A hungry traveler, with nothing more than the kettle he carried on his back, came to a small village looking for a little food. As he entered the village square, the peasants stared at him suspiciously, quickly returned to their homes, and locked their doors and windows. The traveler took the kettle from his back, placed it on a small fire he had built in the square, and filled it with water from the village well. He then picked up a stone, cleaned it up a bit, and dropped it in the pot. Now curious, one villager asked, “What are you making?” “Stone soup,” he said, as he snuck a taste from the pot. “How is it?” another villager asked. “It’s the best soup I’ve ever had, but it could use an onion.” With that, a third villager quickly produced a chopped onion and added it to the pot. One after another, the villagers emerged from their cloistered homes calling out, “How about some carrots?” “And some barley?” “And a little meat?” Within an hour, all of the villagers had contributed a little something, and the kettle was filled to the brim with a delicious, savory soup that the traveler and the villagers enjoyed together. With just one pot of soup, that village learned what it means to be a Servant Church, the kind of Church that today’s readings encourage us to be.
There’s no shortage of powerful
lessons in the story of the Wedding at Cana, but I’d like to focus on the great
example of a Servant Church we find in today’s Gospel. Throughout the Bible, as our first reading
and Gospel attest, wedding imagery “symbolizes how God and people are united in
love to co-create spiritual life,”[1] to bring
about God’s Kingdom here on earth. In
our Gospel, we find Mary doing just that:
she identifies a need, she calls on Jesus for help, and she invites the
servants to join Jesus in solving the problem.
That’s Church in a nutshell, and a Servant Church at that! Allow me to explain.
In his most celebrated work, Avery
Cardinal Dulles presents us with five Models
of the Church. Those who’ve been
paying attention can probably guess that one of these models is “The Church as
Servant.” Cardinal Dulles tells us that “The Church announces the coming of the Kingdom not
only in word, through preaching and proclamation, but more particularly in
work, in her ministry of reconciliation, of binding up wounds, of suffering
service, of healing.”[2] Simply put, we’re not just a Church of words,
commandments, and dogma, we’re also a Church of work, good deeds, and service. Just
as Jesus came to serve, not to be served, “The Church must share in the
secular problems of ordinary human life, not dominating, but helping and
serving.”[3]
So what’s the recipe for a Servant
Church? We start with good disciples. Good disciples follow Jesus; they pattern
their lives according to his perfect example; they share God’s love with others. The Miracle at Cana, then, is a great example
of discipleship. Just think about it: Jesus’
ministry begins when a friend needed help at a wedding. “His friends’ predicament gave him an
opportunity to share the love that God had first shared with him.”[4] Through the intercession of his mother and
the help of the servants who did whatever he told them, Jesus worked a miracle,
sparing his friend from embarrassment and “proclaim[ing] God’s glorious deeds to
all the nations” by bringing divine abundance to a world of human lack. Good disciples allow God’s love to draw their
attention to the needs of others, and good disciples do something about it. That’s
why good disciples are the key ingredient of a Servant Church.
Every
one of us is called to fulfill our unique role in God’s Servant Church. “The Church is the body of Christ, and the
characteristic of a healthy body is that every part in it performs its own
function for the good of the whole; but unity does not mean uniformity, and
therefore within the Church there are differing gifts and differing functions.”[5] As Saint Paul tells us in our second reading,
God has given each of us special gifts, but these gifts aren’t given to us for
our own glory or advantage. They’re to
be used for the benefit of all in service to others. Whether we’re the onion, the carrots, the
barley or even the after-dinner fruit and nuts – you know who you are, we all have
an irreplaceable something to give, to build up the body of Christ, and make
God’s Servant Church manifest here on earth.
Fortunately, we’re blessed with
wonderful examples of a Servant Church right here at Immaculate Conception.
+When the Altar Rosary Society members join together
in union with Christ and our Blessed Mother to pray for the needs of our
community, we’re being a Servant Church;
+ When our Knights of Columbus, the members of our Right
to Life group, our parishioners, our school children and 300,000 others join
together in union with Christ to march and pray in support of life for the unborn,
we’re being a Servant Church;
+ When our Church family joins together in union with
Christ to donate countless coats, seas of school supplies, and dozens upon
dozens of diapers (and that is a shameless plug for this month’s
diaper drive), we are being a servant Church.
There are
so many other examples; I could go on and on.
Yes, our Church has its flaws, but when we act as a Servant Church, we
are Church at its best. If you’re not
already involved in a ministry, I urge you to join us. I can tell you this: serving others is the most rewarding thing
you can do.
And that reminds me; I left out the best part of the Stone Soup story. After everyone had enjoyed the wonderful meal
they’d created together, those sad, self-absorbed villagers became happy. They learned that “being human always points,
and is directed, to something or someone other than oneself.”[6] They learned that being human means serving
others. When we come together in union
with Christ for the benefit of others, stones are turned into rich soup, water
is transformed into good wine, and we
become happy. When we come together as a
Servant Church, miracles happen.
Readings: Isaiah 62: 1-5; Psalm 96; 1 Corinthians 12: 4-11; John 2: 1-11
[1]
John Shea, The Spiritual Wisdom of the
Gospels for Christian Preachers and Teachers: The Relentless Widow, Luke Year C
(Collegeville: Liturgical Press, 2006), 20.
[2]
Avery Cardinal Dulles, Models of the Church
(New York: Doubleday, 2002), 85, quoting Richard Cardinal Cushing, The Servant Church (Boston: Daughters of
Saint Paul, 1966), 6.
[3]
Dulles, 87.
[4]
Michael Simone, “The Good Wine,” America,
(January 7, 2019), 45.
[5]
William Barclay, The Letters to the Corinthians (Louisville, The Westminster John
Knox Press, 2002), 127.
