This was the sermon on John 2: 1-11 for January 19, 2025 (Second Sunday In Ordinary Time).

The General’s Logic
While on my sabbatical in Puerto Rico, I saw a movie called The Six Triple Eight. It is a film about the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, an all-Black, all-female battalion that served in World War II. The film is based on the 2019 magazine article “Fighting a Two-Front War,” by Kevin M. Hymel, which highlights the contributions of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion.

The battalion was the first and only Women’s Army Corps unit of color to be stationed in Europe during World War II. It was deployed to England to take on a seemingly impossible mission: sorting, cataloging, and preparing for delivery a backlog of more than 17 million pieces of mail addressed to U.S. soldiers fighting abroad and their loved ones back home. Much of the mail was often mislabeled or missing complete addresses.
What caused the backlog? The movie shows that, when asked by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the generals in charge explained that they were dedicating all available resources—money, personnel, and trucks—to the war effort. They claimed they could not afford to allocate resources to deliver mail. However, this meant that families and soldiers were not hearing from their loved ones. Families had no way of knowing if their sons were dead or alive, and soldiers were not receiving care packages.
Something the generals did not anticipate was how this lack of communication would affect the war effort. No mail meant no hope. No care packages meant low morale. What the generals’ logic dismissed as a luxury—ensuring that the mail was delivered—was actually critical to their ultimate goal of winning the war. The resources they considered wasted were, in reality, desperately needed by their troops, far more than anyone had imagined.
Jesus’ Logic
As we’ve mentioned before, during this time of year, we are offered stories of Jesus’ manifestation as the Son of God. However, sometimes those manifestations occur in the most unusual places and under the most unexpected circumstances.
Let’s look at the passage we read today. Jesus is in Cana, a small village of no great significance. It is located less than ten miles north of Nazareth and is only mentioned in the Gospel of John.

Eliseo Pérez, in his commentary on this passage, reminds us that,
“God chose a small village in a tiny, insignificant country for the Son’s incarnation. This is precisely where Jesus begins his pastoral work, in order to communicate this message clearly: big is not a synonym of great; small is not interchangeable with insignificant. The Nazarene put Cana on the map! As a result, empires do not have the last word.”
As a miracle—or a sign—this narrative is often seen as a manifestation of God’s generosity and extravagance. A poor couple is celebrating their wedding when they run out of wine, which, in their community, is as essential as water. Imagine starting your married life with the entire town gossiping about how you ran out of wine at your wedding! Pérez explains that when Jesus provides wine for this wedding, his manifestation reveals that there is a life of abundance for everyone.
Yet Jesus does something in this passage that connects his logic with the generals’ logic. We find it in verses 3 and 4:
When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus said to her, “Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come.”
“Woman, what concern is that to me and to you? My hour has not yet come”. The troops are not getting their mail—what concern is that to us? There are more important things to do. It is not the time yet. They will have to wait!
Carol Lakey Hess in her Feasting on the Word commentary suggests that Jesus may be keenly aware of divine timing: “my hour has not yet come.” However, she also observes that Mary’s plea to Jesus represents our own yearning and insistence for divine intervention in a world desperately in need. Why has the hour not yet come? They have no wine now. Jesus, you cannot be logical. You cannot wait. There is need now!
God’s Manifestation
But, Jesus performs a sign anyway. He recognizes that this is the moment to reveal his glory—to show the world that God is watching and is deeply invested in the needs of humanity.
As Pérez states,
“the liberating news in this Gospel is that the reign of God dismantles all hierarchies. Epiphany is the manifestation of ‘one of us,’ a Nazarene who attends weddings and celebrates life in community. Jesus reveals God’s glory, God’s sense of humor, and God’s nearness by mingling among the people.”
Jesus also performs a sign to inspire belief and trust. Carol Lakey Hess explains that Mary “nudges” Jesus because she trusts that God desires abundance. That is why she is so confident in asking Jesus for a sign. She believes in God’s divine compassion and extravagant generosity. She also understands that God’s logic is different from human logic, and she sees it as her responsibility to act as an agent of God in a moment of need.
Our Manifestation
Lakey Hess explains that John 2 reveals what God has in mind—abundance—and that the mother of Jesus nudges us to ask what God might have in mind during times when it seems like God is saying, “Children, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come.”
John K. Roth, who is The Edward J. Sexton Professor of Philosophy Emeritus at Claremont McKenna College and renowned for his work in Holocaust and genocide studies attempts to explain this paradigm in a way that may seem shocking. He writes, “If God’s power is bound only by God’s own unnecessitated will, as I believe, then God’s ways can change. Moreover, if the biblical narratives can be trusted at all, God’s activities do form changed ways from time to time.” And in this passage, Jesus seems to change his mind. The hour has indeed come!
Roth tries to explain this moments of change in the divine mind through a “theodicy of protest” in which he questions God’s responsibility and involvement in the presence of profound suffering. A theodicy is an attempt to explain why a good and powerful God allows suffering and evil to exist in the world. It seeks to show that God's existence is still compatible with the presence of pain, injustice, and hardship. In simple terms: it's about trying to answer the question, "If God is good and all-powerful, why does bad stuff happen?"
So Roth, when facing this question in the context of the Holocaust proposes several things.
Moral Outrage: Roth asserts that it is acceptable to feel anger or sadness toward God for allowing evil and suffering to occur. He sees such emotions as a faithful expression of trust in God’s power and justice.
God’s Accountability: Roth openly questions why a good and powerful God permits terrible events to happen, holding God accountable for not preventing them.
Human Responsibility: While questioning God, Roth emphasizes that humans have a duty to fight against evil and to assist those who are suffering.
Faith in Tension: Roth does not attempt to resolve the tension between believing in a good God and the reality of evil. Instead, he encourages honesty about this struggle, allowing room for lament, questioning, and hope.
So, our manifestation—when it seems that Jesus’ logic and the world’s logic fail to align with God’s kin-dom values of abundance and extravagant generosity—is to continue to protest and question that logic. When connecting to the actions of the 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion, it is to say that:
True Abundance Is Rooted in Purpose: Jesus turns water into wine to meet a real need at the wedding, ensuring the celebration could continue. This shows how God provides abundantly when human resources fall short. Similarly, the women of the 6888th Battalion worked hard to bring hope and dignity to many lives, showing how purpose-driven work can create lasting blessings.
True Abundance Requires Faith and Action: Mary shows faith when she tells the servants, “Do whatever he tells you.” They follow Jesus’ instructions, even though the outcome is unclear, and their actions lead to a miracle. In the same way, the women of the 6888th believed in their mission despite discrimination and doubt. Their determination turned the impossible into success: they completed a six-month task in just ninety days. Faith combined with action makes amazing things happen.
True Abundance Is Found in Community: The miracle at Cana happens during a wedding, where community and relationships are central. Jesus’ act brings joy and strengthens bonds. People see the manifestation of God and they believe! Similarly, the women of the 6888th relied on each other to achieve their mission. Their story shows that abundance grows through teamwork and mutual support.
Abundance is not a luxury. It is not something we cannot afford to give. It is God’s will that everyone experiences abundance, and we must protest and manifest whenever we see attempts to limit access to God’s abundance by invoking the myth of scarcity for some while preserving abundance for others.
As Pérez states, when Jesus, with his mother’s prompting, determines that this is the Kairos—that this is indeed the hour—
“Jesus takes the side of the poor groom and bride who ran out of wine in the middle of the fiesta. The Nazarene clinks glasses of wine with folks who are exhausted by poverty, telling them salud, cheers, skol, meaning salvation, liberation, humanization, healing!”
May God help us to do the same. Amen.
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