“On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.” His mother said to the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. Jesus said to them, “Fill the jars with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. He said to them, “Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward.” So they took it. When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom ¹⁰ and said to him, “Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now.”  John 2:1-10

“When I was a kid my parents took us to church. I found much of it rather uninspiring, but those Jesus stories, they did something to me. What struck me in those stories was how the biggest mysteries are found in the smallest things. A woman kneads some dough, a party needs more wine. A man buries a seed, rocks cry out. Something infinite happening in all that dirt and sweat and stuff of life. Blood and crowds and roads and friends—in those Jesus stories that’s where the life, the action, the divine is found. I assume I wouldn’t have articulated it like that as a kid, I probably would have simply said that I sensed there’s more going on here. That’s why I resonated with those Jesus stories. Because in them there’s always more going on here.” (Bell, Rob. Everything is Spiritual . St. Martin’s Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.)

There IS always something more going on in the stories of Jesus – and in the stories of our lives. There is always more going on if we take the time to assess and seek something deeper. For example, when the woman anointed Jesus in Matthew 26:7-13 right before his last Passover, this could have been interpreted as a waste of expensive perfume. Jesus turned that idea on its head when he says “She has prepared me for my burial”. A moment of pure waste has been reinterpreted as an act of pure love. This is what Jesus tends to do in his actions with the sick, the outsider and the sinner. Those people whom society see as a “waste of space” have been given new life.

Who are the people our society has told are just a waste of space? Who are the outsiders, the sinners, the spiritually and physically sick who need our love, care and grace? Perhaps those people are the ones we should be seeking to share some of our time, our love, and resources. We are called to continue to turn the world upside down with the love of Jesus – or perhaps as Jesus would see it, turn the world right-side up.

Pastor Dave