Christians Want Wine? Jesus Didn't Turn Water Into Better Water

Once upon a time, a kindly, Christian neighbor of mine told me that drinking wine was forbidden by Jesus.

“Forbidden?” I asked. Don’t get me wrong. I love Jesus! But had she gotten that quite right? Forbidden?

“Forbidden,” she said. “Well forbidden except for special occasions. That’s okay.”

But in Jesus’ day, people drank wine for supper. Daily. No?

I thought this, but I didn’t ask this.

I’ve read the Bible, but if you want to challenge someone on their thoughts on Jesus, you’d better have the thing memorized. I struggle to memorize my Hotmail password. I didn’t want to humiliate myself.

But she wouldn’t let it go.

She said, “My pastor’s wife says you can drink it occasionally, but always and only with food.”

Well, obviously. I had already read that in the book French Women Don’t Get Fat. That author loved wine and what it did for our food! For our fun! For our health!

This neighbor had something else in mind. She liked messing with the Bible just enough to make it really, really…bossy.

Reasonably, God is in fact a bossy God. You make the world, you make people, you want them to love you back – you get the reputation of being bossy.

But there are different kinds of bossy. There is the I’m-guiding-you-because-I-love-you kind of bossy, like God.

Then there is bossy like a Pharisee, like a Sadducee, like a church leader who is out to make a point on the religion of God at the expense of accurately representing God (messy, messy as that can be).

One is freeing!

One is not.

“Wasn’t Jesus’ first miracle turning water into wine?” Had I just said that out loud? Idiot! Can I never, ever keep my mouth shut?

She smiled at me, patronizing. Her face saying: Yes. Yes you are an idiot. Instead, she said, “Oh yes, but that’s because the water back then was so bad!”

I’d heard this before. I’d heard this since seventh grade Sunday school when Matt DeLuca was brave enough to raise his hand and ask the teachers why we had grape juice in church when Jesus’ gang all drank wine. Their answer was the water business and being tweens, we let it drop.

Now, I didn’t let it drop.

“Look, don’t you think Jesus could’ve filled those jugs at that wedding with whatever He wished?” I asked my neighbor.

“Of course. Of course, darling,” she said. “His Mama asked Him to do something special. It was to reveal His glory! People put their faith in Him!”

“Right,” I said. “But just to be clear, He didn’t turn that water into better water.”