Reading
Luke 8:19-21
19 Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. 20 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.”
21 He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.”
Comment
We do not know if the "brothers" of Jesus mentioned in this passage were children of Mary or, as it happened according to a Semitic custom, the Greek term Adelphos (f. Adelphe) must be understood as "cousins", "nephews", "half brothers" (see for example Gn 14:16; 29:15; Lv 10:4). An ancient and widespread patristic tradition affirms Mary's virginity even after giving birth to Jesus.
All this matters little for the interpretation of Luke's account. What it transmits to us is that, without despising the natural family, Jesus places above it the family that he "chose for himself", that of those who hear the word of God and put it into practice (v. 21). The Gospel passage, "softened" compared to the parallel of Mark (Mk 3,31-35) - in which Jesus says "«Who are my mother and my brothers?»". (Mk 3,33) - he relates that "they could not approach him", "they were outside" and "wished to see him", but all this was prevented by the crowd.
There is a distance, an impenetrable barrier that stands between Jesus and his family. In an even more "hard" passage from Mark, we are told that Jesus' family members, on another occasion "When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, «He is out of his mind»"(Mk 3:21)". Elsewhere Jesus affirms: "«A prophet is despised only in his country, among his relatives and in his house»" (Mk 6:4).
Jesus relativizes the family institution; he does not make it "a cage", a closed and self-referential context, but places it in the background with respect to the belonging to the family of believers. In this sense, "«everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life»" (Mt 19:29) . Elsewhere Jesus affirms: "«Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law»" (Mt 10: 34-35).
But if the word of God is a sword that can sever family ties, it is also a bond that can strengthen them, and enrich them with a supernatural force of union. Then the family becomes something more than a kind of "clan"; it becomes the hearth of the Word of God, where two or three gathered in the name of Jesus make it present in their midst; it becomes a fruitful nucleus for evangelization outside of it.
Prayer
Guard our families o Lord, so that your word may be present among us, to enliven our relationships and make us apostles of the gospel. Amen.
- Rev. Dr. Luca Vona
