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| Small Chapel at Cana, Galilee |
Plug adapters and exchange rates - two things that every international traveller needs to be aware of. We want to know that we'll be able to use the stuff that we bring from home, and we want to be sure that we'll have stuff to bring back home. Why do we do this? Travel is a disorienting experience. We leave behind many of the comforts and securities of home, but a part of us is too afraid to let go completely.
On our pilgrimage to the Holy Land, God asks us to let go and to trust in Him. Did we bring plug adapters, and do we talk about exchange rates? Yes, absolutely. But we hope that in every day, in every experience, on every step, we can recognize that God is calling us to adapt our way of thinking and to exchange our cultural assumptions as we experience life in the Holy Land.
To this end our tour guides serve as an invaluable resource for understanding the local culture. Today, we visited the Church of the Wedding at Cana in Galilee. As we gathered underneath the church, among the excavations our guide explained to us that, in this culture, a wedding celebration lasts ten days. The host never knows how many people will be there on any given day - no RSVPs are required. Nevertheless, he is expected to have enough food and drink on any given day of the celebration. To not be able to offer proper hospitality to one's guests is a huge embarrassment.
Placed in this context, the story of the wedding at Cana comes to life. But we still have to ask, why was Jesus so reluctant to intervene? He certainly knew what the cultural expectations were. Our guide suggested two reasons. Jesus was headed to Capernaum - a much more important town than Cana in Galilee. He may have preferred to start His public ministry there, on a bigger stage, but He was still obedient to His mother.
But maybe, as the guide suggested, it was something more personal. Jesus' public ministry would inevitably lead to His crucifixion and death. He would no longer belong to His own mother. She would never see Him coming over the hills of Nazareth, like when he was a child. Was Mary ready to accept this?
Later, we visited the village of Nain, where Jesus raised the son of a widow from the dead. Why would He do this? Our guide suggested that it was for the benefit and protection of the widow. With her son dead, she would have no one to look after her. Because of cultural norms and prejudices, she would likely have had to leave the village, homeless and alone.
Perhaps, the guide said, Jesus was thinking ahead to what might happen to His own mother. Perhaps that is why, while He was on the cross, He tells Mary, "Behold, your son." He tells John, "Behold, your mother." One of His final acts is to make sure that His own mother - who raised Him, and whom He loved more than anyone - would be taken care of after He died.
The biblical way of thinking is very different from our own. We have to read the Bible on its own terms. It requires adaptation, and it requires change, but only in paying attention to the culture around us while we're here can we most fully enter into the mysteries of Sacred Scripture.