Homily for 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time

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).

Nazareth

“There” from which Jesus departs is Capernaum, a town on the shore of the Sea of Galilee where he’s made his home during his public ministry.  The “native place” to which he goes today is his hometown, Nazareth, where his mother and his extended family live.

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.