Toasting with the Wine of Cana

'Wedding Feast at Cana', Jan Vermeyen

Spiritual Sunday

Today’s New Testament reading is the Book of John’s story of the wedding at Cana (John 2:1-11). Richard Wilbur, in a wedding toast that appears to have been written for his son’s wedding, invokes the passage.

To set you up for Wilbur’s poem, here’s the story:

On the third day there was a wedding in Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 
Jesus and his disciples were also invited to the wedding. 
When the wine ran short, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” 
 (And) Jesus said to her, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come.”
 His mother said to the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” 
Now there were six stone water jars there for Jewish ceremonial washings, each holding twenty to thirty gallons.
 Jesus told them, “Fill the jars with water.” So they filled them to the brim. 
Then he told them, “Draw some out now and take it to the headwaiter.” So they took it. 
And when the headwaiter tasted the water that had become wine, without knowing where it came from (although the servers who had drawn the water knew), the headwaiter called the bridegroom 
and said to him, “Everyone serves good wine first, and then when people have drunk freely, an inferior one; but you have kept the good wine until now.” 
Jesus did this as the beginning of his signs in Cana in Galilee and so revealed his glory, and his disciples began to believe in him.

Wilbur starts on a humorous note by noting that there is a heck of a lot of wine at this wedding—“a hundred gallons at the least”—so one wouldn’t really expect it to run out. The point of the story, as he sees it, is that divine love can transform the water of our lives into the best wine. “Life hungers to abound,” he writes, “and pour its plenty out for such as you.”

I have no difficulty imagining Wilbur delivering this poem to loved ones at a wedding:

Wedding Toast

St. John tells how, at Cana’s wedding feast,

The water-pots poured wine in such amount

That by his sober count

There were a hundred gallons at the least.



It made no earthly sense, unless to show

How whatsoever love elects to bless

Brims to a sweet excess

That can without depletion overflow.



Which is to say that what love sees is true;

That this world’s fullness is not made but found.

Life hungers to abound

And pour its plenty out for such as you.



Now, if your loves will lend an ear to mine,

I toast you both, good son and dear new daughter.

May you not lack for water,

And may that water smack of Cana’s wine. 

Further thoughts: I received the following note from my friend John Morrow, retired Episcopal priest:

I liked your blog today about the Cana wine.  I always preached a brief homily at weddings and often used the story of the wedding at Cana.  In the time of Jesus people traveled great distances to attend a wedding and the celebration would go on for days.  For the host to run out of wine would be a dreadful misjudgment for the celebration would be virtually over.  When Jesus turned water into wine he kept the festivities going and saved great embarrassment for the host.  I like to tell the bride and groom that when Jesus is the invited guest into your home, He will help to keep the joy and celebration in your marriage.  Everywhere Jesus went, he left people and situations changed……the dead were raised, the sick were healed, the blind had their sight restored.  He can change a deteriorating relationship and make it new again, He can cause a couple to fall in love again and again, He can bring grace and newness to every relationship.

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