John 2:1-11

To read the Gospel of John well, one has to read it at multiple layers at once. Like a inside joke, John has different meanings dependent on whether one picks up the ironies or not, whether one reads it merely at the “literal” level, or if one sees in the “literal”, the “spiritual.” Such is the nature of a “sign” – a sign is a physical object that has a deeper significance that is found in the material of the sign, but that which goes farther to point to that which is beyond it. Think of a “stop sign.” It might help to walk through the passage on the “literal” level. The NIV translates the word as “miraculous sign” but it really is the emphasis is not on the physical act, but on what the transformation shows at a deeper level.

Seen from the spiritual, one can see that here we are at the “wedding feast of the Lamb.” Can you look through the passage and find how the passage “signs” the Lord’s Supper?

Finally, as Jesus “reveals his glory” – signs the Creator within the creation – his disciples believe in him. What is faith here? What does the revelation of God in Jesus bring about through this belief?

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

The Corinthian passage again presupposes the gathering of the church in worship. It seems to me that the reference to “Let Jesus be cursed!” and “Jesus is Lord” refers to two different confessions from this time that persons were occasionally faced as a result of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The first, the cursing of Jesus’ name, may have been required in certain settings to make sure that one was not a believer in Jesus. Fifty years later the governor Pliny tells the emperor that it is said that Christians would not curse Jesus’ name. It shows a severing of allegiance, faith, in Him. The confession “Jesus is Lord” may have been the earliest baptismal confession required which permitted one to entire the full worship of a congregation – participation in the body and blood of Jesus at the Lord’s Supper. Baptism was the entry to access into the full life of the church. The passage presupposes therefore that the Spirit has revealed Jesus Christ to persons who have then been pulled into a congregation through this common, but common, but very personal, faith.

The passage also presupposes a large distinction between the life of the congregation and a previous life in which one was a “pagan.” There is not an attempt to make the “pagan world” better; there is a call to a conversion from the practices of the wider world because one lives now in faith (allegiance, loyalty) to Jesus Christ as a member of a congregation. The worship of statues represented the proper order of the city and the empire. Paul seems to presuppose that such loyalties were utterly left behind in baptism
as living as a member of the congregation in Corinth.
Given that the revelation of Jesus Christ had gathered these individuals into a common group that contrasts with the society, the passage deals with the relationship in the church between the one and the many, the individual and the “community,” or better, the person and the congregation? What does one see in the passage about roles within the congregation? Is the individual absorbed into the “community”? Does initiation into the congregation annul or empower the individual? What is the purpose of the individual? Does the individual do “their own thing” regardless of the congregation? What holds the multiplicity of gifts and individuals within the congregation together? Why does the passage not speak of the “community” discerning the gifts of each other or as functioning to affirm each individual in their gifts? Why are the gifts lead to a common good? What is the “common good” for which the Spirit gives gifts? In other words, given the first part of the passage, what common good of the congregation for which the Spirit gives the individual gifts? One might need to think as a minority group, like the Sudanese, who try to sustain their culture and families amidst a society that radically undercuts their fundamental way of life.
Isaiah 62:1-5

If the Gospel shows the revelation of God in Christ, if 1 Corinthians shows the results of the gathering of the faith-full as a result of this revelation internally, we need to read Isaiah 62:1-5 as the mission to the world as a result of the revelation of God in Christ. “Zion” and “Jerusalem” provide images of the church or a congregation. It shows what God will bring about as a result of God’s revelation by the “servant of the Lord” (Isa. 53) and the impact among the nations. This is a statement of hope. What does the passage presuppose about the current state of “Jerusalem”? Yet what is Jerusalem’s purpose in the world? How does “Jerusalem” work as a revelation of God?

The passages thus speak of a certain order: God’s revelation in Christ, personal faith in Christ that leads to participation in a unified congregation that enfolds individuals without losing their individuality, a congregation’s positive visible witness amidst the world for the sake of “kings” and nations. It is not through influencing kings, or by taking control of the world that “Jerusalem” witnesses to God. It is by its movement from desolation to visible life in the world.

Maybe you can speak of this order, where you’ve seen it, or heard of it. Maybe you can talk and pray how we as a congregation might better live this unified witness in the world.

Have a wonderful time together!