SERMON Wordless Words

Epiphany 2C (07): Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 36-5-10; 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; John 2:1-11

This past week, newspapers (including the Tribune) reported that the Ile-de-France regional committee of tourism in Paris, has launched a campaign to help foreign tourists understand Parisians by having them consult a list of commonly used gestures. The idea is that you don't need to speak French to understand Parisians. You just need to know how to gesture. Or, as stated by Tom Hundley in the Tribune, "when words fail, the French can call on a rich vocabulary of body language that speaks volumes." The campaign is to overcome the impression that Parisians are arrogant.

Since we are going to spend a few days in Paris this week on our way to India, I immediately checked out the committee's website ( These gestures include "la moule" ("the pout") -- a "wordless look of withering disdain." Tom Hundley illustrates:

Pity the clueless Midwestern tourist foolish enough to ask a Parisian waiter to bring ketchup for the foie gras, or Coke with the coq au vin. The poor rube will likely be treated to . . . the pout.

First the waiter will purse his lips and furrow his brow. Then he will slowly shake his head in disbelief and mock sorrow. The ketchup may or may not arrive.

Along with the pout, there is the ras le bol, a gesture to show that you are sick and tired or have had it up to here with something or someone. The gallic shrug or bof is used to deny knowledge, agreement, or responsibility. "Then there is the mildly rude gesture to express frustrated disappointment or annoyance known as les boules." The guide describes it as a vulgar way of saying you're unlucky, upset or you can't take it anymore. "Instructions: 1. Hold an imaginary set of tennis balls, one in each hand. 2. Put your hands in front of your neck, as if you were holding your lymph nodes.""

Okay, I'm ready for Paris.

India is another matter. Like the French, the Indians also have a rich wordless vocabulary. Many of you have undoubtedly seen it. Westerners call it the head bob. It is achieved by "the smooth and undulating weaving of the head from side to side." It has been described as "a sinuous back-and‑forth‑up‑and‑down‑at‑the‑same‑time movement, as smoothly as if the head rested on ball‑ bearings." Really amazing. It can mean "yes."

It can mean "OK," "Great," or "I guess so." It can mean "Sure" or "Eh, why not?" If exhibited while another person is speaking, it can also mean "I'm listening" or "I understand" or "I appreciate the meaning of what you are saying, even though I don't necessarily agree with you." . . . [I]t can sometimes mean "OK, you crazy American. Whatever."

Unlike French gestures, head bobbing is never arrogant. But, unlike French gestures, it is also completely mystifying. It is impossible (at least for Lee and me) to decipher what a particular head bob means (and every person has more than one). What is the person really saying?

Which makes the head bob very much like the account of Jesus' turning water into wine that we hear this morning. It is mystifying. Mystifying in all sorts of ways.

At first glance, the wedding itself is mystifying -- or at least the presence of Jesus and his mother at the wedding is mystifying. Marriages in first century Palestine were (as they are today) arranged. The ideal marriage was between first cousins. Persons invited to a wedding were related. Honor, of course, was paramount, and a non relative would never presume to replenish the supply of wine.

So Jesus and his mother are related to the bride and groom (and if the bride and groom are first cousins, probably to both). Bishop James Spong who wrote Born of a Woman suggests -- long before The di Vinci Code -- that, underlying this account of a wedding -- an account that appears only in John's gospel -- is a tradition that knew of a wedding where Jesus was the groom and Mary Magdalene, the bride.

After all, Jesus in John's gospel is called "Rabbi," and first century rabbis were married. No exceptions. There's much more to support the argument, but in the context of the wedding at Cana, Spong makes his argument by asking, why would Mary care whether there was enough wine if she were not the groom's mother? Weddings were the responsibility of the man's family and held (over several days) in the groom's family's home. The mother of the groom would be directly concerned about the quantity of wine and would have the authority to order the servants to follow her son's directives.

It's an intriguing argument. The problem is that, by the time John's gospel was written, the wedding, Jesus' changing water into wine, and the head waiter's comment on the quality of the wine were what survived. The bride and groom had become faceless and nameless.

The need for more wine becomes the pretext but not the reason for the changing of the water into wine. What's more this first miracle or sign in John's gospel simply happens. Now, as with Indian head bobbing, everything in John's gospel is always so much more than it seems to be, John tells us that in changing the water into wine in Cana of Galilee Jesus "revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him." There are many interpretations of just how this sign reveals Jesus' glory.

Probably the most frequent interpretation is based on Isaiah's description this morning of God's return to Jerusalem and to God's people -- a return described as a marriage. Isaiah and Hosea write about messianic fullness "marked by wine and abundance of fine food." In the words of today's psalm, "We feast upon the abundance of your house, O Lord." Or, as the headwaiter observes, the best has been saved for last. The imagery itself hints at glory. But as Jesus makes clear, his hour has not yet come. The marriage feast hints at the feast that is to come, to Jesus' future glory. It is the changing of the water into wine, however, that reveals Jesus' glory.

The glory that is revealed is found in the sign itself. And that sign occurs not because Mary orders (or even asks) Jesus to find more wine. It does not occur because Jesus says, "Water, become wine." No, that sign occurs because Mary orders the servants to do whatever Jesus tells them to do. And what he tells them to do is to fill six stone jars that were used for purification with water. The servants followed Mary's order and Jesus' directive, and that was that. The water had become wine.

Had become wine without words but because of words. Because of The Word. John has set the stage in his prologue to the gospel. A prologue that comes before everything else. "And the Word became flesh and lived among us," he writes. "And we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." It was in the servants' following the words spoken by Jesus, that Jesus was revealed as The Word living among us (at the same time, one commentator has remarked that, living among us, Jesus' rebuke of his mother, not to mention his calling her " Woman" -- "offer beautiful insights to Jesus as a Mediterranean man . . . He's just like us in so many human ways.")

And while it is The Word who speaks, it is the servants who act. The servants who both make the sign happen and reveal Jesus' glory "as of a father's only son." And that speaks to us, doesn't it? By God's grace, we know God through Word and sacrament. In words spoken and not seen, and in acts seen but not heard. By God's grace, we as a individuals in a community act as the Body of Christ in the world, using our many and varied gifts to make the broken whole and to reveal the love of a God who lives with us.

Thanks to the French tourist committee I will understand the words seen but not heard in Paris this week. I have no intention of acting on them. The head bobs in India will never fully be understood. I will do my best to act on them. The words spoken and unspoken here are, however, unlike either. The words spoken and unspoken here can be both understood and acted upon. In the words of our gathering song this morning, we pray:

Grant us grace to see thee Lord,

present in thy holy word.

grace to imitate thee now

and be pure. as pure art thou;

that we might become like thee

at thy great epiphany

and may praise thee ever blest

God in flesh made manifest.

Amen

January 14, 2007

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church

Chicago