When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from, (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bride groom.

- John 2.9

Michael Jordan tore it up that night. He went twenty-three of thirty-seven from the floor and sank twenty-one of twenty-three from the line. That cashes out as MJ's career-best and the ninth highest single-game scoring performance in NBA history. Toss in eighteen rebounds, six assists, and four steals and it isn't hard to understand why Jordan now says that on Wednesday, March 28, 1990, he handed in his all-time best performance. His heroics fueled the Bulls' 117-113 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. 

Rookie forward Stacey King had a different take on the contest: "I'll always remember it as the night Michael Jordan and I combined to score seventy points." King sank one free-throw. 

The servants at the wedding feast might offer a similar testimony. 

When the bartender told his boss that the well had run dry, Jesus' mom goaded him into intervening. The Lord didn't just make up the shortfall! The King James measures this miracle in firkins, which almost nobody uses anymore; in modern terms, we're looking at around thirty gallons per barrel. Jesus, in essence, sets up a six-kegger wedding as he lays on 180 gallons of the warm south! John remembered it as the night Jesus performed the first of the seven signal signs of his messiahship.

I think the servants remembered it as the night that they and Jesus combined to make 680 liters of high-quality hooch. 

They couldn't turn water to wine, but they could fill jars with water. They couldn't do what was needed, but they could do what they were told. And their greatest reward was that these minimum-wage flunkies, probably hired off the books from a convenience store parking lot, were in on the secret that their boss never suspected. Sometimes when we do only what we're told to do, Jesus does what only he can do, and we get in on a record-breaking revelation and share the inside scoop on the movement of the Spirit. 

By the way, the Bulls won that game in overtime, meaning that regulation play ended in a tie, meaning that Stacey King's one point provided the pivot to victory. No solitary free-throw, no overtime; no overtime, no eight additional eight points for Jordan; no additional eight points means a final tally of sixty-one, which is respectable but no record-breaker. 

Do what you can; do what you're told. . .and remember it as the night you and Jesus teamed up to save the world.

Irresponsible Adoration

Mark 14.3-9

While he was at Bethany in the house of Simon the leper, as he sat at the table, a woman came with an alabaster jar of very costly ointment of nard, and she broke open the jar and poured the ointment on his head. . .

. . .and the liberal politician said, “What a waste! We will never be able to provide universal, single-payer health care if the one percent are allowed to spend extravagantly like this!”

. . .and the conservative politician said, “Could have funded many important senate campaigns. Sad. Loser!”

. . .and her pastor said, “Doesn’t she know what kind of shape our budget is in? That much money could have paid off most of our building debt!”

. . .and Dave Ramsey said, “That jar of ointment was an investment. If she had held onto it, even figuring for a moderate increase in value, in ten years she could have paid her kids’ college tuition and still given far more.”

. . .and the Baptist college president said, “Darn! I’d been courting her for months to donate that oil to our endowment. Now we won’t be able to offer nearly as many scholarships to train young ministers. I hope she’s happy.”

. . .and the deacon said, “The preacher keeps telling us we have to tithe, and then she wastes money like that. I don’t see why I should have to give when other church members seem to have money to burn.”

. . .and the seminary professor said, “It’s clear that she lacks a good overview of the life and teachings of Jesus. Otherwise she would know he approves of simplicity, not luxury. I wish she’d consulted someone like me who has really studied Jesus.”

. . .and everybody posted about it on Facebook and argued back and forth and ended up unfriending each other.

. . .and the victims of Hurricanes Harvey and Irma said, “We still don’t have clean water and we’re living in tents. That money really would have helped.”

. . .and folks living in the Colonias said, “What kind of people have money like that just to throw away?”

. . .and orphans in South Sudan said nothing, because they were too weak from hunger to speak.

But Jesus said, "Let her alone; why do you trouble her? She has performed a good service for me.

For you always have the poor with you, and you can show kindness to them whenever you wish; but you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for its burial. Truly I tell you, wherever the good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in remembrance of her."

Nine Out of Ten is. . .Bad

For whoever keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it.  - James 2.10

We are accustomed to accepting pretty good, or even very good, as good enough. And sometimes it is. Ty Cobb hit .367 lifetime, or less than four hits for every ten trips to the plate, and he still holds the record. Read in this light, James' dictum seems a little harsh. After all, he describes a guy with a .900 batting average in the MLB - Moses League Behavior.

But if we shift our frame of reference, the statement makes perfect sense. I drive an '06 Hyundai Santa Fe. It's a great vehicle but after over ten years, nearly 200K miles, and some rough usage, it has a few, uh, quirks. For instance, the automatic door locks work. . .sometimes. On occasion, I hit the button and all the doors slam closed. Other times, up to three obey their orders while one resists. Say I park the car in a dodgy neighborhood, punch the device, and walk away. I return an hour later to discover that the local Visigoths have plundered the interior, making off with my broken CD player, a buck or so in spare change, and Hank Williams Greatest Hits. When I summon the local gendarmery to obtain a police report for insurance purposes, the officer admonishes me, "You should always lock your doors." I protest: "That isn't fair! I locked three out of four. I was batting .750, almost twice Ty Cobb's average!" Now the officer asks me to take a breathalyzer.

D. L. Moody, commenting on this passage, said that if you hang someone from the ceiling by a chain with ten links and one of them breaks, he falls. It's no good protesting that ninety percent of the string held fast.

In context, James means that sin matters and that there is no such thing as pretty good sanctity. Back up a little farther, and the particular sin he attacks is the mistreatment of the poor. In verse 11, he uses an analogy in which this sin equates to murder.

Holiness matters, and it embraces a good deal more than not going about the place killing people or sleeping with their wives. Yes, we're saved by grace; we're also expected to live it out. I'm reminded of a line from Peter Beagle's novel The Last Unicorn: "I always say that perseverance is nine-tenths of any art - not that it's much help to be nine-tenths of an artist, of course." Or a Christian.