Three Servants (Rachel, Glen, Blanch)
Rachel: Did Glen tell you about what happened over in
Cana?
Glen: No, I didn’t. It just seemed so… well… big. I
didn’t want to share it without a friend.
Blanch: I heard… everyone heard… the Thompsons served
the best wine last.
Rachel: That’s not the half of it. Really,
Glen, you didn’t tell her where the wine CAME from?
Blanch: Now I’m dying to know. How’d you servants
manage to convince Mrs. Thompson to serve the best last? I mean… it was her
only son’s wedding for crying out loud!
Glen: It wasn’t us.
Rachel: It wasn’t. You see, we were on day three, we’d
used all the good vintage, we were down to the dregs, Glen was watering down the
wine we served to the less prominent guests. Then guess who showed up?
Blanch: Who?
Glen: Mary.
Rachel: And her kid. You know, the one who John was
calling the Lamb of God out in the wilderness.
Blanch: He was getting some followers as of late,
right? Fishermen following a Carpenter Scholar… strange days.
Rachel: That’s the one. Jesus. He shows up… right as
the wine ran out… completely.
Glen: Nothing left… Nothing left to water down even.
Rachel: So
Jesus and Mary get in a back and forth, and she grabs Glen.
Glen: She just pulled me to the side, and said to me,
“Do whatever he tells you.”
Intense lady, and a guest… so who was I to object.
Rachel: So Jesus, reluctantly, nods us over to the
purification jars. You know the Thompsons didn’t skimp on them… pious people
our owners, the Thompsons… and we go over to them.
Glen: Fill ‘em up, he says to me.
Rachel: And we did. All six of them.
Glen: And I poured some out… it looked like wine… and
Jesus tells me to bring it to the boss man… and I do.
Rachel: I was kinda worried for Glen here… Mr. Chardonnay
is a stickler—miracles or no—but he and Glen came back and said he said, “serve
‘em.”
Glen: So we did. I even took a taste.
Rachel: Same.
Blanche: And it was good.
Glen: The best wine… served last.
Blanche: It was a sign. Water into wine. The last and
the first, reversed.
Rachel: Water, like Baptism, moved from cleansing and
purity only, to the joy of it all. John’s baptism of repentance giving way to Jesus’
baptism of fire and fruitfulness!
Blanche: (Sigh) The first shall be last. Such good
news to us servants, our lives not our own.
Glen: A sign… a heavy one—those stone jars, I’ve dragged
‘em around before, they’re the size of a person! Imagine how much of that
fruitfulness and reversal it was filled with.
Rachel: Filled with joy! The joy of a wedding. A
miraculous party. What if that’s what God’s Kingdom is like? Not another political
or military ta-do, not rigorous religious doings, not whipping yourself in the
wilderness, but a miraculous party!
Blanche: What if the second half of things is better
than the first? What if the last things surpass the first? As people of the
ancient world…
Rachel & Glen: Who are you calling
ancient.
Blanche: As opposed to modern or post-modern people…
like them (point to audience).
We pre-modern people ALWAYS look backward, to a golden age,
an ideal past, and then judge everything else as lesser—"once an age of
gold, now less than bronze we be” and all that… what if there is another way?
What if there is a future, what if this reversal… praise God!!! What if this
sign of Jesus is a promise that we all have reason to hope?!?
Glen: I could use some hope.
Rachel: Me too.
Glen: What if there is more to come… I couldn’t help
but read ahead in the script… this isn’t the last sign of Jesus, but the first.
If we read on we’ll see this abundance, the overflow, the “My cup runneth over”
nature of Jesus’ life and ministry. We’ll see healings and feedings, walking on
water and raising from the dead. That’s the kind of abundance we’re looking at!
Rachel: All of it a sign of hope—a torch in the
gloom, good news in the flesh, life for the whole world!
All: Amen.
