22 September
Lk 8:19-21
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.’ But he said to them, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’
Mark has this incident in his gospel but inserts the question of Jesus: "Who is my mother, who are my brothers?" and the answer where He gestures to the listening disciples and says, "whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother." While Luke inserts the conclusion of Jesus gently after the parable of the sower and its explanation to top off his discourse on hearing the Word. A point of this exchange is to underscore in a society of tribes and clans that the community of Christ is more to be pursued than the accident of birth. Mark the harsh young man plunges to the point with the abrupt confidence of youth while Luke the good and gentle physician deftly inserts that point with the loving experience of a doctor. Here in Calvary we join together as a family with Luke, "Our mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it."
Monday, July 20, 2009
July 20, 2008. Homily, July 21, 2009.
Matthew 12:46-50.
0 comments
While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, "Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you." But he said in reply to the one who told him, "Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?" And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother."
Take that.
A parable of Jesus is a container made of words. We pour into it what we know from our life experiences and we pour our of it what we need. So here, we have our own experience of our mother and our brothers and our sisters and of those times when they have disturbed us at our work and our reactions to that. But this is Jesus and the mother of Jesus and the reaction of Jesus to His mother, and we know that the mother of Jesus is the perfect vessel of the will of God, for when God through the archangel Gabriel asked for her obedience she said "Yes". And we know that Jesus loved His mother and that His mother's life was to do the will of God. We saw that at the wedding feast of Cana, when she asked the help of Jesus, and Jesus said, "Woman, my time has not yet come" and Mary said to the servants, "Do whatever he asks." And Jesus asked the servant to fill the water vessels and then performed the miracle of water into wine. And so here, Jesus answers the messenger by elevating the disciples of Jesus, us, to the status of brother of Jesus, sister of Jesus, and even mother of Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment