Isaiah 62:1-5Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
I Corinthians 12:1-11Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â
John 2:1-11
 It is said that the purpose of a sermon or homily is to relate the readings from Holy Scripture to our lives and the world around us. As the theologian Karl Barth said, the preacher goes into the pulpit with the Bible in one hand and the daily newspaper in the other. My usual technique in doing this is to start with the daily newspaper, with our lives, our situations – an incident, a person, a situation we all know about or can relate to. We aren’t very familiar with the Bible, we don’t most of us read it at home, and to start with it always seems to me to turn people off.
But St. John’s gospel is hard to preach on that way. It doesn’t have neat little parables, interesting characters, “morals†or “messages†that can easily be related to everyday life. St. John’s is a mystical gospel. It was written late, by the only disciple of Jesus who did not meet a martyr’s death but lived into extreme old age, reflecting and meditating and polishing his thoughts about the Lord he had known and who loved him especially. John’s gospel is poetic, symbolic, every word heavy with meaning, often coded meaning.