What makes a church perfect is imperfect people like you and me caring enough about God and each other, and bringing enough of our real, broken, imperfect lives to the Lord who can take them and make us new. Jesus Christ, who turned water into wine, can turn imperfect people like you and me into new people. He can create the perfect, or the real, church.

I absolutely love how John's gospel begins. As Jesus is initiating his ministry, having called the first disciples and invited them, "follow me"2, the very next thing they all do is show up at a wedding. It is in Cana of Galilee, a few miles from his home town of Nazareth. It is a festive gathering. But a simple catering problem arises. They run out of wine. Pushed by his mother, and apparently irritated by her insistence, Jesus yet acts and offers an utterly extravagant gesture. He turns water into wine. Not just a little wine. Those six ceremonial stone jars held all together about 180 gallons of the finest wine. It is a gesture of extravagant joy.

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It is, moreover, a gesture that contravenes the catering practices of the day which dictate that the good wine be served first and the cheap stuff later. Beyond the light-hearted festive enjoyment the miracle brings, it also attests to Jesus' true nature. "Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him."3

Arising out of this marvelous story, (and supported by that Old Testament image in Isaiah of marriage, Israel returned from exile, no longer desolate but married, together with that great list from the early Church at Corinth about the life-giving gifts of the Spirit,) are three attributes about what the perfect church is like. I would like to share them with you this morning.

I. The Perfect Church Celebrates Extravagantly

What John is showing us in this first miracle of his Gospel, is not that Jesus would have been a good wine-maker. Nor is it a justification for overindulging. Though I fear tea-teetotalers and those who try to develop obscure arguments for showing how the wine Jesus drank was non-alcoholic will have a hard time with this text.

What John is showing us is the extravagance of life Jesus embodied and embraced. "I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly" Jesus said.4 A wedding surely symbolizes a high moment of joy and delight. It is an occasion filled with solemn promises and with an abundance of human happiness. Jesus only heightens the happiness by his gracious act. And the fine wine overflows.

At Cana Jesus models extending extravagant hospitality. Too often I think church gatherings are characterized by minimal attitudes rather than maximal attitudes. And let's be honest, too often people stay away from churches like this because they have some incorrect stereotypes about the institutional church being a place where they would not be welcomed because their life is, well, a bit messed up. They may have a memory where some church treated them in a harsh judgmental manner. Frederick Nietzsche, the atheist philosopher, instructed us well when he said, of Christians, "I would believe in their salvation if they looked a little more like people who have been saved."5 Friends, the world outside needs an extravagant sign from us to overcome those negative tapes.