So how does this visible social stratification at the banqueting table have any bearing on Jesus turning the water into wine? It has much to do with the “when” of the miracle. To understand the significance of what has happened, and to continue layering in levels of understanding as we build to a plausible conclusion concerning the Laodiceans, we’ll need to do some historical contextualizing so as to recover an aspect of the ancient world and its feasts that has been almost completely lost in the western world.
To do so, we turn first to Pliny the younger, a magistrate of ancient Rome, who lived from the late first century into the early second century. He wrote about feasts and community meals in and before his day, and his report speaks to the social order that is demonstrable in the service progressions in the meals. In reference to a meal at which he was an honored guest, Pliny writes: “Some very elegant dishes were served up to himself and a few more of the company; while those which were placed before the rest were cheap and paltry. He apportioned in small flagons three different sorts of wines; but it was not that the guests might take their choice: on the contrary, that they might not choose at all. One was for himself and me; the next for his friends of lower order (for you must know the measures of friendship according to degrees of quality; and the third for his own free men.”
What Pliny here describes is quite common, and we can see how this report might be applied to the wedding feat at Cana and the turning of the water into wine. Pliny makes the point that, while there were three different sorts of wines presented to the table, one should not be deluded into thinking that each person at the table was going to be able to choose which of the three wines they were going to take for themselves. If all were looked upon as equals, this might be the case, but this was not the prevailing situation. Again, there were clear delineations made between and among guests. In case the seating positions relative to the host was not a sufficient indicator to a person of his societal ranking, the quality of the food and wine which he would find offered to him would be a yet further indicator. Naturally, the host would have the finest wine and food served to his most honored guests, with the lesser wine served to those that were slightly less honorable (remember, this is an honor and shame society), with the poorest quality wine and food offered to those that were the least honorable, who also would have been seated the furthest away from him at the u-shaped table, if they were seated at the table at all.
A Latin poet named Martial, who lived just a few years after the time of Jesus, provides us with yet another interesting picture of the honor and shame culture that played out at the banqueting tables of the ancient world. From his work we read: “Since I am asked to dinner… why is not the same dinner served to me as to you? You take oysters fattened in the Lucrine lake, I suck a mussel through a hole in the shell; you get mushrooms, I take hog funguses; you tackle turbot, but I brill. Golden with fat, a turtle-dove gorges you with its bloated rump; there is set before me magpie that has died in its cage. Why do I recline with you?” It is easy to observe that there is a significant dichotomy of quality at work here. By now, can we not begin to make the mental analogy to Jesus’ conversion of water into wine?
As we consider what has been reported by both Pliny and Martial, and as we attempt to thrust ourselves into that foreign and ancient world of which we know woefully little, would we not find ourselves amazed---indeed, would not all those in attendance at such a function find themselves amazed if the best food and the premium wine was served at the end of the banquet? Yes, we would, because such a thing would be a scandalous reversal of the expectations of those in attendance. Is that not what happens in Cana?
Let’s look at the text, doing so with a far better mental framework by which to gain proper context as we do. Remember, Jesus was initially unconcerned, but eventually involves Himself in the situation that has been brought to His attention by His mother. When He finally gets involved, “Jesus told the servants, ‘Fill the water jars with water.’ So they filled them up to the very top. Then He told them, ‘Now draw some out and take it to the head steward,’ and they did. When the head steward tasted the water that had been turned to wine, not knowing where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), he called the bridegroom and said to him, ‘Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the cheaper wine when the guests are drunk. You have kept the good wine until now!’” (John 2:7-10)
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