A different reading of the water into wine story

I thought this was interesting. I was at a meeting last week where this was the scripture. I cannot remember where, maybe towards the beginning of John, but everyone is probably familiar. I noticed two differences.

One reflects the theology here. Latin America has developed Liberation Theology, which has no shame in saying that it is an...how to spell it...the opposite of exegesis...eisegesic theology. They look for how Christ was the liberator of the oppressed.

I never thought about it much before, but at the wedding, they had run out of wine. Some of my first experiences here were celebrations with 40 people and 9 bowls, or a party celebrating a baptism where there was just one case of beer, and everyone got one. Having a party and wanting your guests to have whatever they want but not being able to provide it is a fact of life here. In the water into wine story, the significance here is that Jesus is the kind of guy who thinks everyone should have enough wine to satisfy all their guests at a party. It is a simple statement, but very real here. Actually, I guess Mary is the one who thinks that, because Jesus did not want to do it until she told him to. But, the point is the same, especially in a very Catholic culture.

The other difference was that they did not make any sort of disclaimer that "in those days wine did not really contain alcohol," or anything like that. I am not sure how common that sort of apologetics is, but have run into it often and think it is a very American thing. Here, women rarely drink, but men do, and boys do if they want to. Somehow, the culture avoids being awash with alcoholics. There are a few and it does cause problems, but I do not see any reason to believe that they cultural acceptance of alcohol makes the frequency or severity of the problems any better or worse than in the US.

And, at the risk of becoming a little too polemical, in the "camel through the eye of a needle story," I do not think they would try to explain that the bible does not really mean the eye of a real needle, that it is figurative and rich people can still get into heaven if they try really hard or something like that.