21st JULY. TUESDAY IN WEEK 16

1.Exodus 12:21-15:1

2.Matthew 12:46-50

REFLECTIONS AND MEDITATIONS

Embracing the Wider Family

The first reading from the book of Exodus we hear the story of  Israel’s liberation and journey towards the promised land; the story stresses Israel’s separateness from all other nations. However, St Matthew the evangelist on the contrary, portrays Jesus forming a new family of outsiders based on the fact that “whoever does the will of my Father.” This is in fact is the universal qualification that enables Christianity to form a chosen people from among all nations and races with no exclusivity. This notion can seem restrictive and even racist, yet we remember that unless we first rally together in a strong family bond, we will have little to share with others.

The loving family is capable of opening its doors freely to neighbours and outsiders; the loving family should give a room for change and improvement. Hebrew scriptures tell us that God’s chosen people should eliminate all forms of oppression including pride, greed and dominance, all these must be cast to the bottom of the sea, as they sang “praise to the Lord, who has triumphed gloriously; horse and rider he has thrown into the sea.” We are invited in this reading to believe that God is trusted to cast into the depth of the sea all our sins.

It is from our daily practical life experiences that those people we give first priorities are members of our own families, and close relatives. In the gospel, Jesus points to a group of people who are even more important to him than the members of his earthly family. Pointing to his disciples, to all of us, he says, “Here are my mother and my brothers and my sisters.” He clearly defines his disciples as those who do the will of his father in heaven, as Jesus himself has revealed it to us by his teaching and by his life, death and resurrection. This is vivified earlier in the Matthew’s gospel when Jesus in the beatitudes declared, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst to do God’s will (Mt 5:6). It is not easy that we always hunger to do God’s will, but if we hunger and thirst to it, and if our deepest desire is to do what God wants, then we are truly the Lord’s disciples and, in virtue of that, we are his brothers and  sisters and even his mother.

Jesus calls each one of us to be members of his new family, the family of his disciples, majority of us would assume that on that occasion Jesus ignored his blood relatives, yet Jesus pointed to another reality of relationship apart from biological relationship, namely our relationship with God and with those who belong to God. 

From the gospel reading we learn a lesson that our relationship should not be restricted to family ties, but rather our relationship with others should be universal. This kind of relationship should include trust, affection, commitment, loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, compassion, mercy, encouragement, and supporting one another. This actually is the family that is held together not by ties of blood, but by the Holy Spirit, and it is that spirit makes us brothers and sisters of Jesus and of each other, and sons and daughters of God.