This is taken from a public facebook post by Dr. Robert Gagnon (author of the must-read book, The Bible and Homosexuality: Texts and Hermeneutics [Abingdon, 2001]):
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Another text that Catholics and Orthodox persons cite to elevate Mary in Scripture is the wedding in Cana in John 2:1-11. Yet they don't realize that in this passage Jesus rebukes his mother.
The argument is that Mary "becomes the only person ever to tell Jesus what to do and he (somewhat grudgingly) does it" (as a respected Catholic FB friend put it). Actually, many people requested healings from Jesus with polite imperatives. Mary merely hinted to Jesus that something should be done about the depletion of wine: "They do not have wine" (v. 3).
Jesus then responds with a curt "What to me and to you, woman? My hour has not yet come" (v. 4). There are 3 parts to this response, the question ("What to me and to you?"), the address of his mother ("woman"), and the disclaiming assertion. We will now look at each element in turn.
First, the question "What to me and to you?" (Gk. ti emoi kai soi) is a Semitic idiom (Heb. mah-lî ve-lak) found in the OT in Judg 11:12; 2 Sam 16:10; 19:22; 1 Kgs 17:18; 2 Kgs 3:13; 2 Chron 35:21. In the NT the phrase appears elsewhere as a word by demoniacs to Jesus (Mark 1:24; 5:7). Minimally the phrase refers to a complete disjunction of interests. Mostly the phrase is used in situations of opposition and hostility as an adversarial formula. One can paraphrase as: "What have I done to you that you should do this to me?"
The phrase functions in John 2:4 as the Johannine equivalent of the rebuke uttered by Jesus in Mark's Gospel to Simon (Peter) for expressing opposition to his divine fate to suffer and die for the sins of the world: "Get behind me, satan (adversary)!"
Second, Jesus follows this adversarial formula with the distancing address of "woman" rather than "mother." This address is reminiscent of the Jesus saying in Mark 3:33-35, where Jesus responds to his mother and brothers coming to "restrain him" as a result of hearing that Jesus was out of his mind (3:21 31): "Who is my mother...? ... Whoever does the will of God, this is ... my mother." In that saying Jesus discounts any privileged place to Mary, who appears to be doing the bidding of the scribes and Pharisees.
Here in John 2:4, the address "woman" rejects any special position of his mother because at this moment her mind is set on earthly things rather than heavenly things, thinking in the realm of flesh rather than Spirit, and operating "from below" rather than "from above" (see John 3:31). She is at this moment to Jesus no more than any other "woman."
Third, Jesus adds a disclaiming assertion: "My hour has not yet come," meaning that Jesus did not come into the world for the trivial task of resupplying a wedding with wine, but rather (given the larger context of the Fourth Gospel) to make amends for the sins of the world at the cross. Jesus' word to Mary is a rebuke.
Many (including yours truly) think that this response by Jesus to his mother represents redaction (editing) by the Fourth Evangelist into a preexisting "signs source" story. The abrupt redaction (remove the saying and the preceding and following texts flow more smoothly) underscores the deficiency of sign faith that does not tie Jesus' activity to his being "lifted up" or "exalted" on the cross, and that does not arrive at a larger identity of Jesus as the Life and Light of the world.
Mary does not interact with Jesus' sharp rebuke (again, suggesting that it was added by the Fourth Evangelist into a pre-existing story). Instead, "his mother says to the servants (attending table), 'Whatever he says to you, do'" (v. 5). In a sense, it is to her credit that she instructs others to obey her son. But she is still thinking in earthly, fleshly terms "from below," still more concerned with the literal wine shortage at the wedding in Cana.
In the end Jesus does turn the water into wine, but for a deeper purpose, to "reveal his glory" (v. 10, much as Yahweh "revealed his glory" to Israel in the Mount Sinai light show). Jesus perhaps does this particular "sign" to illustrate that he is the Best Wine at the wedding banquet of the Lamb and his church.
In this story, Mary doesn't come out looking so good. Her remark to Jesus, "They do not have wine," remains on a literal level, whereas Jesus is thinking of the symbolic absence of messianic wine in an Israel that is hostile to the sending of God's Son into the world. Her remark, far from being praised, is rebuked.
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