My favorite activity this week was the reading from John 2:1-12. This was another “Imagine yourself in the scene” activity. I imagined myself gossiping with the agogos (grandmothers) and some other women, including Mary and the mother of the groom. We watch the other guests, the newly married couple, Mary’s son with his friends. I wonder how they were invited, but feel it would be rude to ask. Maybe they are friends of the groom.
At some point, a nervous steward comes over to tell the mother of the groom that the wine is nearly finished. Personally, I feel there has been enough drinking today, but many of the guests, that rowdy group with Jesus for example, will not respond well if the wine runs out. Mary, the enabler, calls her son over to enlist his help. A few of us speculate how far he will travel and how much he will pay to find sufficient wine to last this crowd through the night. I had expected he would be all for dragging off a few friends to find more wine and be the heroes of the moment, so I am surprised by his rude response. Then I recall how rowdy some of his friends and wonder if he feels as I do, that there has been quite enough drinking tonight. Nonetheless, he acquiesces and leaves to do her bidding.
A short time later, the steward reappears with wine I am informed is high quality and we again start speculating about the cost. He won’t say where the wine had come from, but some of the other workers claim Jesus had created it, somehow magicked water into wine like witchcraft. I decide it’s probably best to stay quiet. While I don’t condemn witchcraft out of hand, I am wary of it until I know the caster’s intentions. Most of the rest of the guests are just happy there’s more wine and think nothing of it until the story starts to spread the next day and they are quick to point out, “We were there!” I stay quiet and watch.
The activity asked, “How do you respond to Jesus turning water into wine?” Wary. That stunt served no purpose except maybe to irk his mother, who was concerned only for her friend’s reputation. Why was he so annoyed with her anyway? Because he knew her request was selfish? I don’t understand how this is a noteworthy miracle.
The image below is of a wine charm I made years ago. Read more about it on deviantArt. Around that time, my mother had complained we didn’t have enough wine charms for all of the guests at our winter solstice parties, where we’d serve glog made from dad’s homemade wine, so I made several wine charms from old necklace pendants and bracelet charms. This is one of maybe a dozen that I made out of beads, and one of the few that I have kept. I recall the wine glass had been part of a gift box of Harlequin romances. I kept the glass because I liked the color; I never got around to reading the books.
This post is part of my Lent 2025 Imaginative Readings series.
