I consider myself a native Chicagoan but I’m also a proud Buffalonian. I’ve lived here for 11 years and have no trouble referring to Buffalo as “home.” (even though the lake remains on the wrong side!) Yet, until about 3 or 4 years ago, I was decidedly still an “outsider.” We Western New Yorkers are very protective of our region-- we don’t let just anyone in….even after 7 or 8 years….
It’s that way lots of places----no matter how much you fall in love with a city, a town, a village--for a period of time you’re considered an outsider. A similar thing can happen when we go home again, to our hometown.
I grew up in a small village outside of Chicago. We lived right in the center of town and were so connected with the community that when my oldest sister was married she and my brother in law stopped at the local grocery store between the wedding and the reception to say hi…. the owners of the grocery store were like a part of our family. Our extended family that included neighbors, our church and the local merchants!
But, now that I haven’t lived there for many years, I don’t really fit in. There’s a whole new generation (well a couple of generations since I lived there) of people who are integral members of this small community. Unless there’s a real old timer around, when I walk into the hardware store (sadly the grocery store and the drug store are long gone) people look at me with that “you’re not from around here are you? “ stare. It doesn’t take too long away before you move from being an insider to being on the outs.
Jesus had such an experience when he returned to Nazareth after what was a whirlwind first few months of ministry. He had gained quite a following and was saying and doing things that, frankly, a good kid from Nazareth, the child of Joseph and Mary wasn’t supposed to do. Back home folks barely recognized this charismatic leader who was ticking off the temple authorities and the scribes left and right. As if that wasn’t disturbing enough he was also performing exorcisms. Exorcisms! And then, probably most shocking of all, he denies his own family—his mother, his brothers and his sisters.
Jesus had left home and came back acting at best like a jerk and at worst, like a possessed lunatic. It’s a tough scene to watch, a difficult Gospel reading to hear. (and, by the way, one many preachers choose to ignore, focusing instead on the reading from Samuel about the people longing for a King or the Corinthians reading about the Spirit)
But before we freak out, let’s dig a little deeper and remember that what Jesus seems to say is not always what Jesus means.
When he appears to reject his family what Jesus is really doing is proclaiming that there’s something greater than family something greater than all the human structures we’ve erected to order our world….something greater than society, something greater than government, something even greater than the love we have for our mother, our father, our sisters, our brothers, our wives, husbands, partners and children. He’s speaking, of course, of the Source of all Love: God. Before we were the child of our parents, before we were the spouse of our partner, before we were the parent of our children we belonged to God. Jesus is saying, all of these structures—be they family as mentioned in the Gospel or governmental as mentioned in Samuel, they mean nothing if before these things, we don’t acknowledge, we don’t remember and we don’t proclaim ourselves beloved children of God.
This is wonderfully illustrated by the tradition of the Hapsburg dynasty in Austria ---Remember the Hapsburgs? For more than 600 years they ruled much of Europe. In 1916 Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria, a member of the Hapsburg line, died. A procession of dignitaries and elegantly dressed royal mourners escorted the coffin, which was draped in black and gold silk. A military band played somber funeral music as the torch-lit procession made its way down winding narrow stairs into the catacombs beneath the Capuchin Monastery in Vienna
At the bottom of the stairs were great iron doors leading to the Hapsburg family crypt. Behind the door was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna.
The Commanding officer rapped on the door and cried out. “Open!”
The Archbishop replied, “Who goes there?”
“We bear the remains of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, Franz-Josef I, by the grace of God Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Bohemia-Moravia, Grand-Duke of Lombardy . . . .” And so it went, through the entire list of his 37 titles.
“We know him not, “ the Cardinal said, “Who goes there?”
The officer spoke again, using the informal title, “We bear the remains of Emperor Franz-Josef I of the Hapsburg line.”
“We know him not,” the cardinal said again. “Who goes there?”
This time the officer replied, “We bear the body of Franz-Josef, our brother, a sinner like all of us.” At that the doors swung open and Franz-Josef was welcomed home.(story taken from The Lectionary Lab: http:lectionarylab.blogspot.com)
We move around a lot in our world—I read someplace that the average American will move 12 times in their lifetime. Roots are hard to maintain in such a transient culture. Each time we move, we establish new friendships, we lay down new roots….but at the end of the day… whether our relationship with the family we grew up with, the family we married into or the family we raised ourselves is still solid and familiar, we need, we long for, roots that attach us wherever it is we find ourselves. And what Jesus offers us in today’s Gospel, and what the Cardinal Archbishop of Vienna so boldly demands of royalty and peasantry alike, is a connection, a family tree, a hometown we can always count on, a place we’ll always be welcomed, a place we always belong. You see, the good news in today’s readings is that as long as we maintain that primary relationship with our loving Creator God as experienced through the Holy and Undivided Trinity, we are never ever alone. For this is the family from which all other families spring. As long as we keep that relationship vital and healthy, then we’ll always be on the inside, we’ll always be a “part of.” Because, “whoever else [we] may be, whatever other relationships [we] may have, there is one title and one relationship that can never be taken away from [us]; [we] are always [children] of God, born out of the waters of baptism and sealed with the Holy Spirit forever. “
Amen.
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