Fudgsicles Beyond Measure by Rev. Dr. Jay Marshall Groat – January 19, 2025, at Mount Vernon, Ohio based on John 2: 1-11

The changing of water into wine. It only appears in the Gospel of John, that’s it. It was so important to John that he put it in the second chapter. It was really important to him. It’s really important to his living spirit that we get this, and it’s really not about water and wine. It’s about Fudgsicles. It’s about Fudgsicles. And it’s about the fact that there is a sign in this church – now trust me on this, I want all of you after the service, after the annual meeting, to go down there and look at this sign. It’s not very big. “You are loved beyond measure.” That’s what the changing of water into wine is about. We are loved beyond measure. And for the same existential reasons that we do need to look at the pictures that show us hate, we need to look at them, and for the same existential reason that we need to look at the pictures of beautiful, young, African American girls crying in church because people they know and love have been murdered, we need to look at these pictures for the same existential reason that every one of us – I’m assuming this – every one of us will resist the statement that we are loved by God beyond measure. We will resist it. Why will we resist it? It’s pretty simple. It’s because we know the truth. And today, in this service, I’m going to give you the opportunity to stand up in public and reveal to us out loud all of your imperfections, all of your mistakes, all of your – are you ready for this word? — all of your sins. I’ll go last. Now who would like to go first? I am banking on the assumption that every one of us will resist this notion that we are loved beyond measure. So, what is true? What is true?

You see, the point of – I’ll read this from the commentary – the point of the water into wine. And John, as John almost always does, is speaking to us in code. I’m making a declaration here in case there’s any doubt, are you ready? This is why the Gospel of John is the best one. It was the one written furthest from the life of Christ, probably 60 to 65 years at least after Christ lived. He was furthest away historically. And every page comes to us in code and metaphor. He begins the gospel, as early as the second chapter, talking about this miraculous transformation of water into wine. Here is the image – the six stone water jars, and each of them held multiple gallons of water. They were water jars used, we’re told, in Jewish cleansing rituals. It’s really very simple. I’m going to say this in a soft voice and I’m only going to say it once because we have young people present, but you know how to make holy water, right? You boil the hell out of it. This is holy water; this is Jewish holy water. They used it to wash their hands before they ate. So they go to Jesus, John is talking to us in code here, he’s talking about how we are loved beyond measure. I’m trying to help us break the code. There’s a wedding, they’re running out of wine, they go to Jesus, “What do we do?” His mother essentially says to Jesus, “Why don’t you do something about this?” What we’re supposed to understand is she knew that he could. And he essentially says to his mother, “You know, I really didn’t come here to do this kind of stuff. Back off, Mom.” But he does it anyway. So, he says, “Bring me six huge jars. And don’t just fill them up with water, this Jewish ritual, fill them up to the brim.” 

Here’s how my biblical commentator puts it – “The jars from which the new wine was drawn were filled to the brim. Since each jar had a large capacity, 20 to 30 gallons, Jesus turned an astonishing quantity of water into wine.” And he does it instantly. Quote – “This extravagance is at the heart of the miracle. The extravagant proportions here anticipate the extravagant proportions of the feeding of the 5,000, which is coming. In both instances the reader is shown the superabundance of gifts available for Jesus.” We don’t get what we ask for from Christ. We get abundantly more. And I believe we get more when we are open to the possibility that we are loved beyond measure. An astonishing amount of wine. 

This is from the book that I just used with the children, “King Remembered.” This took place in 1958. “Dr. King was on a promotional tour for his new book” – a book entitled “Strive for Freedom,” he was on a book tour in 1958. “King sat at an improvised desk in the shoe department at Blumstein’s, a white-owned store in Harlem, in New York City. As he was autographing copies a Black woman pushed her way towards him and asked, ‘Are you Mr. King?’ ‘Yes, I am,’ he nodded. ‘Luther King,’ she cried, ‘I have been after you for five years.’ As she spoke, she drew a sharp, bright object from her dress and thrust it into his chest. Then she continued to beat him with her fists, babbling incoherently. Someone quickly grabbed the woman, who was identified as Mrs. Izola Curry. At the Harlem Police Headquarters the 42-year-old wanderer told the police, ‘People are torturing me,’ and she talked wildly about how ministers were responsible for all of her troubles. King was rushed to the hospital, where surgeons were forced to remove one of his ribs and part of his breastbone to free a Japanese letter opener that was leaning against the main artery from his heart. ‘If you had sneezed during all those hours of waiting your aorta would have been punctured and you would have drowned in your own blood,’ said his physician, Dr. Aubre de Maynard. The doctor made a cross-shaped incision over King’s heart. ‘Since the scar will be there permanently and he is a minister, it seemed somehow appropriate,’ he said. Still under sedation, his first words to his wife were a minister’s words – ‘Coretta, this woman needs help. She is not responsible for the violence. Don’t do anything to her, don’t prosecute. Get her healed.’ King received messages of sympathy from all over the world, including telegrams from President Eisenhower and Vice President Nixon, but one letter in particular he said he would never forget.” This is the letter that he never forgot. “Dear Dr. King – I am a ninth-grade student at the White Plains High School. While it shouldn’t matter, I would like to mention that I am a white girl. I read in the paper of your misfortune and of your suffering, and I read that if you had sneezed you would have died. I’m simply writing to say that I’m so happy that you didn’t sneeze.” 

Whatever Dr. King had, and we can call it by so many names, he had it beyond measure. You and I are loved beyond measure, and whatever we are facing today, we can do it. We can do it. It’s all about Fudgsicles. You know what a Fudgsicle is, right? If you Google Fudgsicle, there’s a Wikipedia article about Fudgsicles. Fudgsicle is a brand name. I forget now who originated the Fudgsicle, but it wasn’t Borden’s ice cream. But nevertheless, my belated Uncle Jim, my dad’s older brother, was a businessman, and for a number of years he was the plant manager at a Borden’s ice cream factory in Chicago, Illinois. We went to visit him once. As I remember I think I was maybe grade-school age. I remember every bit of it. So my older brother Jeff, my younger sister Jill, and my mom and dad, Jack and Joy, we got in the car and we drove to Chicago and we stayed a few days with my dad’s older brother, Jim, and his family. And as I mentioned, Jim was the plant manager of a Fudgsicle plant. And we got to go to the Fudgsicle plant. I had never heard of Willy Wonka at the time, but I have now, and we got a tour of Uncle Jim’s Fudgsicle plant, and at the end of the assembly line, the creation line, whatever they call the line that made the Fudgsicles, the Fudgsicles would come out about one every five seconds, for eternity. And there would be people there and it was their job to take the Fudgsicles off at the end of the line and package them. Uncle Jim turned to Jeff, Jay and Jill and asked us, “Would you like a Fudgsicle?” And we said yes, and we ate one. Then we asked him, “How many can we have?” And Uncle Jim said – you see, because it wasn’t really about water and wine, it was about you and I are loved beyond measure, about superabundance of gifts. We said to Uncle Jim, “How many can we have?” And Uncle Jim said, “You can as many as you want.” He told us that his policy when he got a new employee at the plant, he told the new employee, “Eat as many as you want, any time, all day.” And he said it worked. The first day the employee would eat a lot of Fudgsicles, then the second day fewer, the third day fewer. He said after about five or six days, believe it or not, they didn’t want any. You know how many Fudgsicles we had that day? Beyond measure – no. It was as many as our mom let us, I forget. It might have been three or four. But, you see, that’s what it’s about. Whatever we are looking for, we look to John, we look to Christ, we look to Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Jr. for inspiration, and we’re standing at the end of a courage assembly line, and we ask Jesus, “How much courage can we have, how much grace can we have, how much love can we have, how much community can we have?” And Christ says, “You can have more than you need, because you are loved beyond measure.” Amen?