A homily for the second Sunday of Ordinary Time
When I was newly ordained, I lived with the pastor, Father Peter Byrth, great guy. I’ve talked about him before in these videos. He was an alcoholic, and he would tell you that I’m betraying his confidence and it was just tearing him apart and killing him. So eventually he started the 12 steps and walked those steps so successfully he became a speaker in great demand.
It was kind of cool because sometimes at dinner table he would bring like Hollywood people and Broadway people. I’m not going to mention their names. Keep their confidence. And it was always the coolest. He was a huge, popular and powerful speaker. And the thing that was eating him up the most. The thing that was killing him now has become his superpower.
And I think that’s what’s going on in today’s gospel. We have the wedding feast at Cana. Jesus’ first miracle. And they’ve run out of wine. So he tells them the jugs by the door for ceremonial washing. Take those. What were those used for? Those were used for foot washing. That’s the water they’re using. It’s like going to the water in your toilet tank. Take that or use that water. It’s water that they would never use. Surely there were springs. Surely there was well water. Why would he use that water? To show that that’s what he does. He transforms even the things we’re running from to glory. And we see that again and again in Saint Paul. That in your weakness is my strength, or in your weakness is my glory.
Jesus’s first miracle. Turning water into wine. Turning like toilet water into wine. Now we jump to the end of John’s gospel. Jesus’s last miracle. The gift of his body and blood. The last supper. And it begins with back at those jokes he knows. Washing the disciples feet. Using that same water. And they’re trying to stop him. And so there’s some tie that that’s what our life should be.
Stop running from our weaknesses. Stop running from our sinfulness. Stop running. Period. And face yourself and embrace yourself. And God will use these things to become our superpower. He takes bread and wine, simple things, and transforms them now into this super gift. His body and blood. This is the call of John’s Gospel is to take our weakness, take our problems, take the things we don’t want to admit to ourselves, and let God turn those into our superpower to heal the world.
