Morning After Preaching, Second Sunday after Epiphany
“What’s that got to do with me?” We’ve all said it, I’m sure. “What’s that got to do with me?” Normally when we’ve been asked to do something or say something we don’t want to – it’s the equivalent of saying, “It’s not my problem.” Your mom tells you to visit grandma when you’re back home, or the Episcopal Chaplain wants you to trek across to the B-School for Compline, and you say to yourself, “What’s that got to do with me?”
Or perhaps when your conscience pricks you to do a good deed – to give a dollar to a homeless guy, or to go to the aid or someone who’s fallen over – then anther part of you might say, “but what’s that person got to do with me.” We often say it when we know that we should do something but don’t really want to. So it might seem surprising that Jesus says these very words to his mother in our Gospel today.
Together at a wedding in Cana, right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, his mother comes to him and says that the bridegroom and his family have run out of wine. Imagine what a social faux pas that would be today and multiply it ten times, because in the ancient world, the honor of the family was at stake.
The news gets back to Mary, who goes and tells her son, “They have no wine.” And Jesus answers her, “Woman, what have you to do with me?” (Jn 2:4.)
Jesus doesn’t seem at all concerned, either about the honor of the hosts or the wishes of his mother. Even though he goes on to perform the miracle of turning water into wine, what sticks in my mind are those words, “Woman, what have you to do with me?”
Why does Jesus say such a thing? And what does it mean for us. Well, I think it is no surprise that these words, and this story, are found in John’s Gospel.
For John, it is of supreme importance that Jesus has so little to do with the wedding party, or his mother, or his disciples, or you and me. It is that Jesus is different from us that his life should make all the difference in the world. For Jesus is not just another ordinary fellow. He doesn’t do things just because his mom tells him to. His purpose in life is not for all the old ladies at the wedding to coo and say “oh, isn’t he such a well-behaved young man?” He is different for a special reason: the reason he’s here.
There is something different about him. On a psychological or spiritual or metaphysical level, whatever you want to call it, this person is on another plane. “Woman, what have you to do with me?” is not a smart remark from a petulant son, but a psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical truth. What have you to do with me because I am here for something rather more than transforming water into wine? I am here to transform my mother’s life, my disciples’ lives, all lives, into a new life with God.
It is the transformation of humanity, not of water into wine, that Jesus is here for. In the story of the wedding at Cana, what matters to Jesus is the thing he calls his hour: he tells his mother, “My hour has not yet come.” His “hour” is the reason he’s come.
This “hour” is another theme of John’s gospel. It is the thing that guides all of Jesus’s decisions, that shapes how he acts. It refers to the end of his life, which is for John the whole point of Jesus’s mission on earth. As the one sent by God, it is what Jesus does in the last hour of his life that makes sense of all the rest. This is the hour he’s been waiting for, and why in John’s Gospel his last word from the cross is tetelesthein, “It is accomplished.” I’ve finished what I came here to do.
On the cross, Jesus’s hour has come. Here again is his mother, standing near the cross, looking to him perhaps for another miracle. And here again he says to her, “Woman.” “Woman,” he says, as if to remind her of that earlier time, when he said, “what have you to do with me?”
But then come softer words. Looking at John standing beside her, he says to Mary “behold thy son.” John, the one disciple who has remained with Jesus to this hour, is given to her as a new son. And Mary is given to John as a new mother: Jesus says, “Behold thy mother.” On the cross, Jesus begins the transformation of those around him into something altogether new. On the cross, he changes them from a biological family into God’s family. On the cross he gives them new life with God, a life we share here today.
The flesh and blood relationships he has with his mother, and with John the so-called beloved disciple, are not what matters to Jesus. Family honor upset because of running out of wine is not what matters. What matters is that, from the cross, he is able to pour out his Spirit on those around him and bind them to one another. Bind them to one another in the Spirit which he breathes out on the cross. And Jesus can only do this because he is different. Because Jesus is different – because he is not quite one of us – he can shape those around him into this new spiritual family through the cross. More miraculous than turning water into wine is turning us into brothers and sisters, sons and mothers.
“What have you to do with me?” With Jesus, we have to do with the one whom God sent to save us by binding us to one another as God’s family. And the result is that now, when we look at another person, we can never say, “What have you to do with me?” Because, through Christ, we have been made into one family, brothers and sisters of one another. And with that comes a responsibility to look out for those around us. We don’t live as individuals anymore, but as the family of God.
Or perhaps when your conscience pricks you to do a good deed – to give a dollar to a homeless guy, or to go to the aid or someone who’s fallen over – then anther part of you might say, “but what’s that person got to do with me.” We often say it when we know that we should do something but don’t really want to. So it might seem surprising that Jesus says these very words to his mother in our Gospel today.
Together at a wedding in Cana, right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry, his mother comes to him and says that the bridegroom and his family have run out of wine. Imagine what a social faux pas that would be today and multiply it ten times, because in the ancient world, the honor of the family was at stake.
The news gets back to Mary, who goes and tells her son, “They have no wine.” And Jesus answers her, “Woman, what have you to do with me?” (Jn 2:4.)
Jesus doesn’t seem at all concerned, either about the honor of the hosts or the wishes of his mother. Even though he goes on to perform the miracle of turning water into wine, what sticks in my mind are those words, “Woman, what have you to do with me?”
Why does Jesus say such a thing? And what does it mean for us. Well, I think it is no surprise that these words, and this story, are found in John’s Gospel.
For John, it is of supreme importance that Jesus has so little to do with the wedding party, or his mother, or his disciples, or you and me. It is that Jesus is different from us that his life should make all the difference in the world. For Jesus is not just another ordinary fellow. He doesn’t do things just because his mom tells him to. His purpose in life is not for all the old ladies at the wedding to coo and say “oh, isn’t he such a well-behaved young man?” He is different for a special reason: the reason he’s here.
There is something different about him. On a psychological or spiritual or metaphysical level, whatever you want to call it, this person is on another plane. “Woman, what have you to do with me?” is not a smart remark from a petulant son, but a psychological, spiritual, and metaphysical truth. What have you to do with me because I am here for something rather more than transforming water into wine? I am here to transform my mother’s life, my disciples’ lives, all lives, into a new life with God.
It is the transformation of humanity, not of water into wine, that Jesus is here for. In the story of the wedding at Cana, what matters to Jesus is the thing he calls his hour: he tells his mother, “My hour has not yet come.” His “hour” is the reason he’s come.
This “hour” is another theme of John’s gospel. It is the thing that guides all of Jesus’s decisions, that shapes how he acts. It refers to the end of his life, which is for John the whole point of Jesus’s mission on earth. As the one sent by God, it is what Jesus does in the last hour of his life that makes sense of all the rest. This is the hour he’s been waiting for, and why in John’s Gospel his last word from the cross is tetelesthein, “It is accomplished.” I’ve finished what I came here to do.
On the cross, Jesus’s hour has come. Here again is his mother, standing near the cross, looking to him perhaps for another miracle. And here again he says to her, “Woman.” “Woman,” he says, as if to remind her of that earlier time, when he said, “what have you to do with me?”
But then come softer words. Looking at John standing beside her, he says to Mary “behold thy son.” John, the one disciple who has remained with Jesus to this hour, is given to her as a new son. And Mary is given to John as a new mother: Jesus says, “Behold thy mother.” On the cross, Jesus begins the transformation of those around him into something altogether new. On the cross, he changes them from a biological family into God’s family. On the cross he gives them new life with God, a life we share here today.
The flesh and blood relationships he has with his mother, and with John the so-called beloved disciple, are not what matters to Jesus. Family honor upset because of running out of wine is not what matters. What matters is that, from the cross, he is able to pour out his Spirit on those around him and bind them to one another. Bind them to one another in the Spirit which he breathes out on the cross. And Jesus can only do this because he is different. Because Jesus is different – because he is not quite one of us – he can shape those around him into this new spiritual family through the cross. More miraculous than turning water into wine is turning us into brothers and sisters, sons and mothers.
“What have you to do with me?” With Jesus, we have to do with the one whom God sent to save us by binding us to one another as God’s family. And the result is that now, when we look at another person, we can never say, “What have you to do with me?” Because, through Christ, we have been made into one family, brothers and sisters of one another. And with that comes a responsibility to look out for those around us. We don’t live as individuals anymore, but as the family of God.
posted by Ben+ at 11:26 AM
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