John 2: The Mary Question

So I like to sometimes go into unpreachable but ponderable elements of the Bible texts on here from time to time and today lends us one of those opportunities. For those not up on our Gospel reading for Sunday from John 2 (the miracle of water turned to wine) allow me to post it below for a quick catch up:

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding. 3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine." 4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come." 5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you." 6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it. 9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now." 11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.


Now the question that I ponder this week is this: who is Mary to this wedding that she is aware of the situation before even the chief steward or the bridegroom? I call this unpreachable because we are very firmly going into the realm of speculation in the possibilities I ponder, but I find them interesting to consider:

Scenario 1: For years I assumed Mary must be a family friend. After all, why else get so involved and be so in the know. My problem with this assumption is that it doesn't really answer for me why she would be aware of the wine situation before the steward or bridegroom. Perhaps she happened to be at the right place at right time to overhear the dilemma or maybe she even asked for wine and they told her they were out. But for some reason, the more I contemplate other possibilities, the less likely this one seems to me since it requires her to somehow happen to be in the know. It could happen, but seems odd. Although Jesus' response to his mother may give some weight to it.

Scenario 2: The next one I considered this week - and perhaps most interesting one in terms of the light it sheds on characters of the story - is that Mary is in fact one of the servants. This would answer a lot: how she was aware of the situation, since the other servants appear to be the only other people in the know at the time. It would also explain what Mary is doing in Cana, John mentions her presence before and apart from Jesus (whereas his disciples are more clearly linked with his arrival). Thus this may indicate she was working at this wedding. This would shed a lot of light on Mary's situation presently (especially if, as is generally assumed, Joseph is dead by this point), and would in general jive with the reality that she was not well off (remember Luke tells us that she and Joseph paid the poor man's cost when they presented Jesus to the Lord at the Temple. See Luke 2:24, Leviticus 12:8). The difficulty I have with this is perhaps how easily Mary appears to leave the host's service, as John 2:12 states she leaves with Jesus to Capernaum and I'm unsure if it would be so easily done (although the Greek word here is diakonoi for the servants and not douloi which would be a much more likely term if her service was entered into as a slave).

Scenario 3: This is a family wedding. And to be specific, I'm not thinking simply distant relation (which would be similar in situation and issues as scenario 1) but that this is an immediate relation, perhaps one of Jesus' siblings. A brother seems less likely given the Bridegroom has servants and a steward, and as we mentioned in Scenario 2 Mary and Joseph did not seem to be well off to put on such a gathering, of course that could explain not having enough wine to supply the party. It could also explain why Mary was "there" in Cana, potentially living under the care of that son at this time. Although Jesus' response to her suggests he doesn't see the shortcoming of wine to be the responsibility of her or him. Perhaps then it is a daughter (sister to Jesus), as sisters are mentioned in Mark 6:3. In that situation Jesus' family would only be providing the dowry (*I think - will have to look into this later) but not be responsible directly for the wine, yet it would explain why Mary is in the know and still why she might be concerned about the wedding running out of wine. It would also explain why sisters are not mentioned in the following verse of the family move to Capernaum for a short time. However the Mark reference makes it more likely they were living in Nazareth (though Cana is not far north of Nazareth). Also, I'm still not sure that adequately explains Jesus' puzzled response to his mother.

So that's some of what I'm pondering. Perhaps I missed an idea. What do you think?