Tuesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – Gospel

Commentary on Matthew 12:46-50

Just before we enter the third of the great discourses on the parables of the Kingdom, we have today’s short passage on who really belongs to Jesus. As Jesus was speaking to the crowds his mother and other family members arrived:

While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him.

Matthew does not say what their words were, but we know from another context (Mark 3:21) that they were embarrassed by what he was doing, probably because of the way he was earning the displeasure of the authorities. In later times, many who opted to follow Christ have been a source of embarrassment and displeasure to their families, especially in situations where being Christian or Catholic was a violation of state law or religious affiliation.

When Jesus is told they are looking for him he stretches out his hands to his followers and says that they are his “mother and brothers”. And then he defines how one becomes one of his brothers and sisters:

…whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

It is significant that Jesus’ own blood relatives are spoken of as being “outside”; Jesus’ disciples, those who really listen to him, are those who are ‘inside’. This is not to say that Jesus is rejecting his family; to do so would be to contradict his own teaching of loving all unconditionally. But he uses the situation to make a very important point—that relationship to Jesus is based on one thing only, total commitment through Jesus to the Father.

To be a Christian, a disciple, is to enter into this new relationship with God and with others. All other bonds, including those of blood, take a second place or are to be understood in the light of this bonding to God first of all and above all.

It would be wrong to conclude that Jesus was rejecting his own mother here. Yet what he says applies to her as much as to anyone else. Mary is measured by her commitment to the Father and the Son, who is also her Son. That commitment was clearly made when she accepted to be the mother of Jesus:

Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word. (Luke 1:38)

It was a commitment that was still being kept as she stood in grief at the foot of her Son’s cross. Mary was certainly on the ‘inside’. Let us ask her today that we too may always be ‘insiders’.

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Tuesday of Week 16 of Ordinary Time – First Reading

Commentary on Micah 7:14-15,18-20

Today’s final selection from Micah consists of a lovely prayer from a people aware of their great needs which only God can remedy. The prophet begs God to lead his people to richer pastures, for the people of Israel are his very inheritance:

Shepherd your people with your staff,
the flock that belongs to you…

Right now, they live:

…alone in a forest
in the midst of a garden land…

The prophet says they are living isolated in a land that is unproductive—in the sense that they are living in a situation of desolation and hardship after their return to Jerusalem from their exile in Babylon.

They now long for the days when they could pasture in:

…Bashan and Gilead….As in the days
when you came out of the land of Egypt,
show us marvelous things.

This was a time when they were the witnesses to all God’s wonders on their behalf. And as in the days after they left Egypt, they long for more wonderful signs of Yahweh’s love and power.

The prophet then appeals to God’s very nature to come to their aid:

Who is a God like you, pardoning iniquity
and passing over the transgression
of the remnant of his possession?

This prayer is a kind of psalm of which similar examples occur in the prophetic writings. Micah’s God is not the kind of god that others believe in, a god who instils terror and fear. This God takes faults away and pardons crime. This God is not vindictive; he does not cherish anger forever, but delights in showing mercy and compassion.

Micah begs his God to have pity on his people in spite of all that they have done:

…tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our sins
into the depths of the sea.

He appeals to God to remember and to implement the covenants of old that were made with Abraham and Jacob, covenants of faithfulness and mercy.

Perhaps we, too, feel now (or have felt at other times) that our lives were being lived in a kind of desert. We ask God to lead us to richer pastures where we can experience joy and peace. As well, we should also know that we have a God beyond compare, made known to us through the life and death of Jesus. Through Jesus, he has given us a new life in a new covenant. As did the people of Micah’s time, we also beg our God to wipe out all our sins and help us to turn totally to him in love and fidelity.

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