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I just returned from a whirlwind trip to the ivory towered East Coast where I was part of a panel on artificial intelligence, theology, and the church. And so, I begin this sermon with a highbrow reference to the musical Hamilton.
It’s pretty famous… at least the story is. It’s about Alexander Hamilton. You may remember him from history class; the guy who helped write the Constitution. He died in a duel. The man who shot him was Aaron Burr, who is a prominent character in the musical Hamilton, as you might imagine. Incidentally, it is coming to Seattle in February.
Anyway, in the musical, Burr has a moment of self-reflection when he is alone. The song he sings is titled “Wait for It.” This is the second time the theme waiting for it has come up for Burr. The first time is during a song about his love interest, Theodosia.
This time it is about Hamilton, with a refrain that contrasts with how Hamilton confronts the world. For Hamilton, it is: “He takes it, he takes it, he takes it. He has something to prove and no time to lose.”
In contrast, Burr refers to himself as the one who is willing to wait for it. In this song he reflects that the only thing we can really control is the choice to wait for it.
Now to wait happens within the context of time, and that is what this sermon is about: how we manage time in an uncertain world, in a world where we lack perfect information, where the framework through which to manage a situation is missing pieces.
I think of time in two ways: First, there is the duration of time, as measured against the question: is there enough time for me to do the thing I want to do. The second time consideration is that time itself doesn’t matter; in that, whatever you are considering is not measured against the march of time. Both are set within time, but one is oriented against the clock of our mortality, while the other is oriented against the clock that ticks at the pace of our eternal clockmaker within the parameters of the Kingdom of God.
Burr was willing to wait for it as measured against the space he believed would marked out his leadership, happiness, and legacy. It turns out that the legacy he left was as the man who shot Alexander Hamilton; seemed Burr missed his mark. Burr’s impulse to wait may have been right, but the measure against which that happened was, clearly, wrong. Turns out Burr wasn’t in control of all the piece.
We see a different kind of waiting for it in the Gospel today. We meet Mother Mary at a wedding in Cana, close to Galilee. Because of Mary’s particular interest in this celebration, it’s likely she was a relative of the family hosting the wedding. That, of course, would explain why Jesus was there as well.
So, they’re out of wine. Now within the context of those times, that was a big deal. Running out of wine was a source of great humiliation that could cast a shadow over how people viewed the marriage itself. They didn’t have a lot to gossip about back in the day, and it’s easy to imagine how people would remember for a very long time that this was the wedding where they ran out of wine.
Mary approached Jesus with a simple statement: “They are out of wine.” To this, Jesus replies, “What does that have to do with me or you? My time has not yet come.”
Now, I can imagine how I might have responded if one of my children were to say that to me – particularly if they had the capacity to do something about it! But Mary was willing to wait for it.
She heard Jesus’s response, and yet, it seems, she was able to make space for the possibility that something else might happen. She was willing to wait for it. She didn’t try to make it happen. She didn’t push the point, or leverage her power, or exert her will. She simply waited for it.
And what’s more, she wasn’t waiting for it because it would be better for her, as Burr was waiting for it. Mary was waiting for it because she believed that something better could happen because, with God, all things are possible. She was willing to sit with the unknown; the uncertainty, the ambiguity, waiting patiently because there is always another possibility.
Hers was a countercultural posture, even then. Mary was willing to sit with gaps in her understanding. She was willing to just not know what was next, or even how to think about what might be next. She simply sat patiently with uncertainty and ambiguity comfortable with not seeing the whole picture. And that is a posture that is countercultural.
The whole point is to see the whole picture. Look at our educational system for example. It is oriented toward building out full frameworks, complete pictures of understanding to give us certainty in subjects like math, science, and even the construction of a sentence.
But what we find in the Gospel of John is a different kind of framework – a framework that embraces the missing pieces, the empty spaces, and open places, in anticipation of what God might do next.
The Gospel framework is, in fact, Good News, because of the missing pieces, for in the empty space, we perceive the presence of God, a God that cares about what is going on, and a God who has an imagination glorious enough to reveal something more wonderful and more abundant than we could ever imagine…like 6 x 40 gallons stone jars full of the best wine in the world. Mary just wanted Jesus to run down to the 7/11, and get a box of Gallo…but God had a better plan.
And Mary was willing to wait for it. There was no rush. There was no tyranny of time because God controls the clock. And that can make us uncomfortable, because we are up against a deadline. There’s a hard stop on the clock against which we measure our lives. Sitting at the end of the hallway of mortality, in front of a brick wall, is the grim reaper. And from our perspective the wall looks like the finish line against which we measure our lives…unless we are like Mary, and are willing to wait for it, understanding the clock ticks the same both sides of the wall where the end of the hall is a curtain, not a barrier.
Mary clearly loves the people whose wedding is she is attending. She wants it to go well for them. And she wants them to have enough wine. It’s exactly what we would expect from her. And, she also understands that if they run out of wine, and the bride and groom are ridiculed, and that ridicule becomes part of what they’re known for, it will never be the last thing for which they are known for because God controls the clock, and God knows we are more than the worst day of our lives.
Which is why Mary seems unfazed by Jesus’ response. There is no anxiety when you are willing to wait for it. So, Mary waits for it. And that’s a hard thing to do in a culture that trains us to be the kings and queens of our own kingdoms and the captains of our own destiny, as set by role models like Hamilton and even Burr.
Maybe we should pay more attention to Mary as a leader who could see the gaping holes in the framework and know that God owns the space we cannot perceive. Mary was prepared, and she prepared the people around her for the possibility that God may do something new.
She told the servants, “Do whatever Jesus tells you.” And that’s all she said. No anxiety. No pressure. No promises. Just a calm heart willing to wait for it, whatever it might be…even to the ultimate horror she found at the foot of the cross even then believing that God would fill in the gaping hole, the ultimate void of the death of her son, the Messiah, God Incarnate, Immanuel, God with us-now gone. She was willing to wait for it.
How? Through faith formed by the practice of prayer. She trained, hoping against all hope, that she would never be tested, that there would never be that moment when the gaps were bigger than the framework itself. And yet, the cross came.
Mary met it able to wait for it… whatever it might be, because prayer is the spiritual exercise of waiting for it. Prayer is sitting there same time, same place, same way, every day, so that when life runs out of wine, or worse still, we find ourselves at the foot of the cross, we know we can wait for it because we know that God is in the gaps, that God cares, that indeed our God is the God of resurrection.
Mary was willing to stand at the foot of the cross staring into the void, trusting that the framework of God would hold. And God’s response was more than 6 x 40 gallons jugs of the best wine in the world, God’s response was resurrection.
Mary shows us how to wait for it. She asked God, and so can we. She prepared others, and so can we. She practiced prayer, and so can we. And then she waited for it, and so can we, knowing God is here, knowing God cares, knowing God has a plan that is as big as resurrection.