Interim Moderator, Rev. Eddie Enslin (Minister at Bellie and Speymouth Parish Church), announced at the beginning of the joint all-age worship service at Duffus Kirk that the existing Parishes of Duffus, Spynie and Hopeman, on the one hand, and Lossiemouth, on the other hand, will unite as one Parish – “Laich of Moray Parish Church” – from 01 February 2026.
There will be a Service of Union to be held in Lossiemouth (former St. James’ building) on the afternoon of Sunday 15 February 2026 at a time still to be confirmed. The service will be conducted by Moderator of the Presbytery of the North East & Northern Isles, Rev. Shuna Dicks.
In his sermon at Duffus Kirk, Mr Enslin used the story of Jesus’ first miracle – turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana – as a metaphor for the unfolding situation leading to the union of these two parishes.
Eddie Enslin’s sermon – 11 January 2026 – Duffus Kirk, Duffus, Moray
Our theme this week is weddings.
Wedding rituals are different in different places.
I wonder what some of the wedding rituals or customs are that you might find strange.
Do yourself a favour when you get home, and Google “strange wedding customs from around the world”.
I think you’ll quite enjoy that.
You’ll find out about the crying ritual at Chinese weddings. Sawing through wooden logs in Germany, beating the groom’s feet in South Korea, that sounds fun. Or blackening before Scottish weddings.
There are always rituals that other people would look at and find strange.
In the first century in Israel, when Jesus was in his late 20s or 30s, weddings would have been unrecognisable to us.
They wouldn’t have looked the way they looked today.
They were full of rituals and practices we wouldn’t understand and would probably find a little odd.
However, one thing every culture across every age seems to hold in common is this: weddings are a party.
And there’s usually food, drink. and celebration.
No matter where you go in the world, no matter in which time, that’s usually what you’ll find.
That was certainly true for the wedding in Cana, where Jesus, according to John’s gospel, performs his first miracle.
The reception was in full swing, when suddenly the wine ran out.
No matter where you’re from, or what time you live in, when the wine runs out, that’s not a good thing.
Today – as we gather from different places and histories, on the edge of something new – this story comes to us, not as a curiosity from the past, but as a question to the present.
What happens when the familiar runs out? What does Jesus do then?
My personal Calvinist upbringing might quietly approve of the moderation of the bridegroom’s family in the story. Just enough, never too much.
But Jesus sees this frugality as a problem that he can remedy.
Realising the social shame this would bring upon the groom’s family, Jesus’ mother nudges him into action – seemingly before he intended to begin his ministry.
Jesus steps into a potential social crisis. He has 6 empty ritual washing jars filled with water. Around 600 litres. That, he turns into wine.
But not just “wine”. Good wine.
Wine so good, that the master of ceremonies wonders aloud why it was kept back until the people were “beyond the point of fully appreciating it”, if you know what I mean.
It seems that this party was such a “knees up” that we often overlook the verse immediately after our reading.
Verse 12 tells us that Jesus, his mother, his brothers, and his followers, had to stay in Capernaum for a few days afterwards.
The Greek word translated for “staying” also means “recuperating” or “resting”.
Extravagant, reckless? Absolutely.
John tells us this is the first sign of the reign of God.
After the Christmas story – which in John’s gospel is an abstract reflection on Light and Word – we leap forward decades to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry.
And where does Jesus begin his ministry?
It doesn’t begin it with a dedication service or a prayer meeting.
Not with a carefully ordered gathering.
But a wedding party in danger of fizzling out.
The grown up child from the manger – “Emmanuel”, “God with us” – begins his ministry by keeping joy alive.
And he would later be crucified for a ministry like this.
One so unreligious, so controversial, so generous, that the religious authorities found it intolerable.
He talked too much about “loving enemies”.
He talked too much about giving your possessions to the poor, about welcoming the outsider.
To use a word that’s going around these days, he was much too “woke” for the religious people of the time.
He spoke of vulnerability, of compassion, of inclusion, in a system built on exclusion, power, and control.
So the old saying applies well here, when Jesus does his first miracle: “Start as you intend to go on.”
So what does that mean for us as church today?
How do we follow a Jesus whose first messianic act wants not to organise but to celebrate?
What commentary do I read about this?
Let’s ask a piercing question: How did the church lose its sense of mischievous abandon – abandon – so evident in our Lord?
You see, the empty stone jars at the wedding, tell a story.
We hear this story today, not as outsiders looking in, but as people who love the “vessels” that have carried our faith.
Vessels that have held baptisms and funerals, prayers and songs, for generations.
The jars were used for ritual washing, for religious purity. But Jesus repurposes them for wine.
Institutionalised religion and ritual observance, alone do not laden the heart.
Too much emphasis on purity and control can – quite frankly – kill the party that we were meant to be celebrating.
The brilliance of this first sign that Jesus does isn’t that he conjures up new containers. He uses the existing ones – perhaps abandoned, perhaps overlooked – for something radically life-giving.
I wonder whether we, as followers of that winemaker, have the same imagination.
If you drive around any town or village on a Sunday morning, you might see many empty ritual vessels. Churches trying carefully to preserve themselves. Often because of those who love them for the comfort of what is “familiar”, especially when the world beyond their walls feels uncertain and fast-changing.
Too often, the status quo is valued more highly than a deeper following of the Jesus depicted in the stained glass windows.
I suspect the wedding in Cana was a little rowdier than our sedate liturgies. The guests didn’t need to be told to lift their hearts.
It troubles me sometimes that Jesus begins his ministry, hoping to pour new life into old vessels, yet later warns that new wine cannot always be poured into old wine skins.
I wonder when that hope faded.
Was it when he was criticised for eating with tax collectors? When he healed people on the Sabbath? When ritual purity mattered more than human dignity?
We read that the wedding lasted 3 days. And “the third day”, of course, is the day of resurrection.
It makes me wonder what must still be laid down before the church reaches its “third day” potential. Not because the past was wrong, but because resurrection always involves trusting God with what we can no longer carry in the same way.
What do we need to let go of in order to represent Christ’s love more faithfully?
What matters more to us? The containers of our rituals, or the life-giving wine that may be put in them if we allow Jesus to do that.
What matters more to us? Maintaining buildings and budgets, or tending people and their pain.
Here we face a choice:
- Indignation at being challenged, or
- Discipleship that accepts Jesus’ invitation.
“Take up your cross and follow me.”
Trusting that some things will die, so that something richer may live.
Surely we can honour the traditions we cherish without becoming museums of ritual, rather than bearers of good news.
So please, Lord, let that wine continue to flow. Let that wine flow out of dusty jars and into the streets, where there is dancing and joy.
Where, with the winemaker of Nazareth, we may empower people to cry out, “L’chaim!” – “To life”.
May these vessels – and the one we are becoming together – not just be again jars for ritual washing. But might they contain life-giving wine.
May they allow us to celebrate the extravagant love and grace of Jesus.
Amen.
