The following is from a public facebook post by Dr. Robert Gagnon (author of The Bible and
Homosexuality: Text and Hermeneutics [Abingdon, 2001]) in response to Roman
Catholic apologist Dave Armstrong on John 2:4:
John 2:4 Is a Rebuke to Mary for Shallow Sign Faith: A
Response to Dave Armstrong, Catholic Apologist
[Trigger warning: Don't read this if it upsets you to
examine whether the hyper-veneration (hyperdulia) of Mary comports with
Scripture]
A certain Dave Armstrong who apparently has done Catholic
apologetics for decades (for whom I know not, possibly independent, a lay
person with no formal theological training but has published some 20 books,
whether self-published or with a vanity press or a reputable press I know not),
has written a few short online treatments critical of my posts on Mary.
The one that I will address here is his critique of my
reading on John 2:4, where Jesus says to Mary, "What to me and to you,
woman? My hour has not yet come." Unfortunately, Dave critiqued a post I
did that was only partly on John 2:4 in the Cana water-to-wine episode (John
2:1-11), just a few short paragraphs, while ignoring a much longer post that I
did on that verse. He rejects my view that John 2:4 is a rebuke of Mary,
largely because Jesus goes on to do what Mary implicitly requested.
In looking at Jesus' response to Mary's statement, Dave
relies on a one-volume 1953 Catholic commentary on the whole Bible, and a
little note in the Ignatius Catholic Study Bible. Needless to say, this is a
very minimal research of the verse. From this paltry consult of secondary
literature Dave gleans that "What to me and to you?" vaguely
"signifies ... a great or lesser divergence of viewpoint between the two
parties concerned" or "presupposes some perceived tension between two
parties having contrary perspectives." These are inadequate explanations
of the phrase. I will come back to that phrase. From this, Dave goes on to say:
//Dr. Gagnon opined that a non-rebuke meaning of “what
have you to do with me?” “cannot be substantiated . . . in OT parallels. . . .
It is better to go with the phrase analysis that pays careful attention to the
use of the phrase elsewhere in the Scriptures of Jesus (the OT)”. But to the
contrary, 2 Chronicles 35:20-21 shows us that it can occur in a situation where
there isn’t even a disagreement, and 2 Kings 3:13-14 is another instance where
the speaker capitulates to the other, as with Jesus and Mary at Cana.//
I. "What to me and to you" as Rebuke
Yet Dave understands neither 2 Chron 35:20-21 nor 2 Kings
3:13-14. The first text represents the dominant interpretation of the phrase,
an adversarial formula, "what have I done to you that you should make
yourself an adversary of mine?"; the second text represents an alternative
meaning that represents a complete disjuncture of interests, "What have I
to do with you?" or "What do we have in common between us?" or
"What have you to do with me?" with the inference being,
"absolutely nothing."
(1) In the case of 2 Chron 35:20-21, "what to me and
to you" is clearly an adversarial formula. When "King Neco of Egypt
went up to fight at Carchemish on the Euphrates (to aid Assyria in its fight
against the Medes and Chaldeans), Josiah went out (to fight) against him
(Neco). But Neco sent envoys to him, saying, 'What to me and to you, king of
Judah? I am not coming against you today.... Cease opposing God, who is with
me, so that he will not destroy you'" (2 Chron 35:20-21).
King Neco was asking what wrong he had done to Josiah to
make Josiah want to come out to do battle and thereby be "opposing God,
who is with me." In effect, Neco asks Josiah, "what have I done to
you that you should make yourself an adversary of mine?" To say, as Dave
does, "there isn't even a disagreement," is to propose a meaning that
is the antithesis of what is said. Neco is saying that Josiah is acting like an
adversary to him when there is no need to do so; indeed, Josiah is opposing
God. Mary's statement read in this light is certainly much harsher than Dave
knows. This is the dominant meaning of the phrase in the Septuagint (standard
Greek Old Testament).
(2) As for 2 Kgs 3:13-14, the formula is less adversarial
but still indicates a complete (not just partial) disjuncture of interests.
When the Moabites rebelled against Israelite rule, King Jehoram (son of Ahab
and Jezebel and likewise a devotee of Baal) led a coalition of Israelites,
Judeans, and Edomites against Moab. When they could find no water during their
desert march and were nearly dehydrated, an appeal was made to Elisha to
inquire of Yahweh. "Elisha said to the king of Israel, 'What have I to do with
you? Go to your father's prophets or to your mother's" (i.e., the prophets
of Baal).
Here the addressee is not acting as an opponent at the
particular moment but rather is seeking aid from one whose value system stands
diametrically opposed. Thus Elijah states that he has no more in common with
the Baal-worshipping King of Israel than does Yahweh with Baal (2 Kgs 3:13).
Here the phrase means something like, "What have I to do with you?"
or "What do we have in common between us?", with the inference being,
"absolutely nothing." They are as different as two people worshiping
two different and mutually exclusive gods. The two (Elisha and Jehoram, or
Yahweh and Baal) operate out of entirely different spheres of interests. It is
not merely that King Jehoram's single concern has nothing to do with Elisha.
Elisha's retort is much more comprehensive.
It is true that, as the story continues, the
Baal-worshiping King of Israel persists in his request to Elisha, since he
knows otherwise his troops will be dehydrated and then defeated by the king of
Moab. But this doesn't change the fact that the miracle-worker and the
petitioner are from two entirely different allegiances. This too is a much more
negative view of the phrase than Dave has any awareness of. This is the
secondary meaning of the phrase in the Septuagint.
(1) Other instances of the most common application to
adversaries, in which the speaker asks what he or she has done to the addressee
to elicit such an inimical response. So Jephthah asks what he has done to the
king of the Ammonites to provoke him to "come to me to fight against my
land" (Judg 11:12). David asks Abishai what he has done to him to cause
him to "today become an adversary to me" (2 Sam 19:22; cf. 16:10).
The widow at Zarephath asks what she has done to Elijah to compel him "to
bring my sin to remembrance and to cause the death of my son" (1 Kgs
17:18). The responses of David to Abishai and of the widow at Zarephath to
Elijah are instructive for the understanding of John 2:4 inasmuch as the
comments are made to people who are suppose to be allies or friends but instead
act as if they were enemies. A similar situation arises when Elijah rebukes
Elisha, whom he has just called and who now gives precedence first to bidding
his parents farewell, with the words "What have I done to you?" (1
Kgs 19:20).
Despite some of the translations given for Mark 1:24;
5:7, the adversarial sense also appears to underlie the two NT usages: The
demons ask of Jesus, "What have I (we) done to you that you should make
yourself an adversary of mine (ours)?" As Catholic NT scholar Joseph
Fitzmyer aptly comments with regard to the parallel in Luke 4:34: "The
Greek formula...expresses here not only a denial of common interest..., but
real hostility." A good translation would be: "What have I against
you that you should have something against me?"
(2) Other instances of the less common usage of the
phrase expressing total disconnection of interests or concerns: In Hos 14:8
Yahweh (or the tribe of Ephraim has (or is to have) absolutely nothing to do
with idols. In 2 Kgs 9:18-19 the Baal-worshipping King Jehoram has absolutely
nothing to do with peace.
It is clear from these uses in the Septuagint and
elsewhere in the NT, the phrase "What to me and to you?" refers
either to an adversarial relationship ("What have I done to you that you
should do this to me, namely, make yourself my enemy?") or a complete
disconnect of essential interests, "What at all do we have in
common?" or "What have I to do with you, or you with me?" In
both cases the implied answer: Absolutely nothing.
On either interpretation (with the adversarial
connotation being the dominant meaning), the phrase singles a rebuke when
referring to one person or group in relation to another person or group.
II. Jesus' Address of Mary as "Woman" and His
"Hour" Disclaimer
Jesus' follow-up address of Mary not as
"mother" but as "woman" communicates the adversarial or
disconnected relationship between Jesus and his 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. Biological family kinship is meaningless when one
deviates from the will of God, especially as regards Jesus' mission.
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."
Those who read Jesus' address to his mother
"woman" as a mark of treating Mary as a New Eve are reading out of
(rather than in) context. The most natural reading is not a positive one. When
a son addresses his mother as "woman," one doesn't think: Oh, he is
thinking of her as a new Eve! One thinks rather: My goodness, he is treating
his own mother as if she were not his mother, as if she were a woman like any
other woman to him
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.
III. John 2:4 as Possible Redaction (Editing) of a Signs
Source Miracle Story as a Critique of Shallow Sign Faith
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. Remove the abrupt redaction
and the preceding and following texts flow more smoothly. One suggestion reads
as follows, with the portion later added by the Fourth Evangelist to his Signs
Source material put in brackets:
//And [on the third day] a wedding took place in Cana of
Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. Now both Jesus and his disciples
were invited to the wedding. And when the wine ran out, the mother of Jesus
says [to him, “They have no wine.” And Jesus says to her, “What to me and to
you, woman; my hour has not yet come.” His mother says] to the servants,
“Whatever he says to you, do.” //
The point of the Johannine redactional insert is to
underscore the deficiency of any 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. For example, if one concludes from Jesus' healing of a blind man in ch.
9 only that Jesus can restore the literal sight of the blind, then by the
Fourth Evangelist's standards one really hasn't understood what the "sign
post" is pointing to about Jesus; namely, that he is the Light of the
World. "Signs" have value for the Fourth Evangelist primarily as sign
posts to a deeper understanding of who Jesus is for the world.
The rebuke "what to me and to you" could refer
to their complete disjuncture of vital interests, "I have nothing in
common with you, woman!" Or, more likely, it reflects the usual sense of
an adversarial relationship: "What have I done to you that you should make
yourself my enemy, woman!"--implying that Mary's interest in merely
worldly or fleshly matters potentially stands at cross purposes with Jesus'
heavenly mission. If so, this would be similar to Jesus' reaction to Simon
Peter when he tries to tell Jesus the job description of the Messiah, which for
Peter does not involve suffering and death: "Go behind me, Adversary
(Satan), for you have not set your mind on the things of God but the things of
humans" (Mark 8:32-33). Mary has set her mind on merely earthly things.
We see a similar redactional insert in the second sign,
when Jesus in John 4:46-54 meets a royal official in the employ of Herod
Antipas, a paradigmatic Galilean. The miracle story follows a remark in 4:45,
that the Galileans welcomed him when Jesus came back to Galilee "since
they had seen all that he had done in Jerusalem in the festival, for they too
had gone to the festival." This remark in turn alludes back to the
response at the end of ch. 2 that Jesus had received at the Passover festival
in Jerusalem, where many believed in his name because they saw all the signs
that he was doing, but Jesus would not entrust himself to them because he knew
all people" (2:23-24). This is a note about shallow "sign faith"
where people believed in Jesus only for the material benefits that they could
gain in this life, but not in the fullest sense of who Jesus was for the world
as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.
The royal official begged him to come down and heal his
son, for his son was at the point of death. Then comes what appears to be
another redactional insert by the Fourth Evangelist, a rebuke of the royal
official, not unlike the rebuke given to Mary in 2:4: "Unless you
(Galileans, plural) see signs and wonders, you will not believe!" (4:48).
This is another criticism of superficial sign faith, with interest only in the
material benefits in this life and insufficient interest in Jesus as the answer
to the world's sin. The official responds by persisting in his request:
"Sir [or: Lord], come down before my little boy dies" (it is not
clear whether this direct speech or the prior narrative description of the
distress and plea is part of the redaction by the Fourth Evangelist). Back to
the original story: Jesus tells him, "Go, your son lives." The
official believes this "word" and when he returns home to find his
boy healed, he comes to fuller faith in Christ.
IV. Mary's Shallow Sign-Faith Response in 2:5 and Jesus'
Apparent Compliance for a Deeper Purpose
How then are we to understand Mary's response to Jesus'
rebuke in 2:5, namely, "his mother says to the servants (attending table),
'Whatever he says to you, do'" (v. 5), and Jesus' apparent compliance with
Mary's implicit request? In the pre-redacted version, Mary simply tells the
waiters to comply with Jesus' instructions. The fact that she does not interact
with Jesus' sharp rebuke in 2:4 is further evidence that the rebuke was added
by the Fourth Evangelist to a pre-existing miracle story in his Signs Source.
In the original version of the miracle story, Mary receives credit for
instructing others to obey her son. In this Signs Source Jesus' miracles bring
many to believe in him (20:30-31).
However, the criticism of shallow signs faith in 2:4 is a
deeper reflection of the Fourth Evangelist that Mary is asking for something
frivolous, that is not part of Jesus' mission that is to be focused on his Lamb
of God role at the cross. Her request loses sight of the bigger picture. She is
still thinking in earthly, fleshly terms "from below," still more
concerned with the literal wine shortage at the wedding in Cana than in what
Jesus' miracle symbolizes about himself.
In the end Jesus does turn the water into wine, but in
the final edited version it should be viewed 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; or that he is the Bridegroom who
brings the unending wine of the messianic banquet, superseding the water of the
Jews for ritual purification.
In this story, Mary doesn't come out looking so good. Her
remark to Jesus in the edited version, "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.
Both Mary and the royal official are still thinking from
below, rather than from above. The royal official doesn't yet realize that
Jesus is the Life of the World until after he returns to see his son having
been healed at the very hour Jesus spoke. Only then does he believe in the
fullest sense. But Mary's believing or faith in a deeper sense is never
explicitly addressed in 2:1-11. After 2:5, she falls off the map of the story
line. Rather, the text says that "his disciples believed in him," not
that Jesus' earthly mother believed in him in the fuller sense that the Fourth
Evangelist intends.
There is no discussion of Mary's persistent faith winning
the day. There is no indication that she ever understands the deeper symbolism
of Jesus' action because she drops out of the story completely after saying to
the waiters, "Do whatever he says to you." The narrative in 2:1-11
never indicates anything more than that Mary is just interested in getting more
wine for this wedding feast. She knows that Jesus has the power to do that. But
Jesus tells her that she is treating him like an enemy because his "hour"
of glorification does not involve inane parlor tricks of the sort that she is
requesting. That is not his mission.
Rather, Jesus' mission is to reveal his glory when he is
lifted up on the cross, now as the life of the world through his amends-making
death as "the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world." It is
not even clear that Mary's response in 2:5 communicates anything more than her
mundane interest in more earthly wine for an earthly wedding. She just wants
him to work his power for that earthly purpose. That is, per the Fourth
Evangelist, deficient sign-faith. Jesus complies, but not for the reason that stimulates
Mary's statement.
V. John Chrysostom on John 2:4 as a Rebuke of Mary
It is interesting that the great Eastern Church Father
John Chrysostom (ca. 400) understood Jesus' response to Mary in John 2:4 as a
rebuke, although he is off on the nature of the rebuke. He also thought Jesus'
"Who is my mother...?" statement in Mark 3:31-35 was a rebuke to
Mary. In his Homilies on the Gospel of John, Homily 21, he stated:
//"They have no wine." For she desired both to
do them a favor, and through her Son to render herself more conspicuous;
perhaps too she had some human feelings, like His brethren, when they said,
Show yourself to the world, desiring to gain credit from His miracles.
Therefore He answered somewhat vehemently....
[Just as later] when He answered ... Who is My mother,
and who are My brethren?, because they did not yet think rightly of Him; and
she, because she had borne Him, claimed, according to the custom of other
mothers, to direct Him in all things, when she ought to have reverenced and
worshiped Him….
And so this was a reason why He rebuked her on that
occasion, saying, Woman, what to me and to you? instructing her for the future
not to do the like; because, though He was careful to honor His mother, yet He
cared much more for the salvation of her soul, and for the doing good to the
many, for which He took upon Him the flesh.//
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