Homily
for the
14th Sunday
of Ordinary Time
July 4,
2021
Mark 6:
1-6
Holy Name
of Jesus, New Rochelle, N.Y.
“Jesus departed from there and
came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples” (Mark 6: 1).
Altho he’s been away for some
time preaching, healing people, and drawing them closer to God, the people of
Nazareth remember him well, naturally, and they remember him differently than
the crowds who gather about him in Capernaum and all around Galilee. They’ve known him almost his whole life. They know him as “the carpenter, the son of
Mary” (6:3)—not as a preacher or healer or charismatic religious figure, but as
a humble, small-town craftsman.
It’s noteworthy, especially in
this year dedicated to St. Joseph, that the Nazarenes don’t identify
Jesus as “the son of Joseph,” which would have been the normal practice, but as
“the son of Mary.” There are some
orthodox explanations for this unorthodox usage—speculative explanations. (1st possibility) Joseph had died so long
ago, perhaps 20 years earlier, that there was little memory of him. (2) According to Luke’s Gospel (1:26-27) Mary
was a hometown girl, but Matthew’s Gospel presents Joseph as an outsider, a
migrant who settled in Nazareth with the family after their exile in Egypt
(2:23); so hometown loyalties may be reflected in how the people regard
Jesus. (3) The 1st verse of Mark’s
Gospel calls Jesus “the Son of God,” and here Mark has that identity in mind,
viz., that Jesus is not Joseph’s son, but he is Mary’s—a hidden history that
the townsfolk, of course, wouldn’t be aware of.
In any case, the people who
have known Jesus since he was a tyke and who know his family do not take well
to his recent fame and reputation, which have no bearing on his origins and
upbringing. They may feel they’re being
ignored. Who’s he, they appear to be
asking, to be preaching about God and the Law of Moses; to be calling on people
to repent and establish a new relationship with God and new relationships with
each other?
Sometimes we Salesians say among
ourselves, “Better a thousand homilies in a parish than one at home.” The home congregation always seems to be
tougher, more critical, more aware of our faults, idiosyncrasies, and general
character—all of which makes us at least a little self-conscious and less sure
of ourselves.
We don’t know, of course, how
Jesus felt about his homecoming. Was he
disappointed in the reaction he got? I
suspect so. Was his family more
receptive than everyone else? Maybe not.
Actually, in ch. 3 St. Mark
told us that his family, including even his mother, had gone down to Capernaum
to try to stop his ministry and bring him home.
They’d heard of what he was saying and doing, of how he had no time to
rest, and presumably also of the enemies he was making among powerful men—the
Pharisees and the adherents of King Herod (3:6). His family thought he was crazy, out of his
mind (3:2), and needed (shall we say?) some protective custody.
A short while after that
incident, which perhaps was a reason for Jesus to return to Nazareth with his
disciples, still in Mark 3 he pronounced that those “who do the will of God”
are his brothers, sisters, and mother (3:35).
Jesus has established a new set of family relationships, based not on
blood or upbringing but on belonging to God.
In such a circumstance, he’s a
“prophet without honor in his native place and in his own house” (6:4). Verbally, he appears to be disowning his own
relatives. Among the Nazarenes and even
his own kin he meets an “amazing lack of faith” (6:6), which we might interpret
as resistance to God, almost like that of the Pharisees and Herodians.
It’s important to note that
Mary his mother became a true disciple.
St. Mark doesn’t mention her again, but according to St. Luke she was
from the start “the handmaid of the Lord,” ever ready for God’s will (1:38) and
was at the center of the community of disciples after Jesus’ resurrection (Acts
1:14), and according to St. John she was with Jesus on Calvary (19:25-27).
Likewise, some of those called
Jesus’ brothers and sisters—according to Catholic belief, cousins—such as James
became his followers and leaders in the infant Church. Even if we start on the wrong foot, like
Jesus’ relatives, even if we go astray somewhere, Jesus takes us back. He continues to love us.
But what does this Nazareth
story, and the preceding episode about his family, mean for us? It means that we have our own opportunity to
respond to Jesus’ teaching and public ministry, our own opportunity to be bound
to him. We aren’t his fellow Nazarenes;
few of us have much Jewish blood (do a DNA test, and you might be surprised
that you do have some). Our only
substantive flesh and blood relationship to Jesus is our participation in the
sacrament of his Body and Blood, the Eucharist.
That body and blood relationship must go hand in hand with discipleship,
with doing the will of God, with obedience to the commandments, with
faithfulness to what Jesus teaches, with adherence to the apostolic preaching
of St. Peter, St. Paul, and the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church that
Jesus established.
The people of Nazareth asked,
“What kind of wisdom has been given him?” (Mark 6:2). If we believe, as St. Mark wrote, that Jesus
Christ is God’s Son, then we know that the wisdom of God is found in his words
and his actions, and we’ll listen to him and follow him in faith so that he
might “perform the mighty deed” (6:5) of forgiving our sins and bringing our
mortal bodies to eternal life with him.
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