1-10-22 - Life of the Party

You can listen to this reflection here. Sunday's gospel reading is here. 

I was once part of a church that got into conflict about whether or not to host wedding receptions. Some deemed it not worth the risk of harming the floor in the parish hall, which doubled as a gym, or overloading staff and supplies. I was staunchly in the “pro-party” camp, proclaiming that the wedding reception was at least as important as the ceremony in terms of the community’s coming together to support the new marriage. “Jesus’ first miracle was at a wedding reception! How on earth could we make couples go out and pay tens of thousands of dollars instead of celebrating at church?,” I said. In the end the pro-party view prevailed, and I attended – even coordinated one or two – many a fine wedding reception in that space.

The gospel story we get to play with this week is the only one in which we find Jesus at a wedding: 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.

It is such a gift that the gospels show us scenes of Jesus at parties. One wonders how such a dour seriousness became associated with the Jesus movement, when he himself knew how to mix it up with people socially. He often got into trouble for it – but he also often found in these occasions opportunities to demonstrate the life of God.

Our holiday party season may have been blunted by the Omicron wave, but come warmer weather there are plenty of social opportunities to come – and maybe Jesus would like to come with us to the next party we attend. Every conversation we have, every time we offer help to the host, there is an opening for showing love, and even for spiritual encounter, as we are conscious of Jesus being with us.

And if we’re hosting, we might think about where Jesus is sitting. I’m often too busy hostessing to be spiritually present… and yet, what better gift could I offer my guests than my spiritual self along with fine food and drinks?

We may not be turning water into wine, but we can transform the ordinary into the sacred just by bringing Jesus along with us and letting his Spirit kick things up a notch. You never know what might happen.

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