What is your favorite kind of wine?  

It was a cheap bottle of white wine.  It cost maybe $2 to $3 at most.  And I couldn't even tell you the name of the vintner nor the year it was made.  I couldn’t tell you if it had a pleasing aroma or a light finish, or the subtle flavors of raspberry on the back of the tongue nor anything that wine aficionados would want to know about a bottle of wine.  But 28 years later, I can still tell you everything that was important about that bottle of wine.  We bought in a little wine and cheese shop outside the cathedral of Chartre.  It, a loaf of bread and some cheese were our lunch that day.  We laughed, we told stories, we enjoyed one another's company around that bottle of wine.  And though the bottle eventually ran dry, the abundance it produced in our hearts lived on well into the trip  

"They have no wine."  It is a statement of fact as well as a symbol of a deeper reality. It is a social disaster – to run out of wine at a wedding feast.  But spoken by the woman who appears again at the foot of the cross, it carries a deeper meaning.  They lack that which binds hearts together.  They are missing the glue that makes life a blessing rather than toil.  The joy, the camaraderie, the laughter and stories which make life worth living are not present.   And in our own lives, don't we know that as well? Aren't there are moments when the joy is gone, when the laughter is far from our lips, and life is just difficult? We have no wine.  We thirst for those moments of connection.  We long for a place where people know who we are and share our story.  And into our Cana of Galilee’s, into those moments when we have no wine– comes again the one who saved the wedding feast.   

You see, the abundance of wine is a sign.  John’s Gospel is clear about that.  The miracle recounted in today’s gospel is not just about Jesus making enough wine to keep the town drunk for a week. (120 to 180 gal. of wine – that is a lot of wine)  It is about another order – a sign of the in-breaking of God’s kingdom.  “They have no wine...”  Jesus is aware of this deeper thirst, and provides an abundance of wine.  And not just any wine, but fine wine.  And as we learn as John’s Gospel unfolds, it is the wine of his own heart.  It is the wine that flows from his own Body on the cross.  The miracle is about the desire of God to quench the deep thirst in us and make us whole and holy by sharing his very self with us. 

So the question is: “Where have you experienced the wine which gladdens the heart?”  What is your favorite “vintage’ that fills you with the knowledge of God’s abundant love for you? 

For me, there were several dinners with a small group of friends over the holidays.  It was normal home cooking.  But, as we told stories and laughed and remembered, I felt my heart filling up once again with the wine of God's love for me.  And I knew a foretaste, a foreshadowing of the banquet that we are all invited to this day around this table.

So, how do we live in a way that lets the abundant love of God break into our lives and our world? 

1) Normally, I’d tell you to treat yourself to a good bottle of wine, a nice dinner, an outing with the family – one of those experiences where YOU come to experience the wine that gladdens the heart.  In light of the earthquake in Haiti, I think the challenge is for us to “BE” the wine of Cana for those who have nothing.  So I challenge you to take the $ that you might spend on such an outing, – and drop it into the 2nd collection today.  They have no wine… or water… or food… or shelter or anything that matters these days.  May their need touch out lives. 

2) And as we celebrate the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this weekend, realize with him that there so many who do not share in this wine of abundance, - so many for whom the miracle of Cana still needs to happen. For whom do you need to provide the wine of compassion this weekend?  Who thirsts to know your presence, the gift that you are today?  For whom can you tear down the walls of hatred and racism and prejudice and lack of opportunity this week? 

  So what is your favorite kind of wine?  Be it red, white or blush, I pray that it might be for you the wine which commits your heart to creating community – here at St. Ann, here in Normandy, here in Haiti, and here in our world.