Mother's Day (2018)

2917 “Mom’s Just Perfect”

A small boy invaded the lingerie section of a big California department store and shyly presented his problem to a woman clerk. “I want to buy my mom a present of a slip,” he said, “but I don’t know what size she wears.”

“Is she tall or short, fat or skinny?” asked the clerk.

“She’s just perfect,” beamed the small boy. So she wrapped up a size 34 for him.

Two days later, mom came to the store herself—and changed it to a 52.

2:3. A wedding celebration could last as long as a week, and the financial responsibility lay with the groom (cf. 2:9–10). To run out of supplies would be a dreadful embarrassment in a ‘shame’ culture; there is some evidence it could also lay the groom open to a lawsuit from aggrieved relatives of the bride. The ‘wine’ (oinos) that was needed was not mere grape juice, generic ‘fruit of the vine’. The idea is intrinsically silly as applied to countries whose agricultural tradition is so committed to viticulture

Besides, in v. 10 the head steward expects that at this point in the celebration some of the guests would have had too much to drink: the verb methyskō does not refer to consuming too much liquid, but to inebriation. On the other hand, wine in the ancient world was diluted with water to between one-third and one-tenth of its fermented strength, i.e. something less strong than American beer. Undiluted wine, about the strength of wine today, was viewed as ‘strong drink’, and earned much more disapprobation.

The traditions that make her a widow by this period are plausible enough: Joseph does not appear on the scene after the episode in the temple when Jesus was twelve years of age (Lk. 2:41–52; though cf. Jn. 6:42 and notes there), and Jesus himself was known not only as the carpenter’s son (Mt. 13:55) but as the carpenter (Mk. 6:3).