by CCW | 23 January 2019 13:00
The story of Jesus teaching in the Temple at the age of twelve is complemented by the story of the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee. Both are epiphanies of the divinity of Christ; the one about divine wisdom, the other about divine power. The order is significant and speaks directly to our contemporary confusions in which reason or knowledge is subordinate to power. Human reason and power are finite and limited, on the one hand, and deficient and flawed, on the other hand. To know this is wisdom.
The deep lessons of the Epiphany are very much about what God seeks for our humanity. What is the purpose or end of our being and existence? Do we presume to think that human reason on its own power is sufficient to achieve human perfection? Or are we able to recognize the limits of our knowing and the problems of our doing? The questions are not simply rhetorical.
Wisdom and power are complementary divine attributes; properties of God made manifest in Jesus Christ in the Christian understanding. Such attributes of divinity are recognized in the other religions and philosophies of the world, albeit with differences of emphasis about the relation of wisdom and power.
In our contemporary global world, the technocratic reason that dominates our culture is very much about the subordination of reason to power. There is, however, no wisdom where reason is reduced to a tool or instrument of domination. These stories offer a corrective and a counter to our assumptions about power achieved through technology, a power which compromises the integrity of our humanity by reducing human thinking to thinking like a machine or to being “organic algorithms” as Yuval Noah Harari imagines. Greg Lukianoff’s and Jonathan Haidt’s The Coddling of the American Mind, Maryanne Wolf’s Reader, Come Home, James Bridle’s New Dark Age, Emerson T. Brooking’s and P.W. Singer’s Likewar, and Jaron Lanier’s Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now are but a few of a great and growing number of books and from a range of perspectives that highlight the problems of our over-dependence and uncritical relation to the digital world.
The questions by Jesus in these epiphany stories recall us to a deeper understanding of wisdom and power that speaks to the truth and dignity of our humanity. “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” Jesus says to Mary in the Temple, thus revealing his divine identity and purpose. What that divine purpose means for us is seen powerfully in the story of the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee where Jesus turns the water into wine. The symbolic significance of this story cannot be overlooked.
Mary names the human predicament. “They have no wine.” More than a description about the wedding feast, it signals a profound understanding about the human condition. We lack the wine of divinity which alone perfects our humanity. The point is that we lack the means of our blessedness or happiness in and of ourselves. To know this is to be open to something more, to the divine will for our humanity. But to name the human problem is one thing; to presume that we can dictate to God about giving us what we need and want is another thing. This is what Jesus means in his question to Mary. “O woman, what is that to thee and to me?” he asks and then adds, “mine hour has not yet come.”
God is not subject to the dictates of our desires rather our good is found in God and in his will for us. Ultimately, Jesus points to the real meaning and purpose of his Incarnation. It is about human redemption, about the end or purpose of our humanity as found in God but only at his will. “Mine hour” refers to the hour of his passion and death through which humanity is restored to union with God. In the previous story, Mary and Joseph did not understand Jesus’s saying but here Mary understands exactly what Jesus is saying. She bids the servants, “Whatsoever he says to you, do it”, an application to us of what she had applied to herself in her “be it unto me according to thy word.”
Water is turned into wine, indeed, into the very best wine. This shows us what God seeks for our humanity. He seeks our social joys, our joys as found in him and in one another, in our mutual delight in God and in one another. This is the real meaning and purpose of all of the miracles of the Gospel which is why John says it is the ‘arche’, the principle, through which to understand the miracles in general. Most of the miracles of the Gospel are about the healing of our wounded and broken humanity: “the blind see, the deaf hear, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised up and the poor have the Gospel preached to them”. And all because we lack the means of human perfection and wholeness in ourselves. It can only be found through our participation in the will of God for our creation. But why? For what end are these healing miracles?
This story answers that question. Healing and wholeness are for our good and delight in the things of God, for our life together in taking joy and delight in God and in one another. That is something worth learning; at once a check on our technocratic hubris and the realization of the divine will and purpose for our humanity. Such is wisdom, the wisdom and power of God at work in us, if we like Mary will learn what God seeks for us and act in accord with the divine teaching. Mary’s response to Jesus’ question is the epiphany in her and for us. Here is “the beginning of signs”, the very principle of all the miracles which teach us what God seeks for us in our life together. He seeks the very best for us which by definition is only found in his will for us. That very best is beyond what we can desire or accomplish of ourselves. It is found in the relation of wisdom and power and in the relation between God and man. “This beginning of signs did Jesus in Cana of Galilee”, John tells us, “and manifested forth his glory and his disciples believed on him.” What is made manifest or taught is given to be learned and lived in us. This is our wonder and our joy.
(Rev’d) David Curry
Chaplain, English & ToK teacher
Chair of the Department of Religion and Philosophy
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2019/01/23/kes-chapel-reflection-week-of-23-january/
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