Help interpreting a Christian allusion in Willa Cather's 'One of Ours'
Upvote:2
The idea is contrasting their current attitude toward alcohol versus Christ's action in creating alcohol at the wedding in Cana. It is the false idea that abstaining from alcohol makes one more purer, or superior, to others, including Christ. They used grape-juice, but Christ used alcoholic wine.
The two men go to the cellar to drink alcohol in secret, but upon their return to the table, the preacher smells it and feels slighted (ignored) that he too wasn't invited to imbibe of the good stuff.
The preacher wants to apply the bible to his life, like Christ okaying the use of alcohol at weddings, but the world was teaching that alcohol was evil. If alcohol is evil, then he by avoiding it, would make him better than the Lord. This, the preacher finds, is preposterous. But he'd lose his power, prestige, and pocketbook to proclaim the truth. What goes in or doesn't go in your body is not what makes you holy.
Upvote:5
My non-authoritative interpretation is that this is a preacher that takes pride in his righteousness, including forbidding alcohol at weddings. Then, when he thought about the similar situation in Cana, he remembered that Jesus had produced alcoholic drink for the wedding guests.
The preacher knew his actions proved himself to be more righteous than Jesus, but, despite realizing that something must be wrong with that observation, he couldn't bring himself to admit what it was that was actually wrong.
There's also the exacerbating situation that some of his guests sneaked away to get something better to drink, while Jesus's guests complimented the quality of the wine.
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