1 THE GOSPEL THAT GOT ME INTO TROUBLE (Jn 2:1-11)
1.1 Methodist Book of Offices
Of all the Gospel passages, this one has got me into the most trouble.
In my old Methodist days in the ministry I used to conduct my weddings from the Methodist Book of Offices.
We always began with the reference to this recorded early miracle by Jesus at a wedding.
It surprised me no end at how informed everyone seemed to be about this Gospel story and that Methodist ministers were sworn off this wine that Jesus had appeared to have created out of water.
Invariably I was questioned about this apparent contradiction.
They may have known little else about the Bible but they all knew this story.
1.2 Candidating for Methodist ministry (1961)
In the days of my entry into the ministry, all candidates were ushered into an austere wood-panelled room,
lined up inside the door facing a long table
surrounded by the fathers of the Methodist Conference,
each in their black suits with those gleaming clerical collars.
I was warned beforehand that one of the last questions asked of each of us was whether we had sworn off spirituous liquors, and sure enough this happened.
I have over the years studiously avoided preaching on this passage fearing riots among the congregation.
So, having said this, we shall return to this passage after a short visit to Corinth.
2 CORINTH (1 Cor 12:1-11)
2.1 The isthmus of Corinth
We need this brief visit to get into why Paul wrote what he did when he did.
On your next trip to Greece, have a look at Corinth.
It’s stuck in that narrow neck separating those land masses in Greece to the north and south and separating the Ionic and the Aegean Seas.
Everyone travelling by land or by sea then had to go through Corinth.
To avoid the Mediterranean westerly gales, ships and their goods were transported across the isthmus by imported heavy lifters, so it ended up peopled by a throng of diverse cultures and not a place you would want to frequent at night.
2.2 Speaking in tongues
This diversity was reflected in the church founded by Paul with all sorts of factions mainly based around respective cultural traditions.
One of them, mostly the original Corinthians, were given to strange spontaneous emotional utterances, known as speaking in tongues under the influence of the Spirit (no, nothing to do with our Gospel reading).
Now, when we were studying this letter at Kingswood College, a few of us snuck out one Sunday evening to a Pentecostal service to see this phenomenon for ourselves.
During the service, one would start then each would set others off, a bit like dogs barking.
2.3 Glossolalian snobbery
This practice has been around all the church’s life mainly at the fringes.
The problem arises when people who practise this glossolalia look down their noses at those who don’t, judging them to be not true Christians because they haven’t received a good enough dose of the Spirit.
This is what was happening at Corinth.
3 THE SPIRITUAL BODY (1 Cor 12 – 15)
3.1 Chapters 12 to 14
To understand where Paul is heading, following this passage, Paul speaks about the Church as the body of Christ with parts making up the whole.
He then moves into ch 13 – “Though I speak….”
He returns to write about speaking in tongues, concluding with 14:40 that “all things should be done decently and in order.”
Sounds like the Uniting Church.
3.2 Chapter 15
Ch 15 starts with the Resurrection and Paul talks about the body again that in 15:44 we are risen as a “spiritual body”.
“Spirit”? “Body”? That sounds like a contradiction in terms.
And yet it makes sense.
The One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, in Paul’s eyes, is the spiritual body of the risen Christ.
This is the climax, I believe, of the whole letter which I hope you’ll read for yourself.
3.3 Community of Body and Spirit
We, the Church together, are a body but it is spirit within us and between us that holds this body together.
In today’s language we are a community.
This is why we are here and why we keep meeting.
4 BACK TO THAT GOSPEL
4.1 New wine out of water (Jn 2:10)
I mentioned earlier that I would return to the Gospel reading before I drive you to drink.
Having returned from Corinth, we can now get the message John intended when he wrote this story into his Gospel.
The new wine out of water represents the people made new by the word who is Jesus.
4.2 Poured into the world
We are poured into the world that the world, in the words from Ps 34, may taste the Lord and see that he is good.
Be of good spirit!
