Contextual Considerations

The role of the Cana story in the Fourth Gospel is a debatable one, so that Raymond Brown in his Anchor Bible commentary assigns it a double function: that of closing the series of events in Ch.1 and of opening the "Cana cycle".

But we might suggest a slightly different view: Ch.1 in its entirety is introductory, and may be divided into two sections:

1:1-18－ a THEOLOGICAL introduction in which historical elements are intermingled.

1:19-51－ a HISTORICAL introduction is which theological considerations are intermingled.

In spite of the historical nature of 1:19-51 and the historicity which may be accorded the "events", these "events" might be seen, not as an integral part of the "story" of Jesus, but rather as a prerequisite prelude to that story as it is recounted by "John". The "introductions" are, it goes without saying, meant for the Reader rather than intended as detailing the early days of Jesus' ministry.

Beginnings

It may be accepted that a concern with "beginnings" played a part in the elucidation of the "Jesus" story. It would also be apparent that Mary played an integral part in the stories about the "beginning" both of Jesus [Mt 1-2; Lk 1-2] and of the Church [Acts 1:14]. Unless we can imagine the Johannine author or authors or school operating in a complete vacuum, it would be obvious that these ideas would also affect them.

Much is rightly made of the fact that in Ch.2 the Cana miracle is not called the "first" sign but the "arche" ["beginning" or even "principle"] of the signs. Without going unacceptably beyond the intention of the Gospel, we may see the whole life of Jesus as a sign, and Cana as its beginning. It would be important that Mary, "the mother of Jesus" would be involved in this beginning.

It would appear that the "beginning" which occurred at the message of the Angel also marked an end (7). A justification of this would require an analysis of the Lucan annunciation scene, of the function of John the Baptist in relation to Jesus etc. Suffice it to say here that it is not impossible that the "beginning" which was Cana should also mark an end. Again, looking beyond the limits of the present essay to much that has been said in terms of Israel as the vineyard of the Lord, (especially, perhaps, in reference to the prophecy of Isaiah), and the importance of this theme for an adequate elucidation of much New Testament imagery, for brevity's sake we may suggest:

Mary said THEY have no wine,

and by THEY she meant simply the young couple as hosts.

Jesus heard Mary say "THEY..."

but his understanding [would have] jumped to ISRAEL:

Israel has no wine…(8)

By implication, the context for an elucidation of the reaction of Jesus to Mary's words at Cana ought not to be confined to the " Sitz im Evangelium*", the context of the Gospel, but should be sought also in the " Sitz im Leben Jesu*", the life-situation of Jesus himself, which must, no matter how elusive the object of the investigation might be, pay some attention to Jesus' human search for the Father's will.

Unless we imagine Jesus coming from heaven with a timetable of his life in his head and a clear heavenly picture of his destiny in his mind and heart, we must (a view, of course, much more consonant with the reality of the self-emptying inherent in the Incarnation) accept the fact that, like all of us, he had to find his vocation, and to grow (in wisdom and grace) into an understanding and acceptance of the Father's will for him. It can be relatively easily demonstrated from the Gospels that Jesus appears to have found his vocation in the book of Isaiah. But again, all the modalities of that vocation had to be discerned in the living out of his daily life.

To gather, to begin to gather, disciples was one thing, to know when the "hour" of actually beginning the great sign of his total public life had arrived was another thing. We always look for "signs from heaven", and Jesus reminded us that we ought to discern the signs of the times. But one cannot discern in the abstract: one needs a context in which to discern, even a concrete question which has to be faced and answered through discernment.

Mary As Prophet

Following up and elaborating the suggestions made here, we may say that at Cana Jesus physically "heard" Mary speaking of the young couple's plight, but, in his discerning search for the Father's will, he "heard", in her voice and in her words, and in the lived "parable" of the young couple, the voice of the Father calling his attention to the plight of Israel. It was time to move - not in answer to a request for a miracle from his mother, not by "advancing" his "hour" at her "request". (Strictly speaking, from a language point of view, she made no request but simply a statement). It was time for him to move, in his own free response to the Father's call as that call was mediated for him by the circumstances of the wedding at Cana and by the words of Mary as an unwitting prophet, even the last of the prophets.

As Jessu could refuse to hear the voice of the Father in the "tempting" suggestion of his unbelieving relatives [Jn 7:1-11], so there is no a priori reason why he should not discern the call of the Father in the words of his Mother, especially against the background of a wedding feast which, pace a large number of exegetes, can scarcely, within the total context of the biblical imagery of marriage and of wedding feasts, be reduced merely to background. Mary, in the simple unwitting way that is true of most of us, because for Jesus the voice of the Father. As such, she stands at the end of the Old Testament as its last prophet, calling from the depths of Israel for the wine of redemption.

[Completed, 17th April, 1988]

(6)It does not seem a satisfactory solution to suggest that Mary's words, and hence, perhaps by implication, Jesus' words also, are only [?] part of the story-telling technique, as would appear to be Bultmann's solution, unless one elaborates this further in terms of the narrated narrative being the objectively expressed correlative of a lived narrative or "story", at least as far as that lived narrative or "story" is understood by the "literary" narrator. This same point was made, in reference to the Mary's words to the angel [Lk 1:33], though in very different terms, in an article by Auer in Revue Biblique over 30 years ago, "L' Annonce a Mane".

(7)Briefly, it is this "end", and the transition implied in it, which is the basis for using "Ark of the Covenant" as a Mariological title.

(8)The Justification of such a suggestion cannot be textual, but only contextual in the wider sense accepted in the following paragraghs, plus an inherent [?] probability that Jesus' penchant for telling parables was an objective correlative of a subjective disposition, allowing him, we might hazard a guess, to see the parabolic value of much that surrounded him in his daily life: lilies in a field, fishing nets, etc., etc.,－a wedding in Cana? things said to him? His mother's words at Cana? There is the further context of interpretation as an ongoing search for inner coherence whether in the "lived" or the "narrated" narrative.　

Without wishing to attribute these suggestions, especially if entirely unacceptable, to anyone else, I might submit that, following up the suggestion made in note 6 through an exploration of narrative theology such as elaborated by John Navone's book on the Jesus Story, and the co-authored Tellers of the Word, etc, much illative and acceptable insight might be engendered into the role of the Cana story in the Johannine story of Jesus, and indeed into many other points in scripture.