April 5, 2016
My 2016 Ongoing Journey: Exploring Matthew to discover what following Jesus and becoming more like him would look like.
Matthew 12:46-50
~ I’ve been wrestling with this one
for a couple of days. It may be the most difficult passage I’ve encountered. The
narrative is included in all three Synoptic Gospels;[1] so it
must have seemed important to the first generation of the church; on the other
hand, in the Revised Common Lectionary, only Mark’s account is included, and there
it is buried in a larger text. Maybe it’s just my reading; but Jesus comes
across as insensitive and disrespectful of his mother and his family.
It’s too easy
to dismiss the problem by referencing the divinity of Christ. The Scriptures
are very clear: Jesus was as much human as divine. To deny his humanity is a
heresy called “Gnosticism”.
The frequent approach of the
commentaries is that Jesus‘ ministry was of greater importance than familial
relationships. One major commentary suggests that Jesus’ family should have
been inside, listening, instead of standing outside asking to speak to him and
thus interrupting his more important work.
On the other
hand, Jesus was a rabbi, and rabbis frequently spoke in riddle and metaphor,
not dissimilar to the koans of some Asian spiritualties. The purpose of this
rabbinic method, as in the koan, was to reveal the deficiency of logical
reasoning, and to push the listener to think (as we might say today) “outside
the box.”
I’m sensing that Jesus is using the
rabbinic strategy, not to establish an either/or dichotomy, but to expand the
concept of family to embrace a broader relationship than genetics. As he later
will do with the establishment of a “new covenant” and a “new commandment,” I
suggest Jesus is establishing a “new family” united, not by genetics but by
doing the will of God.
Would Jesus consider me a part of his “new
family?”
That's the way it looks through the
flawed glass that is my world view.
Together in the Walk,
Jim
[1]
See also Mark 3:31-35 and Luke 8:19-21.
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