Last weekend, at the invitation of Brother Robert, I was on a panel for our 8th grade PREP students here about religious vocations. Of course they also had a priest, our friend Father Dave Farnum from the Paulists, and there was one of Brother Robert’s confreres in his religious order, and two incredibly friendly and appealing religious sisters. We all did the best we could to give an account of what we do. If you’ve never seen Father Dave at work recruiting for vocations, he is a real pro. He has a wad of $20 bills that he takes out and he offers one to any young man who’ll step forward on the spot to enter the program. Now I can tell you that twenty bucks for some reason didn’t seem to be quite enough to close the deal for anyone in our group, even the girls, although I’m kind of sorry not even one of them raised their hand. In fact, it looked pretty clear to me these 8th graders weren’t quite ready to make a decision on this question of what kind of person God was calling them to be.
But as I watched, I found myself thinking that most of us aren’t all that different from these 8th graders confronting this question. We all find it hard to think about what we are called to do in this life, and maybe, the older we get, it gets even harder rather than easier. For younger people, the entire world seems open to them, or it should, but for the rest of us, over time, our world of possibilities tends to get a little smaller, we think we have learned more about life or about ourselves, and as a result, the more things we rule out, the more settled we tend to get. It’s not so much because we don’t see plenty of things around us that ought to be different, or that we know need changing, it’s because we don’t see ourselves changing very much, we know where we belong, what we can do, and what we can’t any more. Fortunately for us, we have two readings today that push us into a different view of who we are and what we are capable of.
The famous second reading today says we all have different gifts — and on the face of it, of course, we’ll agree with that. Some of us are good at some things, and some at others, we all know that. But the gifts here in this reading are different: What Paul is talking about are what he calls gifts that are for the good of all. You heard his list: teaching, healing, interpreting, seeing into the future, even seeing the activity of God, on and on. Every single person, he says, has gifts that are not just skills or talents, but real gifts that change other people, gifts that help people, gifts that build up the community of God, gifts that allow the Holy Spirit to reach people and change them.
This may not be the way we usually see ourselves, but today is the day to try to believe that God has given us the Spirit like that. What that gift is, is different for all of us. We didn’t earn it — it’s simply there, given to us for others. But unless we ask God to reveal it to us, unless we have that curiosity about that gift and the desire and courage to pray to see it, it is something that you will never discover that you have.
It’s not hard to get trapped into thinking that we’re not good enough or faithful enough or don’t know enough to use a gift like that. To that God says only one thing: So what? That is where today’s gospel comes in, the wedding at Cana is one of those readings that reminds us of the fundamental way God works, which is that God can make abundance out of anything. Wine out of water, not just wine but excellent wine, the equivalent of more than 63 cases of it, more than enough for any wedding, more than anyone needs. It’s one of those images of abundance in the New Testament that are meant to build up over time in our minds, the endless meals of loaves and fishes, the priceless buried treasure that’s right underneath us, the tiny seed that grows into a huge tree. God brings abundance to places that don’t have it, and to people who think that they’re not significant enough or smart enough or strong enough to be taken up by the Holy Spirit and given something to do.
None of this talk about gifts necessarily means that these gifts have to do with any religious vocation. They don’t even necessarily have to do with anything that takes place within the walls of any church. But we all have a vocation for the common good, however we put it to work, maybe as a nurse who is not just a nurse but a presence of the healing Christ, as a lawyer who can at times bring justice to people who don’t get much of it, as a scientist who seeks to put knowledge at the service of people, as a colleague at work who takes a risk reaching out to try to help someone floundering. There is a way that every one is meant to be transformed into the work of Christ building the kingdom.
If this still sounds like something that is beyond your experience, that may be because all of us human beings are actually very good at turning wine back into water, not seeing what is being offered, not being willing to ask for the gifts that might change us. But what’s being offered is worth the risk, a life invigorated and intensified by a daily awareness of God acting through all of our imperfections. That experience being offered is better than twenty bucks. It’s a party we are all invited to, where the wine never runs out.