Tuesday, January 24,
2017
From today’s Gospel (Mark
3:31-35)
“’Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking around at those
seated in the circle he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever
does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”
There is a dualist tendency in
religion to exclude. If you are over 60, think of all the terrible
things we Catholic children were told about Protestants. I can actually
remember praying for my Lutheran grandmother when I was about 12 years old from
a prayer book. The prayer asked God to send her a terrible tragedy so that she
would come to her senses and return to the True Faith! And we continue to
exclude even in our own times. Certain groups, people who don’t believe like we
do, people who don’t behave like we do, people who don’t believe in Jesus,
people who don’t believe in God, Islamic peoples, etc., etc., etc., ad naus.
And there are many texts in Scriptures that exhibit a dualist tendency as well.
Consider the Jews and the Samaritans, for example, or even some statements in
the letters of Paul that declare who is or isn’t fit for the Kingdom of God.
But there is also an evolution
in the Scriptures, as well as an evolution in Jesus Christ Himself. Recall how
at first he refused to heal the daughter of the Canaanite woman, but then,
because of her persistence and her faith, changed His mind and redefined
His mission which He had previously said was only to “the lost sheep of the
house of Israel.”
And here, near the very
beginning of Mark’s Gospel, we see Jesus extending the boundaries of His
family to include the people who were listening to him. His only
qualification: those who do the will of
God. And we must be careful here not to assume that we know who it is who
is doing God’s will. God often works through people who do not belong to our
group, our faith, our orientation, our lifestyle, our practices, our notion of
God. My goodness, God even works through atheists! I’m thinking of a composer
who wrote many of the most beloved hymns of Christianity who declared himself
to be an athieist, and yet he wrote more beautifully about the Christian faith
than many believers could even attempt. Was he or wasn’t he doing will of God?
Would Jesus include him as part of His family? Be careful how you answer. The
best answer of all is not to answer, but simply to hold the mystery in
your heart, just as it is so important for us to do with every single
individual we encounter. Just as Jesus said never to judge, I would suggest
that we must never make assumptions about anyone. As I said yesterday, we never
know what burdens another individual is carrying, or what pain is part of that
individual’s history.
As you read the Gospel’s keep
this drive to inclusion in mind and you will see it occurring in stories
and passages that you may never have seen in that light before.
God bless you!
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