Saturday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time
My dad and I don’t always see eye to eye on everything. I know that comes as a surprise for everyone. Despite our differences, I have tremendous respect for my dad’s views. I respect his views because he is not an excuse maker. For instance, he decided that there were things he’d like to see change in his state government and so he ran for office. Sure he didn’t have political experience or fit the politician mold, but that didn’t stop him. His tenacity to address the problems he sees and reluctance to hide behind excuses are two of his most admirable traits. While, I’d be hesitant to say my dad and Jesus are always in complete agreement, I think today’s gospel and my dad’s witness challenges us to put aside our complacency.
Today’s gospel is brief and in it we read, “While Jesus was speaking, a woman from the crowd called out and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that carried you and the breasts at which you nursed.’ He replied, ‘Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it’.” This brief exchange between Christ and the unnamed woman has an important lesson in it. Just to be clear, I don’t think Christ intends to belittle his mother with his response. Instead I think that Christ caught the double meaning behind the woman’s question. Our unnamed woman was speaking highly of Christ’s mother, and appropriately so. However, I think Christ’s response tells us that her compliment was disguising an excuse. An excuse that she formulated as she experienced the challenge and conviction that comes with an encounter with Christ.
I have done the same thing before. I have seen others or heard others who live out the Gospel in a way that convicts me. Then I make excuses why they are supposed to do what they are doing and I am not. Also, as I was growing up, I was not immune from the tendency to give the Saints a monopoly on holiness. Now I’m not denying that there are differences in our calls and circumstances. Those differences are real, but to confuse them with not being called at all is wrong.
In this passage, I believe we are being called to shake off our complacency. As disciples it should be ingrained is us that holiness is not a genetic trait passed from one parent to the next. It is not a medical predisposition. It is not our past that makes us holy, but our response to God in the present. We are being called to hear the word of God and observe it, not hear it and politely assign it to someone else.
- - Spencer Hargadon