Weekly Bible Commentaries, Claretian Communications

Sunday, January 18, 2004

Second Sunday of Ordinary Time

Readings:
Isaiah 62:1-5: I will call you my favorites

Psalm 95

1 Corinthians 12:4-11: Hay diversidad de dones pero un mismo Espiritu

John 2:1-12: Jesus begins his miracles

The prophet Isaiah uses the image of the city Jerusalem, wife and mother, to announce that Israel will be restored by God as his covenant people. The image of the restoration of Jerusalem is much like other prophetic writings. The restoration will be like some mystic weddings, an encounter of love, the end of a bitter widowhood, or the end of a long separation between husband and wife. This is what Biblical language is like: filled with very human images, perfectly comprehensible. They help us to talk about the love of God and about his passionfor us. It invites us to respond to this love which is our salvation. This reading from Isaiah clearly prepares us for the passage from the Gospel of John which we read today.

The gifts of love are splendid, as Paul says in his letter to the Corinthians. Here he speaks of the charismas or gifts of the Holy Spirit which adorn his wife the church. We are accustomed to thinking that these gifts originated with Christianity, given at a time when the church was not yet institutionalized, and, unfortunately, were replaced by structures of government, juridical and liturgical disciplinarians, or doctrines. But this is only an apparition. Even today, twenty centuries later, the Holy Spirit pours out favor and marvelous gifts for the growth and beauty of the church. If the Holy Spirit doesn't give the same gifts as it did in the past, it does grant new gifts, according to the church's new needs and situations. For example, think of the gift of the Holy Spirit to the church and the world in ministry to the poor. Think of the gifts of the Holy Spirit to Christian missionaries which spread the Gospel in situations of great difficulty. Or think of the wisdom and intelligence of the great thinkers who have uncovered the great mysteries of the Bible and the development of theology. Today, as in the remote past, the church continues to be the loved wife of the Holy Spirit, enriched by marvelous gifts for service to humanity and for the proclamation of the Gospel.

To understand the passage from the Gospel of John which tells us about the weddings at Cana, we should start from the end of the lesson: "There he recieved his glory, and his disciples believed in him" (2:11b). This story is about the general theological theme of "manifestation" and about the manifestation of Jesus' glory in particular.

The glory of God is intimately related to the concept of "holiness" found in Old Testament texts, especially in the book of the prophet Ezekeiel. Between the glory of God and holiness is a complimentary relationship: they are both aspects of th same reality.

The "holiness" of God refers to God's transcendence. God is more than all human reality. The "glory" of God expresses this same transcendence which is present in the history of humanity and the history of the people of Israel. The glory of God is God's transcendence.

The manifestation of the glory of God is given to be welcomed by humanity. The Gospel texts concludes that Jesus manifested his glory and his disciples believed in him. And "this was the first of Jesus' miracles" (11a).

The miracle being refered to here takes place at a wedding banquet. The gospel expands upon a theme which begins in Isaiah 62, where the betrothal of God to God's people is announced.

It is important to note the contrast between the "water" of purification of the Jews and the "wine" of the fiesta on the one hand, and the difference between the different qualities of wine on the other. The first relationship refers to religiosity, which is realized in one of two ways. The reference to the water of purification signifies the search for personal purification. The water's conversion into wine is a sign of the joyful encounter between God and humanity. In the first case, human religiosity is locked into categories of pure and impure which sinks human beings in their own worries and prevents a life of joy and freedom. Without the joy of the wedding banquet, we would never be able to achieve joy and freedom.

Confronted with this possibility, the miracle of Cana affirms that an adequate religiosity only finds its realization in community with God and with our brothers and sisters. Weddings serve to express the unity of husban and wife in the feast and thanks to the wine they are made participants in communion with those whom they invited to the wedding.

The water converted into wine which was tested by the steward introduces the distinction between the two qualities of wine. In the Messianic banquet the best wine comes at the end, different from what was customary during wedding banquets in Biblical times. In this way, two moments in the history of salvation are contrasted. The presence of Jesus is represented at the end of the story, when the best wine was served.

Jesus' turning water into wine is a miracle which anticipates the end of time, which he also mentions to his mother. This concept of time will be present throughout the gospel of John.

"Time" is converted into a reference which distinguishes between different moments of Jesus' activities, according to whether or not the "time" has come. The gospel talks about the "glorification of the Son in man," beginning in John 13:1. Before chapter 13, time was only expressed through the signs and works of Jesus.

Faith is closely tied to the miracles of Jesus, which allow us to discover the presence of God in personal and social history. The search for these signs is a natural tendency of religious human beings who place the discovery of the glory of God at the center of their lives.

Today we run the risk of thinking of these signs as being only related to the extraordinary or the miraculous, which have been transformed for many of our contemporaries as the only place in which God can be found.

The first of these miracles which Jesus performed in Cana, on the contrary, placed the glory of God among a daily reality, a wedding banquet. Herein we are invited to discover the presense of God in Jesus, who was himself a sign of God's presence in history, among daily events of life. It is here where we should find God and give the same response as the disciples who, at cana, "believed in him."

The wedding banquet became an occasion for the manifestation of the glory of God, thanks to whom we can find an adequate, mature, and joyful religiosity.

You can't have a party without wine. Happiness cannot be the natural consequence of a religiosity centered in the pure and the unpure, or in the permitted and the prohibited. On the contrary, it is only after being trasformed themselves that the waters for purification rites can adequately express the hope of the gospel. And, thanks to the actions of Jesus, displeasure can be trasformed into celebration and worries can be turned into festivals.

Is this interpretation complicated? Yes, it is complicated, in that the text is sophisticated, elabortae, and full of allusions and cryptic messages. To read, to proclaim, or to comment on the gospel of John as if it simply talked about a wedding banquet in which Jesus founded the sacrament of marriage, without further complications, will result in an easy and comfortable reading, but it will profoundly lack the truth. Although it will be more difficult, it is better to treat our listeners like adults, and not to throw out the complexities of some texts. To interpret them only from the literal meaning of the words on a page would be to take us into the realm of fundamentalism.

For personal conversion:

The gospel of John presents the life of Jesus as a progressive succession of miracles or signs. His life is at his own bequest. Is my life this way? Am I a sign for others? Do I know, like Jesus did, how to be a sign mediated between simple and daily, profane realities, or am I only able to be a sign to others in the sacred realms? What should I do in order to be more like Jesus?

For the whole community or Bible study

What could be signs of God for us today? In what ways is "water converted into wine" today?

Where do we find Jesus doing miracles or making signs today? Where do we find Jesus continuing his work with the help of his disciples?

Mary and Jesus are at the wedding party, and they have to do with the wine at the party. Why have Mary and Jesus been thought of as distant from the party and the joyful celebration? What has the moral Christian been perceived of as the enemy of happiness?

What was Mary's attitude about the wedding in Cana? Saint John of Avila has noted that the story of the wedding at Cana contains "Mary's little sermon," the only homily which Mary offered, which is quite short: "Do whatever he tells you." What Marian features can we find in her "little sermon?"

Note: We are beginning ordinary time; liturgically speaking, a parenthesis between Christmas and Lent. It is not to early to begin preparing the congregation for Lent.

The prayers of the People

For youth, that they will discover in their own time, the call which God has for their life: an adventure of love, that they might transform the waters of sadness into the joy of gladness for all of humanity, we pray to the Lord.

That the simple, daily things of life might speak to us in a different language and bring us to a closer encounter with ourselves, our brothers and sisters, and with God, we pray to the the Lord.

For all married couples, that they might live with joy, and that each day they might find new creatives ways to tell each other of their love for one another, we pray to the Lord.

The communal prayer

O God of all people, you have spoken in many ways to humanity. For us, Jesus is the great "sign" which allows us to come closer to you. We ask that you will open our eyes, illume our minds, and inflame our hearts sot hat we might also be for others "signs" of your love, joy, and hope. Until one day we are all united as one people in your presence, our eternal home. You live and reign forever and ever. Amen.