Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 66


Nations shall behold your vindication,
and all the kings your glory;
you shall be called by a new name
pronounced by the mouth of the LORD.
You shall be a glorious crown in the hand of the LORD,
a royal diadem held by your God.
No more shall people call you "Forsaken, "
or your land "Desolate, "
but you shall be called "My Delight, "
and your land "Espoused."
For the LORD delights in you
and makes your land his spouse.


According to Saint John, Jesus inaugurated his ministry with a miraculous -- and subtle -- gesture during a wedding in Cana. In the synoptic gospels his campaign begins with larger, more dramatic demonstrations of power. He storms the countryside in Mark, astonishes listeners in a synagogue in Luke and preaches a Sermon on the Mount in Matthew. Only a few people knew what had happened at Cana: Jesus, Mary, his disciples and the servants. The bridegroom and his steward were befuddled; and the guests, weary after several days of celebration, didn't notice.
Saint John maintains this theme of understated, unpretentious signs throughout his gospel. He has a private conversation with Nicodemus in the middle of the night; a second with a woman in Samaria. Much is revealed during these meetings but not many are privy to them. He fed several thousand in the desert and then disappeared up the mountain before the astonished crowd could make him king. He healed a crippled man by the pool of Bethesda and then disappeared into the crowd, reappearing later to speak privately to the fellow.
When he finally did something truly spectacular -- calling Lazarus out of death -- it led directly to his arrest and crucifixion -- as he knew it would.
In the Gospel of John, Jesus presents his teaching about the sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist with subtlety and irony. He doesn't give us the institution formula -- "This is my body... This is my blood" -- during the Last Supper. Nor did he baptize anyone. The sacraments of confirmation, marriage, anointing of the sick and the forgiveness of sins are there also; they flow through the foundational sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist. But we cannot fail to recognize his explicit teachings about Baptism in John 3 and Eucharist in John 6. No one can know the Lord who is not baptized; nor anyone who does not eat his flesh and drink his blood.
So did Jesus intend to start a Church? The question has appeared as some people opt to take their bibles and meditate alone, over a quiet cup of coffee in the morning hours before work.
One obvious answer is they would not know the Lord if he weren't announced by someone, and there would be no one to announce if there were no community to tell the story. Nor can we regard two millennia of Christian tradition which arrived with my cup of coffee this morning as a happy accident of history. A lot of people acted intentionally, often heroically, and they could have done so only with the courage and fire of the Holy Spirit.
That's logical. But logic doesn't often persuade. What does Jesus want of me as I meditate over this cup of coffee? That I should belong to a fellowship of Christians, attend the meetings, pay the dues, teach another generation, build the infrastructure that will survive my passing? Isn't it enough that I just believe?

Oddly, the bride doesn't appear in the John's Cana narrative. We hear about a bridegroom, steward and guests but not about the bride. She must be there however. No bride, no wedding! Who is she? Where is she?

She is the Church. In John 2 she is the Mother of Jesus, the disciples, the guests and the servants. She is the unnamed witness, the "Horatio" to Jesus' "Hamlet," who, in John 20, enters the empty tomb, sees the rolled-up shroud, and believes. 

She is you and me.

There is no salvation without you and me. Absent from the Lord there is no hope for us; absent from the drenching water that gushed from his chest, from the flesh that is eaten and the blood we must drink, there is no grace, no spirit, no life. Nor any way that leads to salvation. 

"I have come that they may have life and have it more abundantly!" the disciple declares as she is washed in Baptism and receives the Sacred Eucharist. 

Whatever you do, do from the heart, as for the Lord and not for others, knowing that you will receive from the Lord the due payment of the inheritance; be slaves of the Lord Christ.