Tuesday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time
There are a lot of things that the Bible says that I just don’t get. Sometimes that’s because what the Bible says is strange. I can find a lot of those places in, for instance, the Book of Revelation. There is so much there that is just baffling. But then there are other places in the Bible that seem so clear. I think, for instance, of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says that people who make peace are blessed. That just makes sense, especially coming from Jesus.
The text from Luke that is before us today seems to be another one of those places that is not terribly hard to understand. Here, Jesus seems quite clear about how he understands his family. And it’s not by way of blood relations. Indeed, he seems here to be rejecting the idea that those who claim to be his blood relations are his family. In a patriarchal culture, like the one Jesus lived in, that’s really rather incredible. In such a culture, a great deal of attention is paid in both law and practice to the question of who is in one’s bloodline. The assumption is that a patriarch would want to make sure that only his true blood relations can make a claim on him.
But here, Jesus, (who, as the Son of God, surely could have claimed to be the supreme patriarch on earth) rejects all that. Instead of doing that, he says that what makes someone a member of his family is that they hear the word of God and that they act on it.
That’s it. To gain entrance into Jesus’ family, surely the best family there ever could be, you don’t have to worry about who you came from. You don’t have to have some fine pedigree. In fact, you can even come from nobody and still find your way into Jesus’ family. All you have to do is hear God’s word and act on it.
So, how do we do that?
We know that there are a lot of places in the Bible that are not so easy to read, and we know that our desires (to, say, live a comfortable life) might get in the way of us hearing the undoubtedly challenging word that God is trying to say to us. So, it’s a good idea for all of us to check what we think we’re hearing in community. We need to hear the word of God with others so they can help us and we can help them hear the word of God well.
Of course, listening for the word of God in community is not always a guarantee that we’ll hear it right since there are plenty of people (and we might be in community with them) who want us to think that ours is an angry God who hates this or that kind of people. But we know that our God is a God of love and mercy. If we find ourselves in a community that preaches an angry and vengeful God, then we need to acknowledge that and know that whatever we might be hearing, it most certainly is not the word of God.
When we have heard the word from our loving and merciful God, we also have to act on it. Jesus is clear on this. It is not enough to hear it. We have to take action too.
And these days, as in all days, there are so many opportunities for doing that. I mentioned at the beginning of this reflection that one of the places in the Bible where what God is saying seems to be so clear is where Jesus is saying that those who make peace are blessed. That’s a great place to start. These days, we hear about conflict and strife all over the world all the time. It’s heartbreaking. So, we might ask ourselves, where in our lives might we work toward peace? Just about every time we listen to or read the news, we hear that the US is rife with deep divisions. How might we in our everyday interactions work against that?
What if we were to challenge ourselves to find a way to bring a bit of joy to someone who we think is on the other side of some divide? I am going to make that pledge to try to do that at least once in the next few days. Will you?
May we hear God’s word of love and mercy. And may we act. Amen.
- Sue Trollinger