Just a word before we go...Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time...June 9, 2024

This week’s Gospel provides us a glimpse of one of the tensions that must have existed in Jesus’ life among us.  His family was worried about him.  They had heard the stories of his behavior, how he talked with women, how he broke the rules—respecting Samaritans, doing things like healing on the Sabbath, when no work was allowed.  And the scribes were saying that Jesus was a blasphemer. He even let people believe he was the Messiah.  His family obviously needed to take charge of him.  And yet, Jesus knew what he was called to do.

When the family arrived at Simon’s house, they found it full to over-flowing with people listening to Jesus. Despite announcing that they ...his mother, his brothers and his sisters...were there to see Jesus, and feeling they had the right to enter the house, no one made way for them.  And then they, and the crowds, hear the words that must have sent shivers down their spines...Jesus asking, “Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?”  And then he went on further to say that “anyone who does the will of God is my mother, my brother, my sister.”  With those shocking words, Jesus ushers in a new understanding of the composition of the reign of God...one that is not limited by blood, religious, national or ethnic ties.  Jesus’ words probably stung his family, but offered hope to those who felt outside, alone, forgotten...maybe they were lost or marginalized, but not by God. God neither forgets nor excludes anyone.

This God preached by Jesus tries to communicate with us, wanting us to understand what it means to love as God loves, right here, where we live and work.  This God continues to do new things, offering transformation, new life and new ways of living...challenging us to expand and open our definitions, and rules and understandings, because they are all limited...and our God will not be limited.

Jesus, in this Gospel, reminds us, as his mother and brother and sister,  that doing our part of bringing the reign of God to fruition means that we are to do God’s will...and what is that will?  That we learn to love as God loves, as we have been called, by making choices that unite not divide, that promote human dignity and peace...that give example to the world that we choose to love, not hate...regardless of the cost.