Jesus shrugged

This morning's reading at morning prayer -- I've been going regularly to that, not zazen (it starts at 8:30, not 6:00) -- was "the wedding at Cana," where Jesus turns the water into wine. Part of the story creates a stumbling block:

When the wine failed, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." And Jesus said to her, "O woman, what have you to do with me? My hour has not yet come." (John 2:3-4)

I was just thinking of this story yesterday, not knowing it would pop up today. I was thinking: When we pray, we generally expect God to be pretty supportive. But what if God sometimes reacts with the thought, "What's that to me?"

I did a little online search. Some writers suggest that the point of the story is to show Mary's continuing role in Jesus' life by pushing him into public ministry. Others suggest Jesus' response shows his humanity, while others say his irritated response was intended to show he would not show favoritism to his mother.

I concur with the bit about how the story shows Jesus' humanity. Lutherans like the stories that show Jesus' humanity and divinity at the same time, as the dual nature of Jesus is an important part of our theology: "true God and true man," as I was made to recite in school. (I went to a Lutheran parochial school.) When I was in college, playing guitar at the folk music service at the Lutheran student center, I even wrote and performed a song citing this dogma.

Anyway, back to the point. Several years ago I read a book, "Radical Prayer," which pointed out that, as a human, Jesus must have experienced the process of emotional maturing that all humans do. Presumably he snapped at his mother in this story partly because people simply snap at each other once in a while. But the book went on to suggest that, since Jesus was resurrected as a human and ascended to heaven in his human body, he still retains his human personality traits even as he listens to our prayers. Using that logic, I suppose it's possible that Jesus might listen to me praying, for example, for help with my book, and respond, "What's it to me? Write your book if you want." But I'd rather he send me a little Holy Spirit so I can get the darn thing done.

In a little while I'm going to the airport to pick Cris up from her three weeks in El Salvador. I haven't gotten much done on my book while she's been gone, nor in the weeks preceeding that. I thought I would be able to get a lot done while she was gone, as I sometimes find her presence distracting. That's the reason I leave the house to work. But even with her gone, I found it hard to work in the house, and not once did I go to work at the church (my usual offsite writing location). The cats were one distraction; I also managed to assign myself the job of producing a newsletter for my church. I went to a few films, and generally dicked around. I listened to a lot of public radio, waiting for the war to start. That's it. I'll blame my lack of productivity on the putative war.