He Was One of Us

From the Catholic Liturgy for the 14^th Sunday of Ordinary Time, July 8, 2018. Gospel: Mark 6:1-6. Theme: He Was One of Us

Note: No audio format this week, just written.

Today’s Gospel presents us with two different but important lessons to learn about Jesus and our faith-relationship with Him. It leads many to ask a theological question and it hopefully moves all of us to ask ourselves a very important personal question. Let’s take the theological question first.

Quite often when people begin taking the Gospels seriously and start reading them on their own, they come upon today’s reading and it stops them in their tracks. They will say to me, “I thought Mary was ever-virgin and that Jesus didn’t have any siblings. But Mark says that he has brothers and sisters…what’s up with that?”  That’s an excellent observation and the answer is actually quite simple.

You see, in both the Hebrew and Aramaic languages that Jesus and his companions spoke, there was no word for “cousin”.  Relatives were simply referred to as one’s brothers and sisters of the extended family. And this is how Christians have always understood that verse of Scripture until the after the

Protestant Reformation in the 16^th century, when those who were revolting against the teachings of the Catholic Church went to great lengths to undermine our ancient beliefs about the Mother of Jesus.

So, yes, the Blessed Mother was and is ever-virgin; she was a virgin before she conceived Jesus and remained so to the end of her life. I think we can say that it is somewhat like retiring an athlete’s number when he calls it quits. We retire the number to honor the athlete and his awesome contribution to the sport.  Mary made the most awesome sacrifice and contribution to the life and mission of Jesus, God-come-in-the-flesh. She said yes to God and offered her womb as His gateway to planet Earth. She raised Him, mothered Him, followed Him and suffered with Him. She sacrificed more children in order to show the uniqueness of the One Son she bore. Her perpetual virginity was a kind of safeguard to and proclamation of the divinity of Jesus.

And now on to the practical personal question that today’s Gospel puts before us. Did you notice that St. Mark tells us that Jesus was unable to perform many mighty deeds in Nazareth? And did you catch the reason why?  Because Jesus’ relatives and villagers, his old neighbors, they people he grew up with, simply did not believe.  And St. Mark tells us…” He was amazed at their lack of faith.”

Isn’t it amazing that up to this point in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus is able to face off and conquer many mighty opponents: hostile enemies, demons, diseases and even death itself. But here we find Him blocked by what seems to be a greater obstacle than anything else: unbelief. This really shouldn’t be all that surprising to us because we know that God always respects our free will, our choices.  He never forces Himself or His works upon us because He is the God of Love, and love by its very nature demands free choice, not coercion.

The people of Nazareth had closed their hearts and minds to the possibility that this Jesus, the son of Mary, the village carpenter, the guy they grew up with, could be anything more special than they were. It’s a witness to the truth of the saying that “familiarity breeds contempt”.  And if not contempt, then I would certainly say that at least, familiarity breeds apathy. And this is where I think we arrive at a very important and personal question that today’s Gospel is asking each one of us to honestly ponder.

Have I, perhaps even unintentionally, become infected with some of that apathetic familiarity virus?  Has Jesus become like the guy-next-door for me? When I hear a Gospel story at Mass do I run ahead of it in my mind and finish the story? Am I no longer impressed by the miracle stories because I’ve heard them so many times? Does the drama and intrigue of the Passion no longer move me because I know how it all ends. Arrest. Crucifixion. Death. Resurrection.  

Those of us who come to Mass and profess our Faith week after week, perhaps even day by day, need to be sure than we don’t fall victim to this familiarity that breeds apathy. One way to make sure this doesn’t happen – or to reverse the trend if it has already taken hold of us even to a small degree, is remember the three P’s: Pause, Ponder, Pray.

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     We need to pause for a while in our daily lives that have become so busy, hectic and noisy. We need to make time and take time for our relationship with Jesus, like two friends who make a point of getting together regularly to keep the friendship growing.

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    Then we need to ponder the person and words of Jesus, either remembering some story we have heard or taking out a copy of the Gospels and reading a short passage.

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    Finally, we need to pray, that is, to speak to Jesus heart-to-heart in our own words, asking Him to show us things about Himself in what we have pondered, to teach us his way, to enlighten us about Hs words.

If we are faithful to look for and remember the specialness of Jesus, then perhaps He will be amazed at our faith and be able to work many mighty deeds in our lives.