Today we mark the Confession of Peter. However, when I follow the Daily Office for my personal devotions, I rarely, if ever, do the commemorations on the church calendar. This year I have been reading the Gospel for the day. Mom, on the other hand, is working through the Old Testament readings, and she has blogged about her reactions to the Genesis readings.
The appointed Gospel for today's Daily Office is John 2:1-12, which is the story of the Wedding at Cana. The wine runs out, which Mary points out to Jesus. His response sounds a lot like, "Mother, it's not my job!" Can you hear that teenage drawn out "mooootherrrr?"
Please don't embarrass me in front of these people, Mom. Can't you just go away and leave me alone? Geeez, Mom!
But Mary keeps after him and sets up a situation he cannot avoid by instructing the servants to do whatever her son tells them.
Okay, fine. I'll do it. Just quit nagging, okay, Mom?
So he turns the water into wine, and what happens? The steward comments to the bridegroom about the wine. Just what any teenager wants in this kind of situation--attention, to stand out from the crowd.
Can the ground open up and swallow me now? Why does she always do this to me? I wish she'd just leave me alone.
Of course, you know how things go in families. This kind of event becomes part of the family history, a story told at successive family gatherings down through the years. Like the Christmas my niece dropped a large stack of the good china. Or the day I learned I needed glasses because a sailing ship on the horizon looked like a big square.
Geez, Mom, can you please talk about something else?
Yet life goes on. We grow up. We learn to live with the embarrassing stories of our lives. We begin to tell the stories ourselves. Perhaps years later during supper with his friends, Jesus said to them, "Remember when we were at that wedding..."
Peace,
Jeffri
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