2nd Sunday in Ordinary Time (C) – January 19, 2025

St. Paul – Lyons, KS

Isaiah 62:1-5; Psalm 96:1-3, 7-10; 1 Corinthians 12:4-11; John 2:1-11

127 Hours

Have you ever heard of Aron Ralston? At twelve years old, Aron and his family moved from Ohio to Denver. And there, Aron really developed a love for hiking and skiing—just all of the outdoors stuff. He became a mechanical engineer for Intel, and was doing really well for himself. But he got burned out. And so, eventually he decided to leave that career and go back to something he really loved: professional mountain climbing.

One day during the Spring of 2003, Aron was in the Bluejohn Canyon in Utah. And this is the part of his story you probably know. While he was climbing through a narrow canyon, a boulder dislodged and crushed his right hand against a canyon wall, trapping him there. The rock had pinned his arm again the wall, and no matter how hard he tried he couldn’t find a way to get himself free. This is what later inspired the book he wrote, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place.” 

Spoiler alert—sorry, spoiler alert, he wrote a book…so yeah, he made it. But for five days—127 hours (which is the name of the movie about all of this, probably heard of that)—for five days Aron rationed his water, his food, got very little sleep. And eventually he realized: the only way he was going to be able to get free was to cut off, amputate his own arm. And that’s what he did! I’ll spare you the incredibly gory details, but Aron, in order to free himself from this situation, to save his life—Aron amputated his own arm.

Now, the reason this story became so famous is because it was propped up as a story of the power of the human spirit, the importance of “pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps,” the American ideal of doing everything on your own. No one knew he was out there, no one was looking for him, it would have been at least a week before anyone even noticed he was gone—and by that point he would have been long dead. But no! Aron, in this impossible situation—Aron relied on himself, figured out his problem by himself, saved himself.

Our Own “Rock and a Hard Place”

Again, as Americans, this is one of our hero stories. The Greeks would write stories about Odysseus and Perseus and Hercules, the Brits write about King Arthur and Beowulf and Robin Hood—as Americans we hold this guy up! Here is someone who did it by himself, a true hero!

I think that’s how we often see ourselves: alone. Especially in our day and age, in the culture we’re raised in, the way that people are rewarded and incentivized—to do it alone, that’s the goal. I mean, the ideal is that you build up all of this skill as a child and high school, and then you go off to be your own person, accomplish great things. When you’re in a jam, you need to figure it out, it’s your problem to deal with, you are the only only one you can rely on. And look: yeah, sometimes you just need to put on your big boy or big girl pants and put in some work. But more and more, this is the attitude—this is the attitude that leads to devastating isolation, crippling loneliness, and suffering alone. And it destroys us.

One simple example—I mean, think of COVID. I’m sure some of you were just fine during COVID, you had your people around you—but for many people, the isolation and loneliness during that time—it destroyed them. Or even something that is much more common like becoming a new mom. One mom shared with me how even that beautiful experience—it was very isolating, and the constant demands and lack of adult interaction and feelings of inadequacy—that was devastating. Or even think of being in a situation where you are ashamed of something you have done, or you are embarrassed—and so instead of talking to someone about it (even your spouse or best friend) you are just forced to bottle it up and live with it alone.

This is my point: yeah, there is this American ideal that you take care of yourself and figure things out yourself, but that betrays us. And you know why? Because we were never meant to operate in isolation, never meant to figure things out all on our own. And yet, there is something within us that says, “Yeah, you’re all alone on this.” And look, I get it, more than you can possibly imagine. But what if there was another way?

“Do whatever he tells you”

So with that in mind, take a look at our Gospel today, this very famous scene of Jesus at the wedding feast at Cana. Very famous, Jesus turns water into wine. But there’s so much more going on here than Jesus doing a magic trick! (Go look up Rowan Atkinson’s sketch on this, hilarious! Essentially just talking about how Jesus used this to jump start his magic career.) But this is more than a magic trick! Just notice a few things.

First, notice that the couple, the family has reached their limit; they had wine, but they’re running out, and clearly they can’t just run to Johnson to get some more. They’ve reached the limit of human capacity. Now, again, this is one of this “between a rock and a hard place” situations. And if we take the American attitude, the question is, “Alright, how can I rely on myself? Guess I’ll cut off my arm!” But that’s not an option! They are literally in an impossible situation. No solution.

Great, now notice: what happens? Mary—the mother of Jesus, Mary notices the issue. And she intercedes on behalf of the couple, points out the problem to her son, to Jesus. And then, she tells the servers, “Do whatever he tells you.” In other words, she encourages them in faith, to place their faith in Jesus, to simply do whatever he tells them. [Fun fact, these are Mary’s last words in the New Testament, and the Church Fathers would point out that this is important for us. Mary’s last words to us as, “Do whatever he [Jesus] tells you.”] Mary encourages the response of faith.

And then what happens? Jesus responds with an overabundance of a solution—literally something like 120 gallons of wine, party! He responds with an overabundance and with a real transformation—he doesn’t just give them something that tastes like wine, he doesn’t go out and buy a bunch, but miraculously, in the most unexpected and unforeseen ways, he transforms the situation—from total despondence to total joy.

And just as a final note, even though our Gospel cut it out, this passage begins with the phrase “On the third day.” “One the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee…” What else is pretty famous for happening on the third day? Jesus’ resurrection, exactly! John wants us to connect this scene to the newness of life in the resurrection. 

So what John is doing is drawing our attention to the fact that his miracle, this sign is much, much more than just a really cool magic trick by Jesus. John is saying, “Look, this Jesus—if you do what he tells you, if you place your faith in him, if the bring him your impossible situations—this man can overabundantly respond to your need, radically transform your life, give you a renewed and resurrected life, a share in his resurrection!” Here, in this very real situation, very concrete circumstances—Jesus enters into real life and transforms it by his love. Something that we would write off as “not a big deal” or “unimportant” or “trivial”—Jesus responds.

“Renewing…”

Think now: what are those parts of your life where you feel trapped, the impossible situations in your life, the places where you are “stuck between a rock and a hard place”? Where are you in need, helpless to figure it our on your own? Where are you tempted to just “cut off” some part of your life? Where have you decided to walk around “maimed”? And don’t think about your kids, or your spouse, or work—no! You, personally, you: where are you in need?

Many of us here today have many wounds that we carry around, things from our past or even from very recently that cause us immense suffering or shame. Many of you could tell stories of incredible evil that you have endured that would curl the hair of everyone else here. Some of us had things happen to us that still affect us today. Some of us have done things, or have addictions, or attachments that weigh us down. And we mask it, we distract ourselves from it, we dive into work or our kids or stay so busy and watch enough Netflix that we never really have to feel it—we medicate it away with TV, or food, or alcohol, or the News, or work—we say, “Nothing I can do about it, might as well just get over it and move on”—we say all of these things, but really what we’re doing is one of two things: we’re either resigned to saying that the situation is impossible and there’s nothing anyone can do about it; or we “cut our arm off,” we decide to live “maimed,” half alive.

My question is this: what if there was someone that could overabundantly respond to our need, radically transform our life, give us a renewed life? Would you trust him, place your faith in him, do whatever he tells you for a shot at that?

This Spring—the past several years we’ve had our extended Spring series. Two years ago we had “Rerouting…” and last year we had “Reconnecting…” “Rerouting…” was that journey through the gospel message, the kerygma, helping guide us back to the core of our faith, asking use to “sign over the title” of our lives to Jesus. “Reconnecting…” was a journey to deepen our lives of prayer, to engage the Lord in our heart, to discover the Lord present in the deepest part of ourselves, eager to change our lives if we would listen. This Spring—drumroll please!—this Spring we are going to do a series called, “Renewing…” “Renewing…” will be a journey to discover and experience the healing power of Jesus Christ in our lives. I won’t give it all away today, but simply put, healing is an essential part of the gospel message. Wherever Jesus went, he healed people. Wherever Jesus would go, he would preach the gospel and heal. When Jesus sent out the apostles he told them to preach and to heal.

What’s the point? The point is that Jesus doesn’t want you to just figure out how to deal with whatever it is you’re carrying around on your own, he doesn’t want you to “pull yourself up by your bootstraps,” distract yourself, isolate yourself—none of that! Jesus wants to heal you, to radically transform your life. And as far fetched as that sounds…I think 120 gallons of water into wine was pretty far fetched too. But maybe—maybe we can listen to Mary and do whatever Jesus tells us.

This is the last thing. Aron Ralston—today he is a motivational speaker. But one thing that he says is this: “I lost my hand, but I gained my life back.” I think this is the key for us. So often, we think our wounds, our faults, the places of shame and brokenness that we have—we easily think that those are always going to cripple us. But what if it is precisely through those wounds, through those things that God wants to renew us, bring new life? And I think that’s right because that is precisely what we celebrate each and every week. Like the words we hear on Good Friday say, “By his wounds we were healed.” And so I want to really encourage you to take this Spring seriously, to really engage it. In faith, take your impossible situation to Jesus, entrust it to him in faith, “Do whatever he tells you,” and see the radical transformation and renewal he can work in your life.