We continue our reflection on what it means to grow deeper as the family of Jesus.
This has been a summer of reunions for me. I attended three reunions, all in June: my 30 year high school class reunion. A family reunion. And the Assembly of all the friars of the Western Dominican Province. These three reunions have two things in common – we gather to share stories and to share food.
The stories are important because they are our common heritage. At the family reunion – we remebre when cousin so and so did such and such. We laugh at the foible of uncle so and so. Or can you belive that HE married HER…
At our class reunion we laugh at our ridiculous behavior as teenagers, we fondly rekindle relationships, and we mourn the loss of those no longer with us. Our stories are what make us the class of 1980.
At the Dominican assembly, we gathered in class groups or with those with whom we went through formation and remember our time at St. Albert’s. Remember when Fr. So and so did such and such. Laughter abounds as we remember. Tears as we recall.
The stories bind us together and give us a common history.
The other element common to such reunions and gatherings is food. At my family reunion everybody puts their best foot forward. Fried chicken, BBQ, green beans, good southern fare. Family recipes come out and everybody tries to imitate our late grandmother’s great cooking.
At my class reunion good Gulf Coast seafood. We consumed so much out of fear that we will not be getting any more any time soon.
At reunions, the stories are told over good food and good drink. We celebrate with eating, and the eating has memories all its own.
The same thing happens every time we gather for Mass. We gather in the liturgy of the Word to share our stories – In today’s Gospel, Jesus invokes two of our family stories. The mere mention of Jonah and the Queen of Sheba are enough to recall vivid stories from our heritage. You know the stories about Jonah – your memory can fill in the details of the story of Jonah – the reluctant prophet, the fleeing to the sea, being thrown overboard, three days in the belly of the fish, the successful preaching in Ninevah.
Same with the Queen of Sheba – she’s less known, but, again, her name invokes a story from our heritage – her connection to the wisdom of Solomon.
Jesus invokes these two stories to remind us that people outside our heritage – non-Jews – who heard the word of God, who heard our stories, responded in faithfulness. He tells us that we have a much greater purveyor of the family story in Jesus that either Nineveh or the Queen of Sheba did Jonah and Solomon – we have a greater than Solomon, a greater than Jonah in Jesus himself. Because of that, because we have a more complete telling of the story, we will be held to a higher standard of faithfulness than even Nineveh and the Queen of the South.
And just like at a family reunion, we gather not just to share our story, we gather to share our family food. Jesus, the great sign, the great story, gives himself to us as food, we experience the food as an important part of the story – We have the greatest sign of all signs in the meal we share at this altar.
When we gather at family reunions, as great as the stories are to help us with our family identity, there is something even more basic to us than the story that draws us together as family – here I am talking about DNA – the very bloods and genes flowing through our veins. When I gathered with my family this summer, I went out for an evening with two cousins – there was no mistaking us as family; one might have even assumed we were brothers and sisters – the read hair, the ginger complexion, the loud mouths. That’s DNA.
Well there is a DNA in Jesus’ family as well – that which draws us together as family of Jesus. We read about it in the Prophet Micah today: “You have been told what is good, and what the LORD requires of you: Only to do right and to love goodness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah offers the most basic expression of what it means to be part of the Family of the Lord. He is critical of religious practice that is not backed up by internal conversion. Such external expressions are not pleasing to God – sacrifices, pilgrimages, festivals – unless they are accompanied by an internal commitment to justice. To love goodness, to choose right and to walk humbly with God. This is our DNA, the genetic marker that indicates that we are the family of Jesus.
No comments:
Post a Comment