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A CHANGE OF HEART
Exodus 32:7-14
John 2:1-11
January 17, 2010
When my children were young and lived at home they often came to me with requests like can we go to a movie, can we spend the night at a friend’s house, or can we have a dog? The easiest thing in the world is to just say no, it doesn’t take any effort on the parent’s part to always say no. I tried to make my first response, “Give me a little time to think about this.” My children always assumed that my answer meant no. The truth is, I needed time to figure out all of the implications so I could say yes. What they assumed was happening, and what was really happening, were very different.
I want you to file that away for a second. We’re going to take a moment to look at the social implications of today’s pericope. Then, I want to come back and talk about something more significant. The reading starts by telling us that on the third day a wedding took place in Cana. Third day of what? Third day of the week? That would be Tuesday. Why point that out? It could be the third day of the wedding; wedding parties lasted anywhere from two days to one week. If so, John is telling us that the wine ran out pretty early in the party.
However, more than likely John is telling us that this is the third day since Jesus began collecting disciples. At this point he only has five disciples, not twelve. John wants us to know that this is at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry, in the first week.
Mary comes to Jesus and tells her son that the party is out of wine. Why is she sharing this information with him? Is this his problem; he’s a guest? There are two trains of thought here. The first centers on the supposition that Joseph, Mary’s husband and Jesus’ adoptive father, is dead – and has been for quite some time. If so, there were very few ways for a widow to earn a living. One of the few was to be a caterer. It may be that Mary is catering this wedding. If so, running out of wine was her problem; and it was a big problem. Running out of wine before the party was over was grounds for a lawsuit. If this is the case, Mary is looking for anyone who can help her out of this jam; and her oldest son is a natural choice.
The second theory, and this is probably more popular, is that while Jesus was invited to the party – the five tag-along Disciples were not. They weren’t included in the original wedding planning. We now have too many people eating and drinking. And, since Jesus brought them, this is his problem. In which case it is only reasonable for Mary to tell Jesus, “You made the mess, you clean it up.”
Jesus’ response is essentially, “Nope. It’s not the right time for me to be doing miracles and stuff.” Which may or may not have been what Mary was asking. She might have been asking him just to run down to the corner store and get more wine. What’s interesting is that she proceeds as if Jesus had just said, “Why certainly mother, I’d be glad to help.” Her response doesn’t seem to match his answer.
Jesus walks over to the six empty stone jars sitting by the doorway. This identifies the house as the home of a Pharisee (Mark 7:3). Unlike priests (who just worked at the Temple), or Rabbi’s (who worked primarily at the local synagogue), Pharisees had regular day jobs. When they came home from work they considered themselves polluted by the evil of the working world. They believed that if they ate with dirty hands they could ingest sin, and it would permanently become a part of them. So, they had six jars of water ready. They would wash their hands in each of the six jars. By the time they had finished with the last jar they felt they were clean and pure again – so they could eat dinner without ingesting the sin of the world.
Each of these jars held somewhere between twenty and thirty gallons of water. These were big jars. The jars were clearly empty when Jesus ordered them to be filled to the brim with water. (The Pharisee probably didn’t want anyone else touching his pure water.) This is important because we know that what happens next truly is a miracle. The jars were empty, and they had never held anything but pure water. There is absolutely no chance that there was some wine left in the bottom of these jars, and Jesus just had them add water so it looked like a jar of wine. The jars were empty and clean; only water was added; yet, what came out was a very high quality wine. In fact, Jesus creates somewhere between 120 and 180 gallons of high quality wine. This is a miracle.
John is very careful to tell us that this is Jesus’ first miracle; which clearly refutes the apocryphal story of the five year old boy Jesus making a clay bird, then breathing on it an bringing it to life (Infancy Gospel of Thomas). Why perform the miracle? Remember that Jesus has his five new Disciples with him; John tells us that the consequence of the miracle was that his glory was revealed, and the Disciples put their faith in him. This goes way beyond helping his mother out of a fix; or, solving a quantity problem created by bringing uninvited guests. Miracles have a purpose. In this case the purpose is to reveal Jesus as the Holy Son of God, and create a core of Disciples who will give him their complete faith.
But, what I really want to talk about is this; Jesus initially says this is the wrong time to perform a miracle, and then he performs a miracle anyway. Was he wrong about the timing, or did he change his mind? Can we change God’s mind? There appear to be examples where this has happened. In our Old Testament reading today Moses appears to change God’s mind about destroying Israel. In the book of Isaiah we have a story where King Hezekiah is sick, and the prophet tells him to get his house in order because he is going to die. Hezekiah makes an impassioned prayer to God that he will do better; and God sends Isaiah back to the king to tell him he gets fifteen more years (Isaiah 38:1-6). God sends Jonah to tell Nineveh they are going to be wiped off the face of the planet. The king and the city repent, and God spares their lives (Jonah 3:4,10). It seems like God can be talked into changing his mind. Can we really do that? Now, this is a big question because it has huge implications.
If God can be talked into changing his mind does that mean that bad things happen because we don’t try hard enough to convince God that bad things shouldn’t happen? It’s our fault for not explaining the situation clearly enough? If God can be talked into changing his mind does that mean that God can be talked into making a mistake, or out of making a mistake? And, if that’s true (if he can be talked into or out of a mistake) then is he really God?
What is the purpose of prayer? Doesn’t God already know what we want and need? If he doesn’t know, then how can he be God? If he does know, why do we have to talk him into doing what’s right? Does the person who prays harder get what they want? In a football game the team that prays better gets to win, because they changed God’s mind? In a war, the side that prays better suffers fewer casualties, because they changed God’s mind? If we cannot change God’s mind, then isn’t prayer a waste of time? And, if we can change God’s mind, then can’t prayer be used for evil purposes? God is not God, if we can control him. This is big.
One of the basic foundations of classic, protestant, Christianity is the immutability of God – God never changes. The Bible teaches this concept. The Psalmist writes, “In the beginning you laid the foundations of the earth, and the heavens are the work of your hands. They will perish, but you remain; they will all wear out like a garment. Like clothing you will change them and they will be discarded. But you remain the same” (Psalm 102:25-27). Through the prophet Malachi God says, “I the LORD do not change (3:6). James, the brother of Jesus writes, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (1:17). The Bible is pretty clear that God does not change.
And yet, there is group of heavy thinkers (called Process Theologians) who believe that while God’s character does not change – God himself absolutely must change with time. Process Theologians say that everything that exists, is changed by everything else that exists. A rock lying in a field is changed by the wind, rain, and sun. They say I am a different person now than I was when this worship service started, because coming into contact with you has changed me. In fact, I am a different person than I was when I began this sermon, because I look out and see your facial emotions and that changes me. Since God exists, and we exist, we must effect a change on God. God experiences everything that happens in the universe. You can’t experience something without it changing you, so God (because he experiences more than anyone else) must experience the most change of all. If nothing that happens in our lives matters to God, if nothing that happens to us has an impact on God, then why are we even here? How meaningless and unimportant are we? I am not a Process Theologian, but I get what they are trying to say.
Here is the answer that makes the most sense to me. God is unchanging in his character, but he is not unemotional. The Bible tells us that God rejoices (Isaiah 62:5), he is grieved (Ephesians 4:30), he has wrath for his enemies (Exodus 32:10), he pities his children (Psalm 103:3), and he loves with an everlasting love (Isaiah 54:8, Psalm 103:17). He is a God of emotional passion.
We also know that God operates completely outside of our concept of time. We read in Psalm 90:4, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by.” We have trouble remembering what happened yesterday, but God can remember clearly what happened thousands of years ago as if it just occurred. Everything that has happened from the moment of creation until right now is the same to God as if it had just happened. The Apostle Peter tells us, “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years” (2 Peter 3:8). For God, one day can be examined and evaluated and experienced as though it were lasting for a thousand years. There is no second in this day that God is not fully, thoroughly aware of. As a consequence, God knows everything that has ever happened, and everything that will happen, with complete vividness.
All of this is to say that how God experiences things, and how we experience things, can never be measured on the same scale. Our experiences, and God’s experiences, are apples and oranges. The Process Theologians try to make God like us, and that just doesn’t work. So, while God is immutable – he never changes his character based on us or our actions; he does feel vibrant emotion for us, and for our circumstances. As we change, our situation changes, and God’s overpowering love for us causes him to respond to a change in our situation. That’s actually pretty simple to grasp.
God tells us often, most notably in the book of Deuteronomy, if you obey me A, B, and C will happen to you. If you disobey me D, E, and F will happen to you. God doesn’t flip flop back and forth. We create a situation, and God responds to that situation. Which brings us to the real power of prayer. Prayer changes us, and so it changes our situation. Do you know why everyone at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting has to stand and say out loud, “My name is Rocky, and I’m an alcoholic?” Because making the statement out loud, confessing it to another, changes the person. There is no hiding or going back after the words are uttered. The alcoholic has created a situation where there can be no more denial; they must now deal with the reality of their circumstance.
Prayer changes us by causing us to deal with the reality of our circumstance. God, then, aggressively responds to the change in our situation. For example, my wife becomes seriously ill. It might cross my mind that God can heal her. But, I put most of my time and energy into her doctors, her medication, and her therapy. Maybe I pray a quick little prayer about healing my wife. God is content to let me travel the road of self reliance. Then, the time comes when I must face the helplessness of my situation. The treatment isn’t working; medicine doesn’t have an answer for my specific catastrophe. And so, I pray; I really pray. I fall to my knees and beg God for mercy in healing my wife. I acknowledge that he is my only hope, and that whether she lives or dies my only comfort is in her eternal rest with Jesus and the glorious saints of light. And then God acts.
It isn’t that I changed God’s mind. In the process of coming to prayer, and in praying with my heart, I have changed. When I change, my circumstance changes. God responds to the change in my situation. Whether my prayer is eloquent or crude is irrelevant. Whether my cause is righteous or completely self serving is irrelevant. What is important is what happens in my heart, and how that is going to affect my behavior from this point on.
When my children would ask to spend the night at a friend’s house I would tell them to give me a minute to think about it. They assumed my answer was no, and they generally continued to plead their case – even though I was already trying to find a way to say yes. When I did say yes, they were convinced they had manipulated me into gratifying their desires. Their perspective was wrong. I cannot control God with my prayer. I cannot force God to change his mind. God does not make mistakes and then have to change direction to fix his errors. God is not arbitrary, sometimes giving me what I want, sometimes just saying no. When I come to God in open honest prayer, I change. The Immutable, unchanging, perfect God has always promised to respect and honor that change – my prayers are heard and my God acts.