John 2

Thursday, February 14, 2013
Happy Valentine's Day!

John 2

It's nice that on Valentine's Day we spend our time at a wedding.

Yes, THE Wedding.  At Cana.

I love making the joke when people talk about Christian denominations that swear off alcohol that Jesus's first miracle was turning water into wine, not the other way around.  And I believe I've written on this blog before about how I love that Jesus's first miracle was something ordinary - not healing a life-altering disease or injury, not a big showy display.  It got a married couple out of an inconvenience and embarrassment.  It was a relatively little thing, but it meant a lot to individual lives.

I think that, paired with the second story in this chapter, of Jesus cleansing the Temple, it says something even more important: the small things do matter.  All the little sins, all the little impurities, all the little struggles of our days - they do matter.

As a feminist and frequent Facebook poster of feminist cartoons, articles, etc. I often hear the argument that I am making too big a deal out of something small, that doesn't matter, that was not meant with any malicious intent.  But I think these things do matter.

Because just as Jesus's first small miracle led to greater things, so do the small actions of our lives spread and grow and become larger, important actions.

Because it does matter if there are moneylenders in the Temple.

This is going to sound petty, and perhaps even a bit crazy, but, well, it's my blog.  And I do think it's important.  Because I can see how the moneylenders got to set up shop.  It wasn't any intentional loosening of morals or outright greed (probably), but that only made it harder to uproot by simple means.  It was probably more a matter of convenience - people need to buy their sacrifices, etc. and why not make it easily available?  Is that not a good thing to do for people?  And when everything started getting crazy and out of hand, well, people preach against the symptoms without attacking the disease.

The petty and crazy part: I am still upset about the tendency at the Catholic Student Center at Rice University to allow anyone to say announcements, because at the morning mass filled more with community residents than students, this becomes a time for soliciting donations for A-Thons of every stripe and even selling Girl Scout Cookies.

And I can see letting the first one go - after all, shouldn't the parish community be supporting the charity work of our fellows?  But then it just becomes this awkward financial button at the end of a lovely service.  It rubbed me entirely the wrong way.  It was moneylenders in the Temple.

But the only way to change it, often, when it's entrenched, is to make a fuss.  That's what I'm so often told about my feminist rage - why be angry about the way society is?  Why not work to change it without yelling or anger?

Because sometimes it is the appropriate response.  Because sometimes it is the only hope of getting people to face squarely what has become of an idea that seemed harmless.  Because it does matter if there are moneylenders in the Temple, if the new couple starts their marriage by being embarrassed running out of wine.

Because the little things in our lives change everything about who we are going to become.