Kate Oxsen

Jan. 19: Second Sunday in Ordinary Time

January 8, 2025

Stone jars

Is 62:1-5; Ps 96:1-2, 2-3, 7-8, 9-10; 1 Cor 12:4-11; Jn 2:1-11

From the Gospel of John, we can glean the most historical information about the time in which Jesus lived. The story of the wedding at Cana (Jn 2:1-11) provides a good example of what we can and cannot learn about Jesus and the world in which he lived.

This is the only Gospel story outside of Luke’s birth narrative where Mary plays a substantial role. We see her interact with other characters, including Jesus, and speak with authority to the wedding servants (vv. 3-5).

It is an imaginative story that evokes feelings of wonder and awe. The imagery of abundant, flowing wine speaks not only to our thirst for God, but to God’s propensity to provide us with more than we could ever hope to receive.

It is also a story with which many are a little uncomfortable. This discomfort often stems from the way in which Jesus speaks to his mother (v. 4). For many modern readers, the term “woman” is an inappropriate way to address one’s mother. Many a Bible study leader, homilist, and even the footnotes in the New American Bible Revised Edition try to soften Jesus’ response, explaining that this is a perfectly polite form of address. However, it is not.

The way Jesus addresses his mother as “woman” is unusual and discourteous, including for his time. The following question he asks her doubles down on this address, dismissing her concern as insignificant for him. In short, Jesus is presented as being rude to his mother.

This is not something that should concern us. It has nothing to do with the way the historical Jesus actually treated his mother — nor is it intended to teach sons how they should treat their mothers. The author of the Gospel of John has an agenda here that is not about sharing historical information about Jesus and his mother.

What Jesus’ reaction to Mary does is create distance between their characters. This distance between mother and son contrasts with the significance John’s Gospel places on the closeness between God (Father) and Jesus (Son). It is this relationship that matters most throughout the Gospel of John, and this is but one way the author of the Gospel chose to express this theological truth.

We do learn something interesting about life in the time of Jesus from this story. The large jars used to hold the water for Jewish purification rites (v. 6) are explicitly described as “stone” jars. This small detail is significant for us.

The book of Leviticus lists all the different materials that are used to make dishware and explains how impurity can be removed from a contaminated vessel. The only material that is not listed is stone. Subsequently, an idea developed that stone is the only material that can create vessels that cannot become impure. This would make stone vessels ideal for events where people of different purity observances might gather, including weddings.

Recent archaeological discoveries demonstrate the importance of stone vessels as well. Archaeologists have discovered stone vessel workshops from the time of Jesus across Israel, including in Nazareth, which is only about nine miles south of Cana.

This type of labor would have been done by a worker known as a “tekton.” A tekton was a worker whose skill set allowed them to work in different types of physical labor. In English, we might call a tekton a “jack of all trades.” “Tekton” is the same word used to describe Jesus’ profession in the Gospels.

The word has traditionally been misrepresented with the translation “carpenter.” However, carpentry is only one type of work that a tekton might have done. Jesus himself could have worked at a shop that created these kinds of stone vessels.

What we can learn from the Gospels is not easy to tease out, and often is not the type of information we hope to learn about Jesus. However, we can glean small things that help us create a vision of the world through which he walked daily with the people he knew and loved.

 

 

Topics:

  • scripture

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