Mon 18 Jan 2010
David Orendorff John 2:1-11 January 17, 2010
I am (or was) a 3rd Rock from the Sun fan. For those of you who may not have been 3rd Rock fans, the basic plot is this: Four aliens have come to earth to learn of human culture. They have taken human form and so physically they appear like the rest of us. However, because they are not of earth they are constantly and awkwardly bumping into our natures and assumptions. Harry is my favorite alien.
In 1997 3rd Rock did a show in which the aliens discover dreaming. They think it is a mental illness that has affected them and they treat it with therapy and drugs. My daughter Johanna recorded the show. A Jungian interest in dreams has not been totally lost on my family.
When I was meditating on the Wedding of Cana scripture, Harry’s dream leapt into my mind. First it was the words of the song, “Life has been good to me,” and then the whole scene became what I want to say to you about water, wine, a wedding party, and life in the Spirit.
Let’s watch the video first and then I’ll try to explain.
(The video scene is 3.5 minutes)
Harry’s story is the Cana story and our story. Just as the party starts to get really rolling, the wine runs low. How can we party without the spirits? There are bills to be paid, clothes to be cleaned, dishes to be washed, illness to face, divorce, job loss, earthquakes, tragedies, death, and pianos galore crashing from the sky.
What Jesus and Harry know is that though low supplies of wine happen, divine grace always abounds. Harry sings “Life has been good to me” while falling from the sky, as a woman slaps him, as he falls into an open man hole and travels the sewer, and on.
Harry, who seems so mentally not home with eyes generally only half open, turns out to be the most insightful of the four aliens. It is often his idiocy that points to wisdom. Harry and Jesus are wise fools. And as wise fools Harry sings and Jesus makes more and better wine. There is always another joy, always another grace, always another love and always a resurrection.
Two other wise fools from pop culture are Wayne and Garth (Mike Myers and Dana Carvey) who began their careers as characters on Saturday Night Live, hosting a make believe talk show reviewing the latest in culture. They eventually graduated to the movies where they made the Plymouth Pacer popular, a thing it could not do on its own. They are a mindless duo, but like Harry of 3rd Rock, they blunder through life with a belief in happy endings. When disaster strikes and they have again survived (always by means of miracle - another water into wine thing, another resurrection) they look to each other and say, “Party on Wayne,” “Party on Garth” Just what Jesus said in Cana.
I am going to make a broad generalization. You can tell me I am wrong later, because of course I am, but for now it serves the point I want to make. There are two kinds of people and they both drink wine. One kind sees the glass as half empty and going down. Like Eeyore, Pooh’s donkey friend, they know that “bad things can only get worse.” The worst of them become black holes that suck life from whoever crosses their path. They infect negativity into every occasion.
I know that sometimes there are biochemical and medical reasons for this. I suffer from those. But because of my own experience, I believe I can say that even those of us who struggle with black visions can be the second kind of person and not the first.
The second kinds of person are those who see the glass as half full and bound to rise again. One of my heroes is Velma Biddle. She is this second kind of person. Velma went to Israel with a tour Vickie and I led in 1997. She was from Holyoake, Colorado and was then 88. Her career was as a High School teacher. This, alone, would be enough to make many folks morose.
Velma had the energy of one of her students. At 88 she would come bounding off the bus, excited for the next adventure, for the wine of the day, wine always better than yesterdays. We had to watch her because her interest caused her to wander to see yet another thing, another history, or another person. Sometime in the first week of the trip she told us that she had been to Israel once before. Back in 1937 she came as a personal secretary to Will and Ariel Durant, the great writers of history and philosophy. She told us of riding on trains and mules instead of riding in planes and air conditioned buses. Velma sees God working in all things to make bad things good, and good things better. The real difference between the first and second kinds of people is in seeing God as loving and graceful. What wise fools know and the brightest of us often miss is that God always makes the party go on.
Jesus bet his life and death on it and proved that even death is conquered by the love of God. The ending is always happy in God. And we too can be wise fools believing in new wine and new worlds. It may take some travelling from where we are and the learning curve may sometimes be steep and strange, but we are all headed for happy endings. I saw a clip from the movie Avatar that can describe our journey to the kingdom of heaven.
Play Clip - Avatar, “Hallelujah Mountains”, http://wingclips.com/
The team that gets to the Hallelujah Mountains, the new wine and new world, is made of a pilot who has been there and instinctually knows how to return, the head of the Avatar project who has given her life to understanding, a young man who has studied such things but never taken the trip, and a neophyte who knows nothing, doesn’t know why he is going or what is expected of him. It will take the whole team to be successful.
And for us to be wise fools it will take our whole team, from the most experienced to newest soul in the room. You can trust with all your heart that being disciples together in worship, study and service, we are on the journey. Our journey will be much like Harry’s in which every tragedy is filled with and leads to a new grace, a new joy. It is the truth of the Wedding of Cana. It is what will make Velma Biddle’s of us all so that we too can dance and sing our way to heaven in the now and in the forever. Party on! Shalom and Amen.
