As we read this passage, let us be sure to avoid falling into the trap of thinking about parties in contemporary terms, thereby applying anachronisms or ideas too broadly that might naturally occur to us. This is not an issue of simply throwing a party, making sure that everybody at the party gets the good drinks first, and then, once everybody at the entire party is drunk, bringing out the lower quality beverages, doing so at a time when people are less likely to care what they are imbibing. This is, quite simply, not the situation at hand in Cana. Remember, there is an order of quality and an order of service, with the best food, and the largest amount of food, along with the best and largest amount of wine, going to the more honored or honorable guests, with the guests at the far end of the table, and therefore at the lower end of the social spectrum, left with items of much lower quality.
Jesus has created a problematic situation for all involved. This should not be overlooked. We tend to romanticize the words of Scripture that we have just read, looking at them through goggles that distort the image that would have been easily seen and obvious to the first century author, reader, and hearer. That distorted image has us seeing and hearing the head steward going to the bridegroom and offering him a compliment in regards to his generosity and his unexpected grace, which is put on display by lavishing the best wine upon his guests at the end of his party, clearly sparing no expense in so doing. From there, we make an analogy about the grace of God, as shown through Jesus, and perhaps even toss around a couple of ideas about the law as good wine, gifted by God, whereas the Gospel is an even better wine that has been saved for the end, therefore placing Jesus in the role of head steward, God the Father as the obviously generous bridegroom, with the servants that filled the purification jars (now clearly representing the strictures of the law---with an associated new wine versus old wineskin paradigm) representing the church, and the historical Jesus that speaks to the servants now functioning as more of a Holy Spirit figure, commanding the servants (the church).
This sets off something of a spiritualized, proof-texting binge (not entirely dissimilar to the usual cavalcade of under-Scripturalized and under-historicized over-spiritualizations generally associated with the book of Revelation in general and the letter to the Laodicea more specifically) in which we take this miracle and fold it up with other miracle reports in the Gospels as little more than evidences of the divinity of Jesus, as if the Gospels were merely meant to function in such a way. In an even more entertaining venture, some attempt to use this event as Jesus’ own approbation of drinking alcoholic beverages, as if this occurrence was God’s way of legitimating a questionable activity. Amazingly, and in the same vein, some individuals, with equally narrow fields of vision as those who actually want to use this event as a sanction for the drinking of wine, endeavor to employ the miracle at this wedding feast as a polemic against the drinking of alcohol. As surprising and antithetical as that may sound, the claim is made with the argument running along the lines of “because the wine was new, it had not had time to ferment and was therefore non-alcoholic, meaning that it was nothing more than grape juice, which is Jesus’ (and therefore God’s) way of informing us that this, since this ‘wine’ (though it’s really just grape juice) is clearly recognized as being better than what had gotten everybody drunk to that point, is what God would prefer His people imbibe from this point.” Both sides, of course, are equally ridiculous. Any attempts to draw inferences for Christian practice in the area of beverage consumption from this miraculous intervention by Jesus and its presentation by the author of John, is an exercise in missing the point that is about as useful as looking at Jesus’ declaration of the fact that He is standing outside the door of the church at Laodicea as a salvation message that insists that Jesus needs to be invited into our heart so that we can go to heaven.
Now, all of this is not to say that we do not have a lavishly generous and unexpectedly gracious God. It is not to say that we are unable to draw inferences from the events in the life of Jesus that will assist us in our spirit-animated journey of faith as functionaries in this world on behalf of God’s kingdom. It is to say, however, that if we miss the real world importance of the life of Jesus, and if we do not first set these stories within their historical, cultural, and social contexts, and make every effort to first understand them on their own terms as they would be understood by those who experienced them first-hand, then we are most likely going to miss out on the true theological richness that lies ready at hand, as Jesus does go about revealing God. We must not skip over the fact that this is, first and foremost, a real-world event happening to and with real-world people with real-world customs and concerns, just as we must remember when we dissect the letters to the churches in Revelation. Because there are realities in play, there are real world considerations and consequences, as we shall see.
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