the Holy Spirit, we can turn into wine. 

We celebrate on Monday someone who turned water into wine and not just to serve wedding guests with 20-30 gallons held in six stone water jars.  Our first reading reminds us of him.  The prophet Isaiah said, “For Zion’s sake I will not be silent, for Jerusalem’s sake I will not be quiet, until her vindication shines forth like the dawn and her victory like a burning torch.”  

Let’s paraphrase. “For the sake of all God’s children, I will not be silent, for black men I will not be quiet, until justice shines like the dawn and freedom rings from every hamlet, from every state, and every city.”  What you’ve just heard is my adaptation of a small part of Martin Luther King Jr’s famous speech: “I have a dream.”  He gave that speech almost 53 years ago on August 28, 1963 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington DC.  It was the defining moment in the American Civil Rights Movement.

Our reading from 1 Corinthians also fits very well with this occasion that honors King’s memory.  We hear Paul say:  “To each individual the manifestation of the Spirit is given for some benefit. To one is given through the Spirit the expression of wisdom; to another, faith by the same Spirit; to another, mighty deeds; to another, prophecy…”   

Much was given to Reverend King through the Holy Spirit, such as wisdom and prophecy, as evidenced by one of his quotes.  He said, “We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” In the turbulent 1960’s  Martin Luther King Jr. helped turn our society from the water of racism into the wine of compassion, fairness, and tolerance.   In today’s turbulent times of political mud-slinging and fear-mongering, we are running the risk of perishing like fools.  We brothers and sisters should remember King’s words.

I end with a story about a girl who was water, then turned into wine.   I tell the story in her words.  I grew up knowing I was different, and I hated it.  I was born with a cleft palate.  When I started school, my classmates made it clear to me how I looked to others.  I was a little girl with a misshapen lip, crooked nose, lopsided teeth and garbled speech. 

When they would ask me what happened to my lip, I would tell them I had fallen and cut it on piece of glass.  I was born different.  I was convinced no one outside my family could love me.

However, there was a teacher in the second grade who everyone adored.  She was short, round, and happy – a sparkling lady – Mrs. Leonard.  Every year she gave everyone a hearing test, and I knew she would speak softly in each ear saying things like: “The sky is blue,” or “Do you have new shoes?”  

I waited for those words, but heard something else – something God must have put into her mouth.  She said seven words that changed my life.  Mrs. Leonard whispered, “I wish you were my little girl.”

At the wedding in Cana when the wine ran short, Mary told Jesus, “They have no wine.”  Jesus then turned the water into wine.  Now it’s up to all of us to do the same.

Deacon David Pierce