FINDINGS II
Epiphany
II - C - January 17, 2010
Isaiah 62: 1-5; I Corinthians 12: 1-11; John
2: 1-11
 By Harry T. Cook
1/11/10
RUBRIC
We take a detour into the fourth gospel on this second
Sunday after Epiphany, there to see John1:50 fulfilled just nine verses into
chapter 2 -- the first of what will be seven "signs" meant by the author(s) to
lay out the substance of proof for the stupendous declaration of John 1: 1-14
to the effect that the force behind and within the universe stepped into the
life of the world as a human being. We are unseen guests at a wedding supper
imagined to have taken place in the settlement of Cana, almost at the
dead-center of Galilee some 8-10 crow-flown miles north of Nazareth. The best
guess is that "Cana" was actually Khirbet Qana at that approximate location.
Cana, as we will refer to it in its Anglicized spelling, is
the fifth particular location named in the gospel. Jerusalem is the first, Bethany
the second, Galilee the third and Bethsaida the fourth. It is in Bethany and
Galilee that the events depicted in the latter part of chapter 1 are said to
have occurred, viz., the colloquy between John the Baptist and the delegation
from Jerusalem (1:19-28), the two appearance of Jesus, presumably in or around
Bethany, on which the Baptist comments (1:29-34 and 35-42). It is after that at
1:43 that John says Jesus "decided to go to Galilee" -- no reason given --
where he encounters Philip then Nathanael. It was this latter meeting that
produced the "you will see greater things than these" statement, leading
directly to the events at Cana.
WORKSHOP
The Cana episode stands alone in the gospel witness. There
is not even a close parallel to it in the synoptics. The other six "signs"
depicted in John (at 4: 46-54, 6: 1-15, 6: 16-21 in 9 and 11) consist in a healing,
the loaves and fishes, walking on water, two other healings and, if we hadn't
yet gotten the point, the raising of Lazarus.
Here and there in the work of scholars there is made mention
that the Cana event has at least typological parallels with the pagan feast
called The Vintage connected with the god Dionysius at which the well-known
pleasures of wine were celebrated. Others have observed that wedding feasts in
that part of the world at that time relied on the kindness of guests for some
of the wine supply -- much as people today bring gifts to weddings -- and that
Jesus and his small following being itinerant would have had no such resources.
Perhaps, then, in John's imagination Jesus' mother was counseling that he be
polite and do the right thing with the extraordinary abilities he, as logos
incarnate, John clearly believed Jesus possessed (2: 3,5).
Dr. Jocelyn McWhirter, assistant professor of religious
studies at Albion College, in her doctoral dissertation at Princeton
Theological Seminary, calls attention to the connection made in Semitic
antiquity between wine and messiahs. McWhirter points out that "the final
oracle in Amos (9:11, 13-14) links the restoration of the Davidic king with an
eschatological abundance of wine."/1 McWhirter
also cites 2d Baruch 29: 3, 5-6 in which the apocryphal writer celebrates a
vintage of which "one branch will produce a thousand clusters, and one cluster
will produce a thousand grapes, and one grape will produce a cor /2 of
wine." Nothing here directly about the excellence of the vintage, but it seems
to be implied.
It seems impossible to credit the Cana story as the report
of an actual event (especially 2: 7-10 being the part about the changing of
water into wine) if only because in virtually all cases in which the gospels craft
accounts of Jesus altering natural circumstances the cause has been far more
compelling than a shortage of wine. The preponderant witness of the synoptic
gospels in particular is that Jesus' powers (whatever they may have been in the
imaginings of the evangelists) were exercised on behalf of hurting or
ostracized human beings.
What about the use of the phrase "on the third day" (2:1)?
Fundamentalist commentators jump to the conclusion that it is an allusion to
"the third day" or the day of resurrection. However, the fourth gospel does not
use that locution other than here in chapter 2, as we have seen. It is
interesting to note that it should really be "the fourth day" if it follows
upon three "on the next days" (1:29, 1:35 and 1:43). In any event, is the
alleged transformation of water into wine any more or less believable that the
reanimation of dead tissue -- the last "sign" in chapter 11?
The most compelling character in this episode is "the mother
of Jesus," neither here nor elsewhere in the John's gospel given a name. The
"Marys" mentioned by that name in the fourth gospel are Mary of Bethany (11:
1ff and 12:3), a Mary said to be the wife of Clopas (19: 25) and Mary Magdalene
(also 19:25).
"The mother of Jesus" makes two appearances in John, the
first in Cana and the second at 19:26, at the foot of the cross. Is it possible
that this was part of the Johannine effort to drive home the point that logos
becoming flesh of 1: 1-14 was an actual human being with a human mother whom
Jesus is nevertheless made by John to address formally as "woman" (gunai)?
"God," of course, is called or referred to as "father" by John's Jesus.
The "mother of Jesus" is depicted as seeing that the party
had become wine-less. In John's telling, she merely looks at Jesus meaningly
and says, "They have no wine." In our idiom, Jesus' retort might have been,
"Not now, woman. This is neither the time nor the place for what you're
thinking." Maybe the mother in John's imagination was embarrassed because she
and her son had brought no wine, as it may have been the custom to do (see
above).
The upshot is that water of purification or ritual washing
becomes, through some process unaccounted for in the narrative, wine -- and not
only wine, but good wine. John makes certain of the symbolism, i.e, that
logos/Jesus is, like the wine, the real thing. What came before, like the first
wine served, was an inferior vintage, barely comparable to the unexpected wine
drawn off from jars filled with rainwater for the washing of hands. From the
ordinary, the extraordinary. The key factor is the creative potency that is
logos, now here, now there creating and being created, even recreating as in
Lazarus -- the last and most dramatic sign of which the wine at the wedding in
Cana of Galilee was the first.
/1 McWhirter,
Jocelyn, The Bridegroom Messiah and the People of God, 2006, Cambridge University
Press, pp. 47-50
/2 a "cor" was
a quantity of solid or liquid of an indeterminate measure, but generally thought
to be a large amount
HOMILETIC COMMENTARY
A student of mine used to sigh deeply when an attempt was
made to "rationalize" any biblical passage. She would say, "Can't it just mean
what it says?" To her the so-called miracles were just that, exactly what one
would expect from a person who, she firmly believed, was literally God in human
mufti. The Cana narrative turned out to be a favorite of hers and she suffered
grievously when it occurred in the curriculum and her fellow students and I
fell upon with implements from our exegetical tool box. She was having none of
it and opined that we were what "was the matter with the church today."
Were we? Or were we treating the Cana narrative as one would
treat, say, the myth of Demeter or of Icarus. In every myth (the word is a
steal from Greek μυθος - muthos meaning "story"), especially in a good myth,
there lies a germ of truth that only a story can illuminate. Something that is
"mythological" is not by definition untrue. So it is that many New Testament
scholars will say that the Cana narrative, while using the name of the village
and the name of the protagonist in a totally believable context, partakes in
myth for the simple reason that water is water and wine is wine.
The "germ of truth" in this brief "myth" may be that what is
ordinary (as in the water jars and their contents or an ordinary guy from
Galilee) can be perceived under the right circumstances as extraordinary (as in
an incomparable vintage or an incarnation of a universal force).
My wife and I fell in love over a bottle of some of the vilest
wine ever decanted. It is called "Lambrusco." I would rather drink machine oil.
But on a very memorable occasion, Lambrusco was the elixir of love because of
who was there and why.
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