Perhaps you recall reading in the Oneonta Daily Star a little while ago; . . . perhaps you recall reading that two churches in the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia, Truro Parish and Falls Church Parish, have voted overwhelmingly to disaffiliate from The Episcopal Church and become, instead, parishes of the Church of Nigeria.  . . . Perhaps you’re wondering why.  . . . Well, as The Rev. John Yates, Rector of Falls Church, suggests, . . . over the past thirty years mainline Protestantism in general, and The Episcopal Church in particular, has been nursing certain theological misinterpretations of five essential Church Doctrines.  And The Episcopal Church has arrived at the tipping point of promulgating, in these present days, five deadly errors which are the result of embracing corrupt Doctrine.  . . . One of these five deadly errors (Father Yates says) is the erroneous assertion that Science Interprets Scripture.

    You see, because we are a scientific culture . . . where Bible reading and Prayer have been expunged, by the courts, from most educational forums; . . . because we’re a society steeped in science, . . . I’ll bet most of you . . . if not all of you . . . when you heard Saint John’s account of the water becoming wine; . . . I’ll bet most of you . . . if not all of you . . . questioned in your heart, “Well, how can that be?  How can water suddenly become wine?  It’s inexplicable; . . . it’s scientifically impossible; . . . Saint John makes Jesus sound like a magician, and I don’t believe in magic!”  And so, for your sake; . . . for the sake of explaining away the magic and lending credibility to Saint John’s account of water becoming wine, . . . many contemporary biblical commentators have trundled out the equipment of science to interpret what John has written.  For instance, I have read, in one place, the suggestion that Jesus had noticed a number of servants secret some wine among the stone water jars so that they could retrieve it for their own use later, when all the guests had gone.  I have heard everything from the theft theory to the notion that textual evidence shows that John has made up the entire incident in order to make a theological point.  . . . And I’ll bet most of you . . . if not all of you, if you think about the Wedding Feast at Cana at all, . . . have some pet idea, supported by science, to explain how the water became wine.

    But just for the fun of it; . . . just for the fun of it, come out of your head for a moment and pretend that you are water.  . . . You are living water, pure and clean and sweet and fresh, bubbling up from a spring which has been walled up to form a well in the forecourt of a Jewish home.  . . . Pretend that you are water; . . . you are water without a will of your own but created by God; . . . created by the Lord God Almighty to contain and be essential to the life of every living thing that you touch; . . . every living thing that will receive you.  . . . Pretend that you are water suddenly taken up in six stone jars and brought to a man who is a man but from Whom radiates and throbs the ineffable glory and grace of your Creator; . . . Who radiates and throbs with the ineffable glory and grace of the Wonderful Father of the Elements Who made you Water and filled you with life!  . . . You are taken up in six stone jars and brought to a man Who pulses with the happy radiance of the Sacred, . . . and He wills that you should become wine; . . . and because you are water and have no will of your own to interfere with the will of Jesus, you allow the radiance of the Sacred to wash over you and fill you and transform you and transfigure you until you are alive with His will and alive with His purpose . . . and you become wine!  . . . There is no scientific explanation for it . . . nor is it magic.  Science doesn’t interpret Scripture; . . . Holy Scripture interprets Itself (which is why it’s called “Holy”!).  Holy Scripture interprets Itself because it’s about the Sacred; it’s about the majesty and glory and grace of God in Christ Jesus, . . . and Holy Scripture is about the joyful and wonderful and happy and miraculous thing Grace can make of your life . . . if you will believe in Jesus.

    Another of the five deadly errors that has infected the thinking and preaching and polity of The Episcopal Church is the notion that Humanity is not Depraved; . . . that your spiritual and genetic make-up are precisely what God desires for you, . . . and the purpose of religion is to make the wonderful person you are even better.  . . . But Saint John’s account of the marriage at Cana says differently.  . . . Mary, the Mother of Jesus; . . . Blessed Mary looks about her, John says, . . . and She taps Jesus on the arm and says to Him, “They have no wine.”  The Blessed Virgin Mary looks about her and sees our wretched condition; . . . sees our greed; our warfare; our lies; our covetousness; our dishonor; our fornication; our idolatry; . . . the Blessed Virgin Mary sees our wretched condition and intercedes to Her Son for us; . . . She says to Jesus, “They have no wine; . . . they have no joy; . . . the cheerful face of God is not visible to the human heart . . . and things are about to turn ugly.”  . . . Jesus tells His Mother, “It is not time for me to change that yet, but this is how it shall be . . .” and Jesus changes water into wine.

    Saint John the Evangelist has preserved an account of what happened at a wedding in Cana of Galilee . . . because he wants us to know and understand that whoever is baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, surrendering the world, the charms of their own flesh, and the devil; . . . whoever will cling to Jesus and believe in Him shall be infused with the glory and grace and effulgent light of God . . . so that Christ shall transform you and transfigure you so that you will not become better, but you shall become well!  . . . Some of you shall be, Saint Paul says; . . . some of you shall be a Chardonnay . . . and some shall be a Riesling; . . . some of you shall be, by the will of Jesus, a bold Port, . . . and some a Cream Sherry suitable for the Altar.  . . . Jesus, fully man and fully God; . . . Jesus, Incarnate God; . . . Jesus changed water into wine so that each of us might understand the power and majesty of His grace; . . . so that each of us might understand His power to transform our lives and make us well.  . . . Jesus, Incarnate God, changed water into wine at Cana in Galilee so as to manifest His glory; . . . so as to manifest His glory and help you to believe in Him; . . . help you become like living water and not resist Him with Science.