Tuesday of the Sixteenth Week in Ordinary Time
Today’s first reading from the book of the prophet Micah represents the feelings of the people of Israel. These words are both a longing for God and an acknowledgment of the people’s own sins and weaknesses. We often find the prophets lamenting the irresponsibility and unresponsiveness of the people of Israel, so beloved by God and yet so negligent of the gifts God lavishes upon them. In particular we encountered this in the recent readings from Hosea. But here the people recognize their sin as well as God’s mercy. For those who would claim that the “God of the Old Testament” is somehow angry and mean, this reading bears witness to God in the Old Testament represented as loving, forgiving, merciful, and compassionate.
“You will cast into the depths of the sea all our sins” (Mic 7:19b). What a wonderful image for God’s forgiveness! God does not merely forgive at a surface level, but rather God makes sins disappear. God heals the people out of his great love for us. This God who has compassion on us is revealed to us in the person of Jesus. This is God’s self-revelation of his mercy and forgiveness; the best and clearest image of God’s love for the world. The word “compassion,” when broken down actually means “suffering with,” and indeed, Jesus is God who suffers with and even suffers for his people. And yet the passage from the gospel of Matthew for today might rightly give us pause. Is this the loving God, the warm and fuzzy “God of the New Testament”? Upon first reading this excerpt, we might assume that Jesus is here denigrating his mother and his other relatives (“brothers” here might actually be better understood as “cousins,” for the words were interchangeable at the time). Isn’t Jesus supposed to honor his mother? It is safe to assume that Jesus was not rude or disrespectful to his mother, and hence we might look to his next sentence: “Here are my mother and brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother” (Mt 12:50). This is the key message of this passage. Yes, Mary is honored because she carried Christ within her, gave birth to him, nursed him, and raised him. But the more significant reason for honoring Mary is that she did the will of God. All of these physical acts of motherhood indicate Mary’s willingness to do God’s will. The disciples who have put themselves under Jesus’ mission by becoming his students are also doing the will of God. In other words, one does not have to be a blood relative of Jesus in order to be important to him. One need only strive to do the will of the heavenly Father. In a culture where family ties were of crucial importance, this extension of family to non-blood relatives is particularly meaningful, especially as the Church spread beyond the Jewish community to pagan Gentiles. God’s compassion revealed in the person of Jesus is a compassion extended to all people, regardless of ethnicity. We can all be a part of God’s family if we do the will of the Father. We can all experience God’s forgiveness and mercy, as did the people of Israel. Let us take some time today to reflect on how well God loves us and how willing God is for us to become his family, despite our many sins and failings. Let us pray that we may always strive to do the will of the Father and to be the disciples – the brothers and sisters – of Jesus. - Maria Morrow