You Can't Choose Your Family

Jan 31: Wednesday of the Fourth Week in Ordinary Time

A long time ago, I worked on a sitcom pilot about a Texan woman marrying a man from India, and how their families interacted. It was originally called “Cowboys and Indians,”¹ but later the studio changed the name to “My Freakin’ Family.” I thought it was blandly generic, and worse, it didn’t tell you anything about the show.

And yet, whenever I mentioned this to a normal person,² they thought the title was great. Which demonstrates two things: 1) I don’t know anything;³ 2) people have very complex feelings about their own families.

What does any of this have to do with today’s mass readings? You’re about to find out.

Reading I

Heb 12:4-7, 11-15

Brothers and sisters: In your struggle against sin you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding blood. You have also forgotten the exhortation addressed to you as children:

    My son, do not disdain the discipline of the Lord
        or lose heart when reproved by him;
    for whom the Lord loves, he disciplines;
        he scourges every son he acknowledges.

Endure your trials as “discipline”; God treats you as his sons. For what "son” is there whom his father does not discipline? At the time, all discipline seems a cause not for joy but for pain, yet later it brings the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who are trained by it.

So strengthen your drooping hands and your weak knees. Make straight paths for your feet, that what is lame may not be dislocated but healed.

Strive for peace with everyone, and for that holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
See to it that no one be deprived of the grace of God, that no bitter root spring up and cause trouble, through which many may become defiled.

Jesus taught us to call God “our Father,” which is generally a very comforting thought. Every once in awhile, though, the Bible reminds us that parents discipline us as well as comfort us.

Ancient Hebrews often believed any calamity in your life was punishment for wrongdoing. “Discipline” is slightly different, though. Punishments are for justice; discipline is for learning.

What is God trying to teach you through your pain?

Responsorial Psalm

103:1-2, 13-14, 17-18a

R.    The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him.
Bless the LORD, O my soul;
    and all my being, bless his holy name.
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
    and forget not all his benefits.
R.    The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him.
As a father has compassion on his children,
    so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him,
For he knows how we are formed;
    he remembers that we are dust.
R.    The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him.
But the kindness of the LORD is from eternity
    to eternity toward those who fear him,
And his justice toward children’s children
    among those who keep his covenant.
R.    The Lord’s kindness is everlasting to those who fear him.

God also knows how fragile we are (“remembers that we are dust”). That’s where compassion comes in. It doesn’t seem like it, but pain is fleeting, and we’ll be with God forever.

Alleluia

Jn 10:27

R. Alleluia, alleluia.
My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord;
I know them, and they follow me.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.

Honestly, this one’s a little weird. Both readings and the Psalm are about family, but the Gospel acclimation goes with the ol’ sheep/shepherd metaphor. You confuse me, Ordo Lectionum Missae.

Gospel

Mk 6:1-6

Jesus departed from there and came to his native place, accompanied by his disciples. When the sabbath came he began to teach in the synagogue, and many who heard him were astonished. They said, “Where did this man get all this? What kind of wisdom has been given him? What mighty deeds are wrought by his hands! Is he not the carpenter, the son of Mary, and the brother of James and Joseph and Judas and Simon? And are not his sisters here with us?” And they took offense at him. Jesus said to them, “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” So he was not able to perform any mighty deed there, apart from curing a few sick people by laying his hands on them. He was amazed at their lack of faith.

Fun fact: this is the only passage that refers to Jesus as a carpenter, and not just a carpenter’s son. (Although, the former can be inferred from cultural context.)

It’s hard to impress your family, even when you’re the Messiah. They remember changing your diapers; they’ve seen you fall down and scrape your knees. When you’ve watched someone grow up, it’s hard to accept that they’ve grown up.

Mark’s version of this story differs from Luke’s and Matthew’s in the detail that “he was not able to perform any mighty deed there.” Yesterday, the bleeding woman was cured simply because she believed in Jesus. But Jesus’ home town and extended family had no faith in Him.

Do you have a perception of someone in your life locked in place? Are you unable to see them in a different way, older more mature, kinder, more patient, less judgmental? It might not be a kid, but someone who was an adult when you were a kid. Or someone you haven’t seen in a long time.

Maybe now’s the time to re-think the way you see them.

1. Get it? Huh? Huh? Get it? (I imagine the writer saying.)

2. i.e. someone who doesn’t work in the entertainment business.

3. Luckily, William Goldman says “Nobody knows anything,” and if the guy who wrote Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and The Princess Bride doesn’t know, I don’t have to feel so bad.