The Second Sunday after the Epiphany-the Rev Melanie Lemburg

Epiphany 2C

January 16, 2022

 

        “I hope my babies can be in the wedding service.”  A colleague who had been a priest for over 30 years was telling me a story of the latest wedding he had done in his church, and this is what the bride kept telling him over and over.  “I hope my babies can be in the wedding service.”  “Well, of course your babies can be in the wedding service,” he kept reassuring her.  It did occur to him to wonder why this bride was so insistent on her babies being in the wedding while at the same time so insecure about it, but he quickly stowed those thoughts away.  On the day of the wedding, the bride showed up with her babies proudly in tow—male and female chihuahuas dressed in a tux and a bridal gown.  She proceeded to have them wheeled down the aisle in a baby carriage as a part of the wedding procession, much to the dismay of my friend who had assured her repeatedly that her babies could be in her wedding.  He concluded that conversation by saying, “and that’s why, every time we have a wedding, here at St. Mark’s, I have to update the wedding customary.  This week I added the line: “no chihuahuas.” 

        Weddings are fraught with expectations.  In these very public celebrations of new life and new family, the expectations of all the major players—bride and groom, their parents, sometimes their siblings and extended relatives and others-collide.  It’s not uncommon that right around the time that we do our pre-marital counseling session on conflict for there to have been some significant conflict around the wedding—either between the bride and the groom or a member of the wedding party and a parent--which we spend time unpacking and discussing to learn more about how the couple handles both conflict and expectations of others. 

        It’s interesting to me to see in our gospel passage for today a snapshot of similar dynamics at work in a wedding during Jesus’s own day.  Jesus’s mother (who is never called by name in John’s gospel) learns that the wedding feast is about to run out of wine.  This is a huge scandal and would reflect very poorly on the new couple and their families. Mary goes to Jesus and tells him the situation, and Jesus responds: “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”  Mary doesn’t answer him, but instead tells the servants: “Do whatever he tells you.”  And then he just does it.  Jesus turns the water into wine and no one except the servants and his disciples even know that he has done it. 

        I can’t help but wonder what shifts in Jesus in that moment after he answers Mary?  Why does he decide that it is his concern and that ok, maybe the time is right for his first miracle? (One of my colleagues has suggested that maybe Jesus decided that it was easier to just go ahead and change the water into wine that to deal with his mamma after they got home.) It’s interesting, too, that this change in Jesus’s understanding of the timing of his mission happens in the gospel of John, where Jesus is so unemotional, unmovable, so focused on his mission, and more divine seeming than human.  I’d like to understand what happens here when Mary’s expectations for Jesus collide with his own expectations and understanding of his mission. 

          Last weekend, my family and I watched the Disney movie Encanto. Encanto is an animated film that tells the story of the  Madrigal family, who received a lineage of unique, magical gifts for each of their offspring after their Columbian village was overrun by armed men in the dark of night.  In addition to the magical gifts, the family is given a magical house, and they have decided to use all of these resources to protect the other members of their village and keep them safe from harm.  The movie follows the story of Mirabel, the main character, who is the only member of the family to not receive a magical gift, and it explores the weight of expectations on key members of the family to use their gifts in a way that is of service to the family and the community.  Mirabel isn’t able to live into the expectation of having a magical gift, so she overcompensates by trying to be super-helpful.  Other characters feel burdened by the weight of expectations to use their gifts to the fullest, often to the sacrifice of their own wellness.  And when facing the threat of losing their gifts, they begin to question their own self-worth.  Mirabel’s oldest sister Luisa, whose gift is super-strength,has a whole song about this: 

“If I could shake the crushing weight of expectations

Would that free some room up for joy?

Or relaxation, or simple pleasure?

Instead we measure this growing pressure

Keeps growing, keep going

'Cause all we know is

 

Pressure like a drip, drip, drip that'll never stop, woah

Pressure that'll tip, tip, tip till you just go pop, woah

Give it to your sister, it doesn't hurt and

See if she can handle every family burden

Watch as she buckles and bends but never breaks

No mistakes”

        In Encanto, the characters realize that expectations of others do not have to define their identities or self-worth.  They learn to evaluate expectations of their own and that they have received from others, (especially their Abuela, who is the head of the family) and to determine which ones should be kept and which ones could be discarded for them to be healthier and more whole. 

        All this makes me wonder if Jesus’s change is less about succumbing to his mother’s expectations of him and more about reevaluating and shifting his own expectations of his ministry? 

        In this season where all of our expectations for life continue to be disrupted and upended, this is a helpful reminder for all of us.

        What expectations of yourself do you have that are deeply engrained that you may need to reevaluate during this season?   Where in your life are expectations crushing the possibility of more joy, more relaxation, more pleasure?  What might be a way that God is calling you to change or grow in a way that is different from your expectations of how things should go?