Feast of the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary and Joseph
As someone who is Catholic but with evangelical Protestant friends and acquaintances, I have often been asked if Jesus is my personal Lord and savior. I am always a bit perplexed at the question. Of course I encounter Jesus personally; I think he has saved me - even me - and this is a source of great hope, joy and faith. I think many Catholics would say similarly. I suspect the question comes from a sense that Catholics seem just to be "going through the motions", saying the same words every Sunday, and that seems to lack the kind of specialness and singularity that my Protestant friends hope we all encounter in Christ. Christ came to earth and died, for me. I matter so much to God, and God loves me so much that this is the case. We cannot begin to fathom the great depth of God's love for us without that sense.
Yet it is feasts like today's that make me a bit perplexed by the question, for the witness of scripture is also that God comes to save us as an entire people. Today's scriptures remind us that it is the whole community of faith that allows me and you to be connected to God in the first place. God is for me, but only because God is for US all.
In today's first reading (Genesis 15:1-6; 21:1-3), we see God speaking to Abraham. Abraham is concerned with the question of inheritance: will he have to give away his land to another solitary individual, his steward Eliezar? One of the problems is that Eliezar is a servant, and not equal to Abraham. But it is on equal terms that Abraham wants to gift his land and belongings, and the real equal in Abraham's day was a son (adopted or biological - there are several accounts of adoptions at this time in the near east). But besides the equality factor, this story is also clearly concerned about the unity and connectedness of humanity. That unity and connectedness shows up most vividly in the family. Two apparently solitary individuals can come together and make another human being, which is a source of wonder even in our hyper-technologized age. But what is even more important is the promise connected to this source of unity: in this unification, Abraham will be the father of many people.
Equality, unity and connectedness come into play in the gospel reading as well (Luke 2:22-40). God has chosen to be unified to Mary in the same vivid way as Abraham and Sarah, though of course a God/human relationship overshadows all other relationships. Jesus comes to earth to enable us to become God's equals - impossibly, and yet wonderfully! Throughout the New Testament, Paul's letters are filled with amazement at the fact that God has called us to be his adopted children, to show that in a certain kind of way, we share in God's own blessings, even though God is so far from being equal to us that we could not have hoped to measure up.
Just as in Genesis, our unity and connectedness come into the world through the family. It is very important, I think, that the familial relationship that Luke depicts is one that shows Joseph as Jesus' adopted father. If Joseph had not joined Mary in this adventure, the unity and connectedness we see in the Genesis reading would not have been paralleled here. But Joseph does become Jesus' adopted father, as we see in Joseph's travel to Jersualem and his offerings at the temple. And so it is at this moment that we are meant to recognize that the promise God made to Abraham (that he would be the father of many) is fulfilled in Jesus, and Simeon and Anna proclaim this good news with their words and actions. Jesus comes to save the people of Israel as well as the Gentiles. Jesus himself is the source of unity, connectedness and equality.
Christians are not connected through genetics in the way that Abraham and others of his time thought was so important. But we are still all connected to each other by Christ, because we are Christ's body, and we know this especially in the Eucharist. The family - most especially the Holy Family - demonstrates this unity in Christ and this awesome possibility of equality with God. If we understand these reasons why Jesus comes for all of us as a community, then we understand even more significantly why it is important that God comes to earth. This is what we celebrate in today's feast.
- Jana M. Bennett