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Right Where You’re At

Writer's picture: Virginia RippleVirginia Ripple

by Rev. Gina Johnson

It was a wedding. A wedding like so many others. It was joyful. There was a celebration. Everyone was there having a great time. It was full of life and there was laughter. This was quite the wedding in the lovely town of Cana. But then there was a moment.

Before I go any further, we'll turn to the scripture.

On the third day, there was a wedding at Cana in Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there.

Jesus also was invited to the wedding with his disciples. When the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus said to him, they have no wine. And Jesus said to her, woman, what does this have to do with me? My hour has not yet come.

His mother said to the servants, do whatever he tells you. Now there were six stone water jars there for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. Jesus said to the servants, fill the jars with water.

And they filled them up to the brim. And he said to them, now draw some out and take it to the master of the feast. So they took it.

When the master of the feast tasted the water, now become wine, and did not know where it came from, though the servants who had drawn the water knew. The master of the feast called the bridegroom and said to him, everyone serves the good wine first, and when people have drunk freely, then the poor wine. But you have kept the good wine until now.

This, the first of his signs, Jesus did at Cana in Galilee, and manifested his glory, and his disciples believed in him.

And that ends the reading of the word. So as I was telling you all, it was a joyous wedding, full of celebration and laughter.

But then there was that moment where that quiet panic started to arise, to be at a wedding and recognize that the wine has run out. And Mary, the mother of Jesus, she saw it. Perhaps she could sense the unease, because not everyone knew this was going on, but before too long they would have known.

She can hear the whispers among the servants, and instead of ignoring it, instead of pointing fingers over who let this happen, how could this be, she turns to her son and simply says, “We're out of wine.”

It's funny, as many times as I have preached on this scripture, I've always gone down that road of, you know, “woman, what does that have to do with me?” But the more and more you study the context of that, you start to realize that there was no disrespect in that moment. It was simply Jesus reminding his mother about where he was in his journey and saying, you just need to be present for just a moment.

And in that moment, Mary was present. You know, she didn't rush to fix the issue herself. She didn't jump up and think, “Okay, what do I need to do to solve this?” She didn't even demand others to act. Instead, she simply noticed the need, took time to sit with it, and then brought it to the place where she knew she could receive results. She brought it to the place where she knew she could trust.

How often do you find a moment where something comes into your life unexpectedly, and the first thing you do is turn that quiet panic into a loud panic, where you start scurrying around, you didn't pause to even assess the situation. You rush in to do something, and next thing you know, you've actually made the situation a little worse, or just find yourself even more confused.

When we look at Mary's awareness, it helps us to remember that in these times, we need to simply pause and pay attention to what is going on right where we are at. We could jump ahead and wonder, how is this all going to work out, and what's going to come from this, or we can pause. We can take a breath.

You know, just the other day, I was having breakfast with a friend of mine, and we were talking about intentional living. She was just asking me, how are you feeling about the church this year? What are you looking forward to? And she must have seen my physiology shift, because she said, “Gina, that feeling right there. Now just pause and take a breath.” And so I did, sitting at the breakfast table, I closed my eyes, and I went back into the conversation, and it was great. I do have a tendency to look at what's right in front of me, and instead of staying right here, in the gratitude, in the presence of. I can only be right here, right now, but I tend to leave that there, and jump into the, “Well, what if I don't end up doing this? And what if we can't achieve that? And what if I don't have this to do that?” And then I'm no longer present.

Or if I just pause and sit right here in what's going on, I can say, “Okay, we're running out of wine, what can we do here now to move towards that?”, instead of jumping ten steps ahead. And that's the thing about Mary, her role didn't stop there. She turned to the servants when she had an idea, and she said, “Do whatever he tells you.”

How beautiful is that? She didn't give any instructions. She didn't have any expectations. But she had trust.

Because when we're in a place where we're not sure what is going to happen next, or if we're just in our daily routine, doesn't have to be panic. It doesn't have to be chaos. But as we're going through the motions of the day, how often do we get drawn into the next thing before we've even finished what we're doing? How often are you in a conversation and you're already deciding how you're going to reply instead of listening to what's being said? How often are you rushing to finish something up, saying, “Oh, just give me one moment, I'll be really quick.” And you're shortchanging what you have going on in order to rush off to the next thing.

How often do we do that with our relationships? How often do we do that when we run into someone who we haven't seen in a while, and we say, “Oh, it's so good to see you. We've got to get together sometime. Make sure you give me a call,” as we’re walking away and we don't see them again until we run into them again. Presence is so important. It's important in those chaotic situations that make us feel like we're not okay, but it's also important in just every moment of our day.

How many times are you asking someone how they're doing and not sitting still enough to really hear how they're doing? How many times are you asking yourself how you're doing and not sitting still enough to really assess how you're doing?

At that wedding, as Mary recognized this situation and she turned it over to her son, not just any son, but Jesus, she put full trust into that situation. And she knew that what might have looked like panic and doubt and not enough, in the hands of Jesus, with the guidance of God, that now there's pause and there's hope and there's more than enough.

I have to ask you, as you look around at your life and you see some of those empty jars, as you see those places where the wine has run out, what is Jesus telling you to do? As you're sitting in that moment, ask how did I get to this place? What is happening here? What am I going to do next? How are you stopping to pause and be just right there where you're at? If you can, really find that place of recognizing that it wasn't just the act of Jesus turning water into wine. We hear the songs, we've heard the stories, and the message there is Jesus is super powerful and does miracles.

Wrong. Yes, that was super powerful, and that was awesome that he did that miracle,but it's more a message of what looks ordinary can become extraordinary. What looks like panic and chaos can become peace and completion of something beautiful. That is what it means to be in the kingdom of God, to recognize that every place where you perceive lack, you actually have fullness. Every place where you perceive hopelessness, if you look closer, if you take a moment and breathe and really look in front of you, you have joy and you have gratitude.

It wasn't about the miracle of the water becoming wine, it was the miracle of how, through God, through the empowerment of the source, each and every one of us has gifts, has presence, has abundance that can be used, and all we have to do is surrender to the trust. Trusting who we are because of Jesus. Trusting who we are because of the spirit within us. Trusting what God will do with us, through us, and for us if we just put things into his hands. It's jars that were empty, filled with water, and then trust, and they were all turned into wine.

What are those jars? What is it you're going to fill them with, and what trust are you putting around that for the outcome that you're expecting? And we do, we do have to visit that question for just a moment and say, where right now is there a need in your life, in your community, in your relationships, that you're missing? Because you're not being present to where you are.

When is the last time, if you are married, or if you are a parent, that you went to your spouse, or you went to one of your children, and just asked them, “Hey, what's going on? What's grabbing you? Is there anything that I haven't been doing lately that I could do to help you out? Is there any place where you haven't felt or seen my presence that I could do that a little more?”

And now let's take it a broader level, because that's in our personal life, right? But what about at work? What about with your coworkers? Maybe if you're retired, what about with some of the activities and the small groups you're in? Have you thought about just stopping and looking and seeing, wow, what are these needs that I've been missing? And then pausing and seeing, how is God calling you to fulfill that need? Because if we really take a moment and look for needs in our community, oh, we will find a lot, right?

I was just driving my daughter to class, and I see freezing students who need cocoa. And there’s First Christian Church that needs to build community. Those two fit perfect together. Let's make it happen. That was probably one out of 20 needs I probably could have assessed driving through the campus. And not because our campus isn't doing a great job, but because there are needs all around us.

And there are times we're going to come upon them and recognize that's not mine to handle, right? That’s Jesus's question, “Woman, what concern is that to me?” That question wasn't to push her away. It was to invite us into reflection. What concerns should be ours? And what concerns are we meant to observe and continue on from? There are a lot of moments where I see people suffering.

Yesterday I was pulling up to a light, and I saw a young man sitting there. I don't actually know how old he was, but he was sitting there all bundled up, and I thought to myself, “Yep, I don't have any cash. I don't really have anything that I can give to this person.” And then I saw what I know as a young man walk up and bring some hand warmers to this individual sitting on the side of the road.

A place that I recognize growth in myself is sometimes I would see a homeless individual sitting there, and right away I would go through a, “Do they deserve my help? How did they get there? It's not my fault you're sitting on the side of the road freezing there dumb-dumb. You should have took better care of something.” This time I didn't have any of those thoughts. There wasn't any judgment. There was actually just that moment of, “Gosh, I wish I could help you, but I don't have anything to offer you now but a prayer and that healing energy that we all possess. I hope you find peace. I hope you find shelter. I hope you find the comfort that already resides within you that can help change the situation.”

That's one of those things. As you are sitting in the pause, as you are recognizing right where you are at, you're going to see needs that you are meant to jump in and serve and help, whether it's with prayer, whether it's with your physical presence, whether it's with your finances, whether it's with your ideas, whether it's with supplies, who knows.

But other times you're going to see a need, and it might look like suffering. It might look like some form of lack. And you're going to know, “That's not for me. It's not my time for that. I'm still working on growing and developing who I am, that it's not time for me to rush off and be the hero over there.”

Sometimes we hesitate in acting on certain things because we think, “Oh, that's too big for me to handle,” or, “Oh, you know, I don't have time for that. That's beneath me.” Other times we hesitate on going into things because then we think, “If I jump into this, what more is this going to pull me into? If I make a commitment here, what else am I going to have to do?”

But I want to tell you that every moment of presence, every moment you put away the doubt and the worry and the fear, every moment that you put away the what-ifs and the dwelling and the how of the unknown and just be present, that is an opportunity for God to work through you. That is an opportunity for the transformation that you've received over the years of your life and your journey for you to exhibit your miraculous power. That is an opportunity for you to show up 100% and let the presence of God, that is which you are, help in that situation.

So I just want to ask you again, where is the wine running out in your community? What jars are waiting to be filled? Because the beauty in this story is that you don't need perfect conditions for action to take place. You don't need perfect conditions for miracles to happen. You don't need perfect conditions to be present, to be open, to be generous.

All we need to step into presence, all we need to perform miracles in our life, all we need to be fully engaged with what's going on is to recognize right where we're at. Right where we're at is a perfect place for spirit to move.

Right where we're at is a perfect place to discover how do I best work with this situation? What gifts and abilities do I have in me that I can jump into this situation? Or what is it that I don't have so I'm going to take it to Jesus and I'm going to go to Jesus and I'm going to say, “Hey, this is the situation, I'm putting this in your hands and I'm trusting that you're going to empower me to bring us through it.” There's a lot of times where we see a situation and we just spend too much time wondering when's it going to be over and how are we going to get through it.

One Sunday after church, a member had come to me and told me about our little bat friend. The next Sunday the bat was gone. He was up in the corner of the sanctuary and as I was talking with our custodian earlier that week, we were talking about a time in her life where a bat had gotten into her bedroom. And when the bat had gotten in, she called her son, she went under her blanket and called her son to help her.

They called the city and they sent someone out and when he got out there, they couldn't find the bat. So he's like, “Just go back to bed, it'll be okay, no worries.”

And she’s like, “Yeah, right, go back to bed.” So she's laying there and she's trying her best and guess what? He shows back up again. So this time she makes sure to leave the room and shut the door.

They call the city again and he comes back out and they get the bat and all is well. But as she was telling me that story and I was thinking about the bat and I was thinking about this message. How many times is there something we weren't expecting and we go into panic and we go into fear and we call for help? And then, it's like, “Oh, never mind. I guess this wasn't the right moment.”

But if we just sit still and wait a moment and trust the conditions that are there and trust what we're working towards, everything works itself out just fine. It's a silly analogy to compare it to, but when she sat still and just calmed down for the night, the bat came back, they caught the bat and all was well.

When I walked into the sanctuary that morning after the bat had left, I thought, you know this guy that was here, for whatever reason, that's where he had to be. He stayed, he rested, he got rejuvenated. I like to think that he got what he needed, right where he was at, and he moved on to bigger things. So I invite you all this week to commit to fully being present right where you are.

Trust the spirit that is you to open your eyes and show you the needs around you and then trust in God's provision to show you how you can take the steps, how you're being called to act and trust that everything will be provided in order for you to act. And when you do this, you will recognize that not only is the glorious outcome, not only is the miraculous jars of wine, possible, but it's inevitable.

Please pray with me.

Our father, mother, God, creator of all that is, we give you thanks. We give you thanks for those moments when the wine runs out. We give you thanks for those moments where we do not fear because Jesus is sitting right beside us.

We give you thanks that we can lean into Christ just by turning inward and recognizing all that we are, all that we've been transformed to be through Christ Jesus. And so God, we ask that you would lead us, that you would show us how to turn the water into wine, that you would reveal to us where we could be of most help and service through the abundance and love that we have received. In Christ Jesus.

Amen.

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