WINEMAKER AND PARTYGOER

Randy Klassen

When Christians are asked to recall the names, titles, or labels Scripture assigns to Jesus, we are likely to hear Savior, Lord, Good Shepherd, Man of Sorrows, King of kings, Teacher, and so forth. Winemaker and Partygoer rarely come up. Yet these labels are as biblical as the others, and our understanding of Jesus may be off-balance if we ignore them.

I certainly never heard those wilder titles while attending the Mennonite Brethren church in Winnipeg, Canada. Of course worship was all in German, so I could have missed it, but I doubt it. The taboos were translated into English for those of us in our teens. We were not to go to movies, dances, or card parties, to name a few of the worldly ways we were to avoid. The impression I received was that the church was anti-intellectual, anti-cultural, and anti-fun.

However, in the Gospels alone there are at least 24 references to Jesus eating and drinking, often with folks the religious leaders of the day considered the wrong crowd. So upset were they with Jesus’ partying that they called him "a drunkard and a glutton." (Matt. 11:19; Luke 7:34). Jesus’ first miracle, as reported in the second chapter of John’s Gospel, was to turn the water in six stone jars into about 175 gallons of the best wine the wedding guests had ever tasted. We can be sure this act brought many a smile to the family and friends at this marriage feast in Cana of Galilee.

What led Jesus to participate in all of these communal meals? Is there a lesson for us from observing all of his eating and drinking?

Two customs in Jesus’ day are involved in the answer. The first has to do with the carpentry business. On completion of a significant job that had taken several days, such as a large piece of furniture, a wall, or a house repair, the recipient family would prepare a feast to enjoy with the carpenter and his family. This was in part payment for the work and also an occasion to celebrate a job well done. No doubt Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth, would have shared in many such gatherings.

The second custom relates to who was considered eligible to participate in festive meals. Since communal eating and drinking were special events, the religious elite felt that only the "pure" could partake. That would rule out tax collectors, beggars, Gentiles, prostitutes, any persons of questionable moral character, or "sinners" as such were usually called.

These are two of the customs or traditions of which Jesus was aware when he shared meals with others. How did he respond to these traditions?

The first custom Jesus seems to have gladly affirmed and enlarged. To eat and drink in celebration of a job successfully completed was appropriate. Might this not be one reason he instituted Holy Communion for all who wish to celebrate the work of redemption finished on Calvary? This is the joyful "eucharist," or thanksgiving, a foretaste of the heavenly banquet (Luke 22:30), the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev. 19:9).

Weep, as you may when you bite into the bread, remembering your part in his death. But when you take the cup (glass or chalice), raise it up. And if you dare not say "Cheers" at least say "Hallelujah" or "Thank you, Jesus" and rejoice! You are proclaiming your risen Lord, who blesses our tables now and is preparing the banquet of all banquets still to come.

The second custom Jesus shattered completely. "Only special people allowed," it said. Jesus replied that all people are special. All are loved by God and infinitely precious. That included tax collectors, harlots, beggars, Gentiles, and all sinners—even, in our day, gays and lesbians, one would think. All of us. All are invited and welcome to eat and drink with Jesus.

Bruce Chilton, in his somewhat controversial book Rabbi Jesus, believes Jesus replaced the practice of John’s baptism with "communal meals as the ritual symbol of the coming kingdom of God" (Doubleday Publishers, 2000, p. 60). Jesus would lift the cup and pray, "Sanctified are you, Lord, Eternal King: creating the fruit of the earth." Then before breaking the bread he would say, "Sanctified are you, Lord, Eternal King: bringing forth bread from the earth." At these meals Jesus conveyed to all an inspiring sense of the real presence of God, even in Levi’s home.

Levi (or Matthew) was so thrilled Jesus included him that he gave "a great banquet" in his honor (Luke 5:29). That Jesus and his disciples were eating, drinking, laughing, sharing stories with tax collectors and his tainted friends scandalized the religious leaders. They asked, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" To which Jesus replied, "I have come to call not the righteous, but sinners."

Eugene Peterson paraphrases Luke 5:31 like this: "Who needs a doctor, the healthy or the sick? I am here inviting outsiders, not insiders—an invitation to a changed life, changed inside and out." I guess if we don’t believe we are sinners, we will feel no need of a Savior. What a tragedy, to miss out on the bread and wine of Christ’s banquet. Both Karl Olsson in his Come to the Party (Word, 1972), and Tony Campolo in The Kingdom of God is a Party (Word, 1990) provide eloquent endorsement of this often forgotten New Testament theme

In Matthew 22:2-4, Jesus uses the wedding feast as the appropriate metaphor for the kingdom of God. What could inspire more joy than to celebrate life by eating and drinking with Jesus? His miracle of providing the best wine at the wedding feast in Cana must have thrilled the family of the wedding party. They would have been terribly embarrassed to run out of wine on the first day, since wedding parties at that time could last up to a week.

Besides involving an act of generosity for the family, there is more to this story. Those stone jars were there for the Jewish rite of purification. Does the Gospel writer see Jesus as here signaling a replacing of the waters of legalism of the Old Covenant with the wine of grace in the New Covenant? And when the steward exclaimed, "You have kept the good wine until now" (John 2:10), is this not a message to us that the best is yet to come? Then the writer adds, "Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him."

They believed in him as Lord, Master, Teacher, Healer, and more, yes. But they believed in him also as the Winemaker, the one who brings joy and fulfillment to all who invite his presence.

How does the world see Jesus? Do its citizens see him as a Winemaker and Partygoer who could be sitting on the barstool beside them sharing a good joke? If not, does not the responsibility for this failure lie with church folk, those called to be the visible body of Christ? Are we not usually seen as a more pious, exclusive, and judgmental group?

This problem is not new. Back in 1582 Saint Teresa of Avila prayed, "From somber, serious, sullen saints, save us, O Lord." Amen! The New Testament refers to "joy" over 280 times. Maybe it is time to reflect this "joy of the Lord" as we befriend the tax collectors and sinners in our neighborhoods. Jesus called us to be "salt of the earth" (Matt. 5:13). But obviously the salt does the world no good as long as it remains cozily clustered in its comfortable container. We need to be shaken!

Like John, I want my world "to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing, have life in his name" (John 20-31). John begins by telling me Jesus is God’s Word to us, that Word who "became flesh and lived among us and we have seen his glory . . . full of grace and truth" (John 1:14). Such glory could only be seen when "lived among us." To identify with all sinners, Jesus begins by going to the Jordan for baptism, then he goes to Cana for a wedding party before moving on to Levi’s place for a banquet. Indeed he is among us!

I yearn for my world to see God’s grace and truth in me. For this to happen, two things are necessary. First, I must yield to the direction of Christ’s love, so what I reveal is really his grace and truth. Second, I must be in this world, eating and drinking, weeping and working, laughing and rejoicing, with all of my sisters and brothers, whoever they are. Only thus can I be God’s Word of gracious invitation to the divine party planned for all.

—Randy Klassen, San Andreas, California, served as pastor in Covenant Church congregations for 34 year and developed two new churches. For four years he was Covenant Church Executive Secretary of Evangelism, and he did art work professionally for six years. He has written many books and articles, most recently What Does the Bible Really Say About Hell? (Pandora Press U.S., 2001).