Readings for January 16:
Isaiah 62:1-5
Psalm 96:1-3, 7-10
1 Corinthians 12:4-11
John 2:1-11
When I think of a prophet, I think of someone who foretells punishment and doom unless a person doesn’t change his or her ways. I think of someone who tells people what they should do.
But that’s not what the above verses from Isaiah do. Instead, they focus on what God does. Isaiah begins the passage by saying he won’t be quiet until God “vindicates” Zion (62:1). The Bing.com dictionary defines vindication as “clearing someone from blame or suspicion” The prophet will not “keep still until her vindication shines forth like the dawn” (Isa. 62: 1) Later Isaiah addresses God’s people directly, saying No more shall you be called ‘Forsaken'” (62 4). Instead, he says “you shall be called . . . ‘Espoused.’ . . . “your Builder shall marry you” (Isa. 62:4). The intimate partners of God won’t be known by the times they didn’t have the same goals as God. They’ll be praised for the ways they reflect God’s nature. They will be God’s”[d]elight” (Isa. 62:4).
How reassuring.
“There are kinds of different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different workings but the same God produces all of them in everyone.”
— 1 Corinthians 4-6
It’s not just the words from Isaiah that surprise me. A word in the passage from the first letter to the Corinthians does, too. The reminder that “[t]here are kinds of different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; there are different workings but the same God produces all of them in everyone” is familiar, as is the list of gifts that follows it: “to one is given the expression of wisdom . . . to another . . . healing,” but there’s a gift in this list that I hadn’t remembered being there—”faith” (1 Cor. 12: 4-9). The construction of this passage indicates that some people are given faith, while others are not. Faith is a gift from God. It’s not something I achieve on my own, something I make happen, nor is it something that can be forced on someone else. Like any gift, it isn’t earned; it’s given freely, and is most beneficial if received with gratitude and then shared. A gift — faith included — isn’t something to be lorded over someone who doesn’t have it. Why should a gift be used as a mark of superiority over someone else when everyone—the passage actually says everyone — receives gifts from the Spirit whether he or she has faith or not? Each individual is given “the manifestation of the Spirit,” whether that manifestation is faith or not “. . . for some benefit” (1 Cor. 7). I can manifest the Spirit even in times of struggle and doubt.
How reassuring.
The story of the wedding in Cana also says to me that the Spirit manifests and often unexpected ways. In this story, even Jesus doesn’t seem to be expecting to do the work of God in that place, at that time. After all, when his mother tells him, “They have no wine,” he responds with, “Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come” (John 2: 4). This response unsettles me whenever I come across it. However, understanding Jesus as human—albeit a human who cooperates fully with the Spirit — gives me some perspective on the exchange. Just because He is one with the Spirit doesn’t mean that while he was in a human body He always knew when and how the Spirit was going to work through Him and others.
I imagine Him having been told by His mother what she’d been told about Him before and after He was born — that He was the “Messiah” and that “[H]e would save His people from their sins” (Luke 2: 11; Matt. 1:21). Is finding some more wine a messianic action? Could this action be part of saving people from their sins? This wine problem seems like one the host could have avoided and could solve himself, Besides, Jesus had been looking forward to relaxing and having fun with family and old friends and new friends on this day. The Spirit reminds Him what he really has never forgotten. He just wasn’t thinking about it earlier that day— that Abba works in all circumstances through everyone, including His mother and the servers at the wedding. He thinks to Himself that wine, like everything else is a gift from the Father, so the Father works through it. Yes, there are many problems people can avoid, not the least of which are sins. He has come to help them bear the consequences of sin with and for them so they can share in the His oneness with the Father. He tells the servers what the Spirit tells Him to tell them. The result of the miracle that follows, I learned from the end of the passage is that “[H]is disciples began to believe in [H]im” (John 2:11). This bit of information implies that not everyone at the wedding began to believe in Him. In fact, earlier in the passage, I’m told that only “the servers who had drawn the water knew” where the new supply of wine had come from (John 2:9). Most people at the wedding don’t seem to know what Jesus has done. Most of the guests are simply appreciative of the wine they are drinking (John 2:10).
From the passage, I don’t get any sense of blame for what most of the wedding guests don’t know yet or don’t believe yet. On the contrary, this reading of the passage tells me what the psalm and the epistle tell me – that God is patient beyond my understanding, that God “vindicates,” and God uses all of us, with our unique roles and combinations of gifts to share the gift of vindication to anyone open to receiving it Isa. (61.1).
How reassuring.
Work cited
The Bible. The New American Bible Revised Edition, Kindle edition, Fairbrother, 2011.
Sitting with the Sacred 
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