What Makes a Family Holy? - The Feast of the Holy Family

Note: Through Advent and Christmas, I have decided to focus these reflections on the Virgin Mary and not on the weekly Gospel reading.

What Makes a Family Holy?

There is a funny and somewhat surprising story tucked away in Mark’s Gospel. After publicly healing a man of his withered hand, Mark reports that an enormous crowd began following Jesus (Mk 3:8). Many brought their sick relatives to be cured (3:10). The crowds pressed thickly upon Jesus and he was unable to rest a moment that day. We read that it became “impossible for him even to eat” (Mk 3:20). But amidst all this fervor, we learn of an odd detail. Jesus’ own relatives had caught wind of the commotion and were ― of all things ― embarrassed of him. The text says that “when his family heard about this they set out to seize him, for they said, ‘he is out of his mind’” (Mk 3:21). The Son of God was apparently acting in a way unbecoming of the family name. 

We should not be imagining that it was Mary or Joseph who were ashamed of their son. Indeed, most scholars suspect that Joseph ― not mentioned at all once Jesus begins his public ministry ― had by this time passed away. And it was Mary who once prompted Jesus to turn water into wine at a wedding in Cana (Jn 2). Mary was not ashamed of Jesus causing a commotion. Indeed, in the story from Mark’s Gospel, we learn just a few verses later that it was probably Jesus’ cousins who came to protect the family’s reputation from any further embarrassment (Mk 3:31). 

When we celebrate today’s “Feast of the Holy Family,” we don’t usually think of Jesus’ broader family. We’re even less likely to imagine that Jesus might not have been well-liked by all the cousins. And, more than that, when we think of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph we often think of their family life as the kind of thing that should be depicted on an ornament, as something quite cozy. We imagine them gathered around a warm hearth untroubled by the sinful world around them.

On the contrary, part of what makes the Holy Family holy is that it wasn’t the kind of thing that could be depicted on an ornament. Indeed, no real family’s daily life is the kind of thing that should ever be depicted on an ornament. And the Holy Family was a real family. That means they had real relatives who really were whackos. Just like your family. Part of what makes the Holy Family holy is that they didn’t isolate themselves from that whackiness, but were in the fray.

An important detail: when Jesus’ relatives came to collect him, Mary was right in their midst. Someone from the crowd even told Jesus: “your mother and family are outside looking for you” (Mk 3:32). Whackos or not, these were Mary’s people. This was her family. She was in the fray with these cousins who were embarrassed of her son. Did she have to listen to them apologizing to those who’d gathered? “I’m so sorry for this. He’s out of his mind.” Was she admonished by her relatives? “Didn’t you teach him better than this?”

This was the Holy Family’s family, and ― odd as it may seem ― that family was embarrassed of Jesus. But Mary did not cut them out of her life, safely retreating to those people who accept her. The Holy Family would not have been very holy had it remained walled-off from the world’s unholiness, had it remained contentedly around the hearth at Nazareth. Holiness is not closed in on itself. It wants to go outside itself, even into very dark places. Indeed, the holiness of the Holy Family was not for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph alone. It was also for those cousins who were embarrassed of Jesus. 

Yes, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph lived lives of extraordinary holiness. They were the “Holy Family.” But we should not imagine that the coming together of their lives formed some sort of impenetrable bubble around their home. The bitterness of the world broke into their lives. It crucified one of them. And he left his home knowing it would. 

The world is as embarrassed of Jesus today as it was when he was causing a commotion in ancient Israel. This is no reason to cut those cousins out of your life. On the contrary, it is reason to model your family after the Holy Family, to remain close to those who are convinced you all ― like Jesus ― “are out of your minds.” Click here to subscribe to these reflections by email

On the Face of Jesus, for Christmas - 4th Sunday of Advent/Christmas

On the Face of Jesus, for Christmas

Note: For the season of Advent and Christmas, I've decided to focus these reflections on the Virgin Mary rather than the weekly Gospel.

The Jews understood that no one could see the face of God and live to tell about it. “I pray thee,” Moses once pleaded with God, “show me thy glory!” In a beautiful passage, God proceeded to show Moses “all his goodness” but insisted that Moses could not see his face, “for man shall not see me and live” (Ex 33:18-23). The difference between God and humanity is too great: “God is in heaven; you are on earth,” the Book of Ecclesiastes says (Ec 5:2). Bridging that gap ― encountering him face-to-face ― would simply overwhelm us.

But the Jews were far from satisfied with this arrangement. “Show us your face!” (Ps 4:6) they pleaded all throughout the Old Testament. It was the constant petition of their psalms. When priests offered blessings, they’d say “may the Lord bless you and keep you, and may the Lord make his face to shine upon you” (Nm 6:24-25). In times of pain, they could be sharp: “Are you sleeping, Lord? Wake up! Why do you hide your face from us?” (Ps 44:23-24)? Their conclusion is a beautiful one. Humanly speaking, they cannot see the face of God. But, as it says in one of their psalms, “my heart says, ‘seek his face.’ And so your face, Lord, I will seek” (Ps 27:8-9). Even if God has hidden it ― even if finding it would kill them ― they will seek the face of God.

The birth of Jesus is the definitive moment. Christmas changes all this. Christmas celebrates the fact that, in Jesus, we have seen the face of God and lived. Mary, of course, was the first to see this, the first to peer into that face. We must not miss the extraordinariness of that first glance. God looked at Mary and Mary looked at God. Think about that! Their eyes rested upon each other. And what did Mary see?

How fascinating that Mary looked into the face of God and saw a face much like her own, a face that had inherited her features: cheeks like hers, eyes like hers. Indeed, it is Mary “of whom Jesus was born,” (Mt 1:16) and so it is Mary of whom Jesus received his human features. As he grew, she would’ve noticed it more. When he laughed, did he toss his head like she did? Did he lick his lips like she did? Sneeze like she did? Wouldn’t she have been the first to understand the emotions on her son’s face ― frustration, curiosity, joy ― because she knew how they played out on her own? 

In a sense, the human face is for communicating emotion. Indeed, the face conveys our personality most intimately. This is why the Jews wanted to see God’s face so badly. In the face of Jesus, God has revealed his divine personality to us. How surprising that God’s face is a human face ― a baby’s face! How surprising that he carries himself just like his mother!

Mary knew the tradition of her ancestors ― that looking into God’s face meant death. But this was her son. “Blessed is she,” St. Jacob of Serugh (d. 521) once wrote of Mary. “She has born the mighty giant who sustains the world.” In her son’s eyes, Mary did not find a death sentence, but “infinity dwindled to infancy.” Today God blinks and smiles at the caresses of his mother. That is the marvel of Christmas ― the fact that the same God whose face made the patriarchs tremble now lies gurgling in his mother’s arms. Christmas means that God is not just blinding light and unquenchable fire, but a baby in need of his mother’s tenderness. “Blessed is she,” St. Jacob insisted, “her lips have touched Him whose blazing made angels of fire recoil…. She has embraced Him and covered him with kisses.”


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"Betrothed to a man named Joseph" - 3rd Sunday of Advent

Note: For the season of Advent and Christmas, I've decided to focus these reflections on the Virgin Mary rather than the weekly Gospel.

"Betrothed to a man named Joseph"

There’s an old story about Mary that nobody really tells anymore. A text called the Golden Legend from the Middle Ages described how, when Mary was ready for marriage, a whole host of suitors ― Joseph included ― lined up before her with branches from their homes. Whoever’s branch, when laid upon the Temple altar, produced a flower would be the one she married. It was said that a young man named Agabus was so crushed by Joseph winning Mary’s hand that he snapped his branch over his knee and fled weeping into the desert. He swore never to love another woman and lived the rest of his days as a celibate monk. You can find this legend painted in churches across Italy. In Raphael’s depiction ― a copy of which still hangs in Germany ― a youthful Joseph slides a ring onto a blushing Mary’s finger as Agabus annihilates his branch in front of the wedding party. It’s all very dramatic.

It reveals something about us that we don’t tell this story anymore. We don’t usually think of Mary getting caught up in these kinds of things, of her blushing over a boy. We don’t think of her as a heartbreaker. We’re not totally wrong here. In Mary’s time marriage had little to do with love. We didn’t marry for love until the nineteenth century. The odd thing is that the medievals who told this story didn’t marry for love either. Yet they translated this story into numerous languages ― they told it far and wide. Several dioceses even held feast days for it. The point is that ― and many historians have pointed this out ― just because the ancients and medievals didn’t marry for love doesn’t mean they never fell in love. How much of their art, music, and literature is about love? 

In crafting this story about Joseph winning Mary’s hand ― even if it’s not historically true ― the medievals had grasped something profoundly true about the marriage of Mary and Joseph that we modern Catholics often forget, namely that they were in love with each other, even romantically. Even if the ancients didn’t usually marry for the purpose love, how could the Holy Family not have been a locus of real married love? Indeed, Mary and Joseph are the spiritual parents of Catholics. We should not be afraid to imagine that our parents loved each other. 

Do not mishear me. Mary and Joseph’s marriage was a continent one. The medievals held this as dearly as we do. But they also knew love and intimacy cannot be reduced to sex. Why don’t we meditate on that more often? Did Mary not find Joseph handsome? His voice soothing? His arms safe? What keeps us from imagining a Mary who can’t stop smiling when she thinks of her Joseph coming home soon? He was very much her Joseph, her beloved. And what, on the other hand, prevents Joseph from thinking he’s the luckiest guy in the world? He was certainly luckier than poor Agabus! The way her hair falls upon her shoulder, the joke she tells that he doesn’t quite get but laughs at anyway, the odd way she dips her bread in their oil. It was all uniquely her. How many times did Joseph stop at his work just to think about her? She was his Mary, his beloved. 

It was no mistake that God decided to become human within a marriage. He could have become incarnate to Mary alone, without the addition of Joseph. God could, when Joseph learned of the strange pregnancy, have let him “send her away quietly” (Mt 1:19). But God decided to enter the world in the context of married love. God wanted to be raised by two people whose hearts beat a little faster when they looked at each other, whose hearts were vowed to each other through thick and through thin. Whatever that phenomenon is ― we could call it romantic love ― God is part of it. Indeed, God decided to be born within it.  That’s worth remembering.


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2nd Sunday of Advent (and the Immaculate Conception)

Note: For the season of Advent, I've decided to focus these reflections on the Virgin Mary rather than the weekly Gospel.

On Mary's Immaculate Conception

There’s an unfortunate misconception about Mary, namely that she was a bit of a wimp. We tend to think of her as delicate, as someone who never spoke louder than a whisper. With her hands folded and head bowed, we’ve imprisoned a very fragile and lifeless Mary into our figurines and into our imaginations. Caryll Houselander was an old Catholic writer from the 1940s who talked about how, as a little girl, people encouraged her never to do something the Blessed Virgin wouldn’t do. The trouble was, she joked, “I simply could not imagine her doing anything at all.” The Mary in our minds is not very dynamic.

On account of this, the real Mary, the one who actually walked around, has become difficult for us to imagine. We forget that she was once a desperate refugee who escaped her hometown in the dead of night (Mt 2:14). We forget that Mary gave birth alongside animals (Lk 2:7). We don’t think of her as the kind of woman who, when she sings, sings about “scattering the arrogant in their conceit, throwing down the mighty from their thrones … and sending the rich away hungry” (Lk 1:51-53). Mary was no delicate little thing. When nearly everyone else fled for their lives ― even after they swore never to desert him (Mt 26:35) ― Mary remained with Jesus at the foot of the cross (Jn 19:25).

This confusion about Mary, in part, comes from a misunderstanding about her “Immaculate Conception,” which Catholics will celebrate this week. We often point out that the Immaculate Conception refers not to Jesus’ conception inside of Mary, but to Mary’s conception inside her mother. Indeed, the teaching is that, from the first moment she was conceived in her mother’s womb, Mary was “preserved free from all stain of original sin.” But there is a second way of misunderstanding the Immaculate Conception that applies to our problem. We misunderstand Mary’s sinlessness if we think it makes her totally unlike us. 

We must not think that, because Mary was sinless, she was somehow unapproachable, that she floated a few inches above the dirt. No. Mary was as gritty as her neighbors. She stoked flames and carried water. We certainly don’t think of Mary as the kind of woman with whom you’d split 2 liters of homemade wine, but that is how much the average Israelite drank each day. I don’t know about you, but I can’t drink that much! 

Mary’s holiness does not make her glide above us. It is just the opposite. It is precisely Mary’s freedom from sin that makes her most approachable, most ordinary, most one-of-us. Holiness does not lift one above normal human life, but makes one more richly engaged in the ordinary world. Indeed, to be sinless is not to be inhuman, but to be most human. More than that, her holiness made her most able to endure and engage the harshest turns life can take ― she was a refugee; she endured the public crucifixion of her son. Indeed, this is precisely what makes her able to sympathize with the harshness of your own life. You can talk to her about it. She’s been through it too. 

Mary was a woman, a real woman. She was a mother ― a real mother ― who loved her real son, not in some ethereal and untouchable way that has no meaning at all, but in the same gritty way that all mothers love their children. In my experience, there is nothing delicate about mothers. Mothers are not to be messed with. She wiped Jesus up, fed him, searched frantically for him when he snuck off (Lk 2:41-52). It’s all very ordinary; it’s just like any other mother. Indeed, what makes it extraordinary ― what makes her immaculate ― is that all this ordinariness is directed toward and oriented around the most extraordinary of children. She was willing to give the entirety of her ordinary human existence to the flourishing of her Son. For this “all generations will call her blessed” (Lk 1:48).

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Se quedó - 1st Sunday of Advent

Note: For the season of Advent and Christmas, these reflections will focus on the Virgin Mary rather than the weekly Gospel. 

In Ohio, one of my closest friends had six children. I was once charged with getting Frances, the 2-year-old, to sleep. I sung the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” while she rested on my shoulder. As I finished, a smile spread across her face. “Again!” she screamed delightedly. I obeyed, but got the same response: “again!” And so on I went several more times, singing more and more softly. Each time, the same response. “Again! Again!” It didn’t put her to sleep — it’s never that easy — but, with each one, she got a little less giggly and her eyes got a bit more heavy. She’d begun to settle into the comfort of the song. Indeed, its warmth and constancy — “again!” — was part of what made it comforting. 

It’s an odd way to start a reflection on Mary — by recalling a child lulling off toward sleep. But Frances did teach me something about Mary and why Catholics cling to her. The theologian Roberto Goizueta tells a story about an old Mexican abuelita who was once challenged to defend her devotion to Mary. [1] “Why do you love her so?” After a moment, she replied: “Se quedó. Se quedó ― She stayed. She stayed.” Maybe that’s an odd response, but I think Frances taught me what that abuelita meant by it. Above all, in the song, Frances wanted someone to be with her, to be near her ― she wanted someone to stay. “Again! Again! Don’t leave!”  

In the spiritual life, Catholics — the abuelita included — have always sensed that Mary stays, that she is near to us. Catholic life, of course, is decked out with Mary. We name churches after her, put up statues, sing songs about her. She’s with us in her picture hanging on our walls, in tangled up rosaries the children have strewn about our rooms, in the tattooes painted across our arms. 

But it’s not just because we’ve decided to honor her that Mary’s name has stuck around. Mary, too, has decided to stay. Again and again, she’s appeared to the faithful across the world ― Fatima, Lourdes, Guadalupe, Kibeho, Akita ― often dressed and looking like the people to whom she’s appeared. That is part of what makes Mary, Mary. She has a motherly instinct, an ability to be there.  

And it’s not just that Mary is always there. Even when the going gets tough, Mary stays. Catholics know that, in times of anguish, Mary’s presence is often most keenly felt. It’s worth noticing, for instance, that when Mary has appeared, it’s often been to those who are poor or alienated, or to children. And the fact of the matter is that we are all poor, anxious, and hurting. But Catholics have always sensed that, no matter what, Mary is with us. She is with us when we beg for God’s help, with us when we weep or angrily tell God how we really feel, with us when we just can’t go on. In those times, “se quedó, se quedó ― she stayed, she stayed.” She is an ever-present reality, a motherly reminder that God is still at work in the world and in our lives. 

It is this constancy that marks Catholic devotedness to Mary, the constancy of this reminder that God himself draws near to us in our pain. This is the constancy that we all crave. It is the constancy that Frances craved as I sang to her ― the assurance that someone would be near her, that someone would stay. Indeed, Frances understands why Catholics embrace the constancy and repetition of Mary’s rosary, why, as soon as we finish ― “now and at the hour of our death” ― we start (“again!”) at once: “Hail, Mary!” [2] It is a reminder that Mary is always among us ― that she is always there to hail and to greet ― that she stayed and that she will always stay.

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[1] Roberto S. Goizueta, Christ Our Companion (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2009): 11.
[2] See Hans Urs von Balthasar, The Threefold Garland (San Francisco: Ignatius, 1985), 23 for a similar way of thinking about the rosary's use of the Hail Mary, but from a different theological angle.

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On the Feast of Christ the King

Luke 23:35-43
The rulers sneered at Jesus and said,
"He saved others, let him save himself
if he is the chosen one, the Christ of God."
Even the soldiers jeered at him.
As they approached to offer him wine they called out,
"If you are King of the Jews, save yourself."
Above him there was an inscription that read,
"This is the King of the Jews."
Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying,
"Are you not the Christ?
Save yourself and us."
The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply,
"Have you no fear of God,
for you are subject to the same condemnation?
And indeed, we have been condemned justly,
for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes,
but this man has done nothing criminal."
Then he said,
"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
He replied to him,
"Amen, I say to you,
today you will be with me in Paradise."

---

On the Feast of Christ of King

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus was taken by Satan to a mountain and shown “all the kingdoms of the world and the glory of them.” “All these I will give you,” Satan said. But it didn’t work. “Begone, Satan!” (Mt 4:8-10) 

The word Jesus said to Satan ― “begone!” ― in Greek is “hypage.” Jesus said that exact same phrase, “hypage, Satan!” just one more time in his life. It was when he explained to the disciples that he must go to Jerusalem to be killed. Peter rebuked him: “God forbid, Lord! This shall never happen to you!” The text says Jesus then “turned on” Peter: “hypage, Satan!” It’s often translated as “get behind me, Satan!” (Mt 16:21-23)

This is startling. Jesus has linked Peter’s words of concern with the devil’s temptation. How is that fair? How could they possibly be related? One way of thinking about it is in light of this week’s feast day; it has to do with the way in which Jesus desires to be king. How so?

Recall that Satan offered Jesus “all the kingdoms of this world.” He refused. Think about that! Wouldn’t it be desirable to have Jesus as the head of every world government? Wouldn’t we want his justice to be the law of every land? But Jesus outrightly rejected this kind of earthly political kingdom: “my kingdom is not of this world,” he told Pontius Pilate (Jn 18:36). He is not interested in obtaining “the things that are Caesar’s” (Mt 22:21).

Peter’s rebuke of Jesus ― “God forbid [you should go to Jerusalem and be killed!]” ― was not a call for some glorious political kingdom. But it’s similar to Satan’s temptation insofar as Peter wanted to limit Jesus’ mission to something occuring merely within this world. Peter very sincerely wanted Jesus not to suffer and die but to live a long and healthy life. He wanted his teachings and the community around Jesus to flourish. It’s hard not to sympathize. But Jesus’ forceful response highlights that his mission was not to establish a merely earthly community. His mission was to die and, somehow, by dying, bring that earthly community to heaven.

The temptation of Satan and Peter reappears in this week’s Gospel in the words of those standing by as Jesus is crucified. “If you are King of the Jews,” the soldiers taunt him, “save yourself!” They are looking for a king ― even one with supernatural power ― who can dissolve the tyranny around him and prove his worth by coming down from a cross. What kind of king suffers at the hands of his enemies? One of the criminals even “reviled” him: “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and save us!”

This is the last and hardest temptation, the temptation to create a kingdom without suffering. It is a temptation we face too. We also wonder what Jesus is doing about our suffering. Shouldn’t the king of the universe prevent and take away the world’s agonies? Shouldn’t the Christ relieve our pains? “Aren’t you supposed to be Christ the King?! Save yourself and save us!” 

But Jesus’ kingdom is not free from earthly suffering, neither for us nor for him. Instead, Jesus reveals his kingship precisely by suffering. He is among his people in their agony. Our king is anxious like we are. He is heartbroken, wounded, and ailing like we are. He weeps for his dead friends like we do. Above all, he dies and is buried as we will be. The king of the universe has not decided to redeem us from a distance. He is in the fray. That is how Christ is king. He is a king who is with us, among us, and alongside us through his own suffering, agonizing, and dying. 

But if Jesus is king in his agonizing alongside us, he is king, too, when he assures us that our suffering and dying is not the last word. He has gone to the very bottom of our existence and, by rising from it — by rising from death — given us new reason to hope. For we know now, as Saint Paul said, that “if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Rom 6:5). 

Christ is king. His throne is a cross. In God’s kingdom, earthly suffering has not been banished, but is precisely that which makes us most like Jesus, that which makes us most like God. Christ is king because he transforms our suffering into glory. “Jesus,” the Good Thief implored amidst his own agony, “remember me when you come into your kingdom.” It would be three days until Jesus did that. Yet he assures the thief that his pain is already a participation in that kingdom: “today you will be with me in Paradise.”


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“A wisdom in speaking” - 33rd Sunday in Ordinary Time

Luke 21:5-19
While some people were speaking about
how the temple was adorned with costly stones and votive offerings,
Jesus said, "All that you see here--
the days will come when there will not be left
a stone upon another stone that will not be thrown down."
Then they asked him,
"Teacher, when will this happen?
And what sign will there be when all these things are about to happen?"
He answered,
"See that you not be deceived,
for many will come in my name, saying,
'I am he,' and 'The time has come.'
Do not follow them!
When you hear of wars and insurrections,
do not be terrified; for such things must happen first,
but it will not immediately be the end."
Then he said to them,
"Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
There will be powerful earthquakes, famines, and plagues
from place to place;
and awesome sights and mighty signs will come from the sky.
"Before all this happens, however,
they will seize and persecute you,
they will hand you over to the synagogues and to prisons,
and they will have you led before kings and governors
because of my name.
It will lead to your giving testimony.
Remember, you are not to prepare your defense beforehand,
for I myself shall give you a wisdom in speaking
that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist or refute.
You will even be handed over by parents, brothers, relatives, and friends,
and they will put some of you to death.
You will be hated by all because of my name,
but not a hair on your head will be destroyed.
By your perseverance you will secure your lives."

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The liturgical year is ending. In two Sundays we’ll begin Advent, the start of a new Church year. Next week, for the final Sunday of “Ordinary Time,” we’ll mark the feast of Christ the King. Obviously, next week’s Gospel reading will draw our attention to the way Jesus is king of the universe. But this week’s Gospel also tells us something about Christ’s kingship. Jesus’ somewhat cryptic words this week about the end of the world and the way Christians should respond to persecution tell us not so much about the king himself, though, but about his kingdom. How so?

One thing we should notice about Jesus’ description of the world’s dysfunction is how often it utilizes “kingdoms” and “nations” and the clashes between them: “Nation will rise against nation,” Jesus says, “and kingdom against kingdom.” Or again: “they will have you led before kings and governors.” Or again: “when you hear of wars and insurrections….” Jesus depicts the kingdoms of the world as fundamentally chaotic. 

Let’s now juxtapose these kingdoms with the kingdom Jesus has been introducing to his disciples. Indeed, we should not forget what Jesus has been doing with his ministry up until now: he’s been describing to his disciples a certain way of life, and he always describes it as a kingdom. “The kingdom of God has come near to you,” Jesus says, summarizing for the disciples the message they should spread (Lk 10:9). Notice, too, how Jesus begins many of his parables: “the kingdom of heaven is like a man who sowed good seed,” or it’s like “leaven,” or it’s like “a mustard seed” (Mt 13:24, 33, 31). The parables are an attempt to illustrate what life in this mysterious kingdom is like. 

So what, then, is life in this kingdom like? “Blessed are you poor,” Jesus says “for yours is the kingdom of God” (Lk 6:20). The kingdom Jesus describes belongs not to the smartest, healthiest, or most well-off but to those who have been beaten by this world. It belongs to those “who hunger,” those “who weep,” and those “who are hated, excluded, and reviled” (Lk 6:21-23). He says that banquets in his kingdom are not held for “your wealthy neighbors,” but for “the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind” (Lk 14:12-13). On five different occasions Jesus insisted that, in his kingdom, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first.” Those who our world deems least significant, Jesus privileges with an elite status. 

It is a strange kingdom with strange laws. Indeed, it is illegal in Jesus’ kingdom not to be merciful. How different from the logic we’re accustomed to: “You have heard it said, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say … if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also” (Mt 5:38-39).

Other kingdoms do not think this way. This is why they rise against each other, and even against Jesus’ kingdom. Jesus insists this week that the kingdom of God should not engage the kingdoms of this world by giving in to their logic. When you are confronted, he says, “do not prepare a defense!” There’s no need. Being a citizen of his kingdom will make you fluent in a certain language. It will give you “a wisdom in speaking that all your adversaries will be powerless to resist.” This is the language of his kingdom, and its citizens know it well. It is the language of the beatitudes, the language of “meekness” and of “peacemaking.” It is the language of “purity in heart” and of “thirsting after righteousness” (Mt 5:3-11).

It is a strange kingdom that God has given us, with strange laws, and strange ways, and a strange language. It is certainly strange when compared to the kingdoms around us. But it is with this strange language that the kingdom of God gives testimony to the dysfunctional kingdoms of the world. It is the testimony that God’s kingdom is for the “poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind,” that mercy is the law of the land, and that righteousness is worth thirsting for. We are, indeed, a strange people. But this is the testimony the Spirit gives us when we are confronted by the world’s kingdoms. And this is the testimony that assures us, even should we be killed, that “not a hair on [our] heads will be destroyed.”


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