Mary has a memorable place in the gospels. She is featured in the stories associated with the birth of Jesus – the annunciation, the visitation, the Bethlehem saga, the Presentation in the Temple. She is portrayed as a worried mother of a wayward teen-age son who stayed behind after a family vacation. She shows up several times in the public ministry of Jesus with other family members out of concern for what people are saying about him. She was at the foot of the cross at the death of Jesus and she was present with the remnant of the Jesus movement in the Cenacle, the upper room, when the Holy Spirit descended at Pentecost. The gospel story today features Mary in a bit of domestic drama. No doubt Jesus and Mary had been to many weddings over the years. During this wedding at the town of Cana which neighbored their home town of Nazareth a crisis was brewing. The newly-weds were going to have their festive day marred by a failure of hospitality. “They have no wine.” After some back and forth Mary tells the waiters, “Do whatever he tells you.” This is a remarkable statement in itself made even more remarkable because it is the last words of Mary that the New Testament records. Mary says nothing during the public ministry of Jesus, nor on Calvary Hill, nor in the upper room. Maybe the gospel writers figured that her words at Cana said it all. Do whatever he tells you. From the confused young girl questioning the angel, “How can this be?” she has become the woman confident in the mission of her son. “Do whatever he tells you” is addressed not only to the waiters but to us.
We know what Jesus told us to do, right? The Great Commandment of loving God and loving our neighbor. The problem we have, the problem I have anyway, comes in how Jesus spells out what loving God and neighbor looks like. For example, Jesus says: love your enemies and do good to those who hate you (Matthew 5:44). We know from the story of the Good Samaritan that there isn’t anyone out there who isn’t neighbor to us. If we are going to heed Mary’s directive to do whatever he tells us we have to love the guy who cut in front of us on the Dan Ryan, the kid who stole the parking place we just cleared of snow, the lady not wearing a mask on the bus. We have to love the gangbanger, the scam artist, the greedy politician, identity thief. Loving people like that requires lots of work. Or again, Jesus said we have to forgive seventy times seven times (Matthew 18:22). To keep forgiving those who hurt us feels foolish. It invites the bully to keep on bullying, the taker to keep on taking, the selfish to care for themselves. But the story of the prodigal son illustrates that Jesus sees forgiveness as a necessary component of loving our neighbor. If we are to do what Jesus tells us we have to forgive – it’s right in the Lord’s Prayer! And do we really have to do what Jesus tells us when he said: “If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also” (Luke 6:29)? Heeding Jesus means there is no payback, no revenge, no retaliation, no settling of scores. Following what Jesus told us runs clean counter to the way we mostly operate.
“Do whatever he tells you” includes some instruction outside of the Great Commandment. How about this from the Sermon on the Mount: Do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear? (Matthew 6:31) Jesus tells us to “stop worrying.” That seems almost Un-American. Do we want to drive all of the insurance agents out of business! We worry about our health, we worry about our finances, we worry about the state of the country. Now that we’re in Renew My Church we even worry about St. James. But if we listen to Mary’s instruction and do what Jesus tells us we give all that over to God. God knows what is best for us and how to take care of us. We are worry free when we have done all we can and place the rest in the hands of God.
Then Jesus tells us this: “Judge not lest you be judged” (Matthew 7:1). The problem is that judging is what we do as human beings. We have to judge between what is right and what is wrong, between what is good and what is bad. What Jesus wants us to do is make sure those judgments don’t spill over and impact the way we think of others. Our judgement of others always has to be that they are children of God, precious in God’s sight. There’s a story about a Cherokee elder warning his grandson that inside each of there is a battle going on between two wolves. One wolf is arrogant, judgmental, envious, angry, resentful, selfish. The other wolf is full of joy, hope, peace, kindness, generosity. The grandson thought about it and asked, “Which wolf wins?” Grandfather answered, “The one that you feed.”
Another thing Jesus told us: Freely you have received; freely give (Matthew 10:8). Here Jesus was not so much talking about the stuff we have but what St. Paul calls in the epistle today “the spiritual gifts.” These gifts, the Apostle tells us, are for “some benefit,” for the building up of Body of Christ. In order to listen to Mary and do what Jesus tells us we must first of all name the gifts we have and then give them away. Maybe it’s the gift of listening, the gift of time to spend, the gift of openness to others, the gift of music, the gift of speaking – you will have to discern your gift and then give freely. Mary’s word to us, “do whatever he tells us,” is the work of a lifetime since so much of what Jesus tells us challenges our ordinary way of acting. But when we do heed her words we will experience that sweet wine of divine grace and peace and God delights in us.