II ORDINARY TIME C – Wedding at Cana
Dear Sisters and brothers in Christ:
One of my favorite quotes and one that has been very helpful to me over the years, over these many years, over these many, many years is this one from CS Lewis: “Every idea we have of God, God must, in His mercy, shatter.” Every idea we have of God, God must, in His mercy shatter.
Whatever we think of God, no matter how well we think we have God figured out, no matter how we believe we have tamed Him or marginalized Him or neutralized Him, we will always be wrong. Our mental constructs will never be big enough, we will always underestimate Him. We will always pretty much judge God by our own standards and expectations. Instead of us being created in the image of God, we create God in our own image, an image God Himself will have to shatter. He has to do the shattering; we will never do it. As a matter of fact, we can’t do it.
Take for example today’s gospel. Remember that this is Jesus’ first miracle, and we might expect that Jesus would take this opportunity to mark His entrance into the world with some show of power, something that grabs the attention of people. That is a strategy you and I might have taken.
And, yet this first sign is not performed in the town square, no razzle-dazzle, no photo op, no trumpets. It’s at a wedding, the most joyful and hopeful community celebration we humans have created. And with the exception of Jesus and His mother, the head waiter and the groom, no one else at the wedding even knows what happened. All they knew was that the quality of the wine got better all of a sudden. This sign wasn’t performed to impress the crowd; it was performed simply, almost anonymously, to save a poor couple from being embarrassed in front of their guests on their wedding day. It was not a gesture of ostentation, or of compulsion; it was a gesture of compassion, a simple deed of mercy.
Last week, Pope Francis published a book whose title is: The Name of God is Mercy. This is the real God, more like the shy lover who leaves little notes on your desk than the despot or the tyrant we not only fear but despise – and rightly so.
Here’s another quote, this one from Richard Dawkins, the contemporary atheist, from his book The God Delusion: “The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all of fiction; jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.”
Now there’s an image of God that, in His mercy, God needs to shatter. We can’t shatter it ourselves, mostly because, to some extent, the image of God that comes from today’s gospel reading, we think, is too good to be true. God just can’t be that good, that merciful, that forgiving, that tender, that caring. In an incredible irony, we have learned to harden our hearts against God’s goodness, and we have learned to call God by every other name: policeman, judge, jailer, monster, Santa Claus, – except by His real name: mercy.
The point is that God has already shattered this false, this chilling, this dangerous, image we have picked up from Dawkins, from culture, from the media, from gossips and cynics: God has come among us Himself in Jesus Christ, to reveal His true identity and His true mission. As Pope Benedict taught us so clearly and so often: “God has a human face and His name is Jesus Christ.”
So, how can you and I access the true image of God? How can you and I experience the amazing and consoling and freeing power that comes from being swept up into the love and mercy of the real God?
Mary, Jesus’ mother, gives us the answer when she tells the waiters in today’s gospel: “Do whatever He tells you.” Do whatever He tells you.
If we do whatever Jesus tells us to do, we will be able to allow ourselves to encounter the real God, living and true, the One whose name is Mercy.
And what does Jesus tell us to do: Love God above all things and love our neighbor as ourselves. This is the summary of the content of Jesus’ entire message: “Love one another. I give you a new commandment: love one another.”
What Jesus promises us is that, when we love God above all things and our neighbors as ourselves, then we will taste the new wine at the wedding feast to which everyone is invited, we will get drunk with the best wine, and we will continue to dance the chicken dance and sing “Twist and Shout” at the everlasting union of God and God’s creation and, instead of a hangover, we will rejoice with our host, with the God whose name is mercy, forever and ever.
Amen.
