In T.S. Eliot’s play, Murder in the Cathedral, the great doors of the Cathedral Church in Canterbury have been locked and barred against the rumor of would-be assailants being sent from the King of England. Thomas á Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is the focus of King Henry's anger. Although he knows that the priests have barred the doors for his safety, never-the-less, Becket will not permit it and with great drama proclaims:
"Unbar the doors! Throw open the doors!
I will not have the house of prayer, the church of Christ,
             The Sanctuary turned into a fortress...
The church shall be open, even to our enemies. Open the door!"
Several centuries later the great Reformer, John Calvin, the author of our tradition as Presbyterians, described the church as reformed and always reforming. It is places where doors are open...not a fortress against the world...but the place where the winds and ways of the world meet the will of God....where lives are changed against a backdrop that is always changing as well. Calvin gathered a movement which shattered the notion of the church is changeless and constant. The Protestant church picked up the refrain of the Gospel....repent, be transformed and renewed as the world is renewed every day.
It has been noted that, in our world today, it is no longer business as usual, politics as usual or economics as usual...because it is no longer life as usual...in fact it never was. So why is it still religion as usual? The constants of our faith are God's love and God's forgiveness...God's willingness to go with us on the journey. And what a joyful journey it is! In another Canterbury tale, from a different century, ask any of the pilgrims who make their way to the Cathedral amidst a carnival-like atmosphere.1
Yet if one were to pick up any newspaper, read any one of the millions of blog sites which fill the internet, or listen to talk radio or watch the talking heads on any of the cable news outlets, it seems like there is little sense of that joy in the world today. With the devastation in Haiti, with the turmoil of two wars being fought on the other side of the world, it seems like the journey has taken a decidedly negative turn.
It is as if, as was the case at that wedding long ago in Cana described by the Evangelist John in his gospel, it is as if the party was in full swing but the wine has run out. 
This wedding story is a curious one, not mentioned in the other three Gospels, nor referenced by Paul in any way; it is unique to John and to John’s perspective. The entire Gospel of John is one in which word and action is linked – they become what John calls “signs.” The Gospel begins as you recall with the wonderful prelude – “In the beginning was the word….” It is an announcement that the Word came to dwell with humankind. And then the Gospel proceeds to describe the presence among us of that Word by the narration of a series of signs: the turning of water to wine at the wedding in Cana is the first.
To a people who were in many ways going through the motions of the life of faithfulness and community, Jesus provides a moment of joy. "Most people serve the best wine first, but you have saved the best for last." The wine comes from the conversion of the holy water, set aside for rituals of purification. So the ritual water is like a representation of the “old way” by which God is viewed with fear related to judgment. If your way of relating to God is through the Law alone – then you are forever in doubt, for one can never be fully perfect in their observance of the law. “We are only human, after all…” 
So here at Cana is a sign, ritual water – a symbol of obligation to the law and fear of God, is transformed into the substance for celebration. By the word, in this action, we get a glimpse of the Kingdom way of life on earth; a recapitulation of the words of the prophet Isaiah, (Isa 62:5) “...as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you."
As one scholar has noted, this goes beyond symbolism. When Jesus changes water into wine, the transformation of the world according to God's holy purpose is becoming a reality through the presence of Jesus - the Word, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Christ. The new wine breaks in upon and transforms the religious status quo.
Here, Jesus' miracle does indeed echo his teaching in the Synoptic Gospels concerning the necessity of new wineskins for new wine (Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39). This miracle also echoes the new meaning wine is given by Jesus in the synoptic accounts of the Last Supper. Through Jesus, the new wine is superior to the old. Through Jesus, the new wine transforms us out of mannered external piousness and into mature internal piety.
I have a good friend, whom I first met at Cabrini Green...he is a social worker and an artist, PhD from Notre Dame, who in his early fifties gave up his work as a therapist and began acting on a vision which he had concerning young people in Henry Horner Homes. 
Brother Bill, as he came to be called, was convinced that it was love that gang members needed to be shown, unconditional love. He used to try to place himself in between two factions when they were gearing up for a fight...and has shown me the holes in his loose fitting robe that give testimony to just how close he himself came on several occasions to catching a bullet himself. 
As I say, I met Bill in Cabrini Green, where I also came to know several of the gang members with whom he worked. Bill's way of working with these young men might seem strange to hear it described. It was based on an assumption that the life expectations of these young men was so narrowed by their circumstances, that they had lost the ability to dream...to envision any other sort of life for themselves than the life of a gang-banger and drug seller...whose greatest aspiration was to own a BMW and hopefully survive to see their 21st birthday. 
Thou they had access to every kind of drug – for them the wine had run out.  
 Bill used to take the guys to movies. He had a big Buick in which he used to crowd five guys to do simple things like drive up Michigan Avenue to see the Christmas lights, or go to a basketball game at his Alma Mater, Notre Dame. 
Years ago, soon after I met him, Bill and I arranged to meet for lunch one day. As I waited for him in the lobby of Fourth Presbyterian Church, where I was working at the time, I was gearing myself up for a hotdog at one of the corner stands on Division or something like that. When Bill arrived, he knocked by socks off by suggesting that we go have lunch at the Drake. 
It was at this meeting and many others in other places and circumstances that I came to understand that part of Bill's ministry with the young gang bangers at Cabrini and Henry Horner and Robert Taylor was to bring them a taste of the joy of God’s love – the transformational power of the kingdom that can turn water into wine – and can turn a life of violence and despair into a life of fulfillment and hope.
Just as he insisted in celebrating our newly developing friendship in a special way at the Drake, where he suggested we share a half-bottle of wine at lunch, he spent his time going into the darkest places where these gang bangers hung out, and sought to bring joy to their lives...joy in living companionship and the loving friendship of someone who has nothing to gain but the satisfaction of caring. 
To those who might wish to judge the gang bangers...condemn them for the spiral of violence in which they are participants, Bill might have lifted up portions of Psalm 30 (Psalm 30:5) "For [God's] anger is but for a moment; his favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning." In working with the gangs, Bill seeks to embody as much as he can, the unconditional love of God. The Sufi Poet Rumi once said, "Pain is converted into joy through love..."
Through the creation of new wine, Jesus first reveals his glory - and his disciples believe in him. Have we the mature internal piety to taste and see Jesus for the Messiah he is? Are we already prepared to take Jesus at his word, as the Word?
One of the CNN reporters kept remarking, the other day as he was reporting the horrible details of the devastation in Haiti, that the streets were filled with singing. “Singing?”  Yes, there is wailing for the dead, and there were still screams of anguish, but the sound which dominated was the sound of celebration – giving thanks to God for lives spared – remnants of families gathered to build each other up with joy sounds and alleluias.
Social issues, issues of pain and violence, war and peace, inequity and justice, can be and often are overwhelming. There is the phenomenon called, "compassion fatigue" which those who were victimized by the flood of 2008 here in Cedar Rapids and those who are trying to raise support to help in the rebuilding of lives will tell you is a real thing. Needs are overwhelming and complex. The result is that even people of good will often shut down. 
Certainly that was the case in the U.S. during the decades of Jim Crowe and government sanctioned segregation. The majority of whites in America knew the system to be wrong, plain and simple, but along with those who were victimized by the system, were paralyzed by the overwhelming complexity, not only of racism in action, but the ways in which racism was interwoven with economic and political issues in the United States in the 40’s and 50’s. The wine had run out…
Martin Luther King, Jr. helped people envision not their hurt or their fear, but rather best yearnings and hopes of their hearts. "He realized that most of our models for action are conventional; we simply do things as we have become accustomed to do them. But if we modify the typical patterns of our actions, we do so by imagining and choosing among alternative possibilities..." King helped people "modify the typical patterns of (their) actions" by holding up a model -- a dream -- that was congruent with the landscape of their hearts and that could therefore sustain a movement for moral and legislative change. Martin Luther King taught a generation of American's to celebrate the possibilities of a different kind of social order...where enmity is transformed into relationship...and dreams are celebrated and shared. 
What King knew, what my friend Brother Bill knew in Cabrini Green among the gang bangers, and what Jesus knew as he began his ministry, is that people who are caught up in systems that dehumanize and deny aspirations and hopes are in many ways incapable of living out the word, making the moves required to change their lives. Jesus understood that first, we must learn to celebrate the vision of God's saving and transforming love...dream the dreams of God’s Kingdom way. Only then, can we begin to live into that vision...and make it real. 
The tendency, even among people of good will, is to give up when faced with overwhelming odds - complaining that the wine has run out and the energy to hope In the midst of what might be despair for some and for others is tragic day to day reality is hard to find. As we contemplate the horrors in Haiti this week, we would do well to remember some words from Isaiah – “weeping will linger for the night...but joy comes with the morning.” The best wine has been saved for last – the not yet is still on the horizon; yet it comes with a shout of joy. 
“I don't know who - or what - put the question. I don't know when it was put. I don't even remember answering. But at some moment I did answer 'Yes' to Someone - or Something - and from that hour I was certain that existence is meaningful and that, therefore, my life in self-surrender had a goal.”2
Listen for the voice of singing; listen for the joy that is already come even to those with the least reason to celebrate – the new wine will burst the old wineskins because hope grounded in faith, cannot be restrained for long. This is the first of the signs that Jesus did in Galilee – let us all find in  this hope the energy to embody the word in our lives.