Is Jesus picking on his Mom?

By John Pearring

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/100921.cfm
Joel 4:12-21
Luke 11:27-28

Controversy usually makes for a good reflection. This week I center on a possible fault in Jesus’ character, according to some people. He’s kinda rude, and I found out from further research (taking their point of view) that it’s not the first time. It looks like Jesus regularly disses his Mom.

While Jesus was speaking,
a woman from the crowd called out and said to him,
“Blessed is the womb that carried you
and the breasts at which you nursed.”
He replied, “Rather, blessed are those
who hear the word of God and observe it.”

Three other times Jesus does this. He scolded his mother (and father) when he brushed off their frantic search for him by saying he was doing his Father’s business in the temple. He was 12. 

He appeared disrespectful to his mother during the wedding at Cana, too. She asks him to perform a miracle for a family’s reputation, and he curtly explained to Mary that it’s not his “time.”

There’s one more scripture that adds to this rude character flaw in Jesus controversy. In Mark 3:31: [Jesus’] mother and his brothers arrived. Standing outside they sent word to him and called him. A crowd seated around him told him, “Your mother and your brothers* [and your sisters] are outside asking for you.” But he said to them in reply, “Who are my mother and [my] brothers?”

In all four situations, Jesus appears to put his mother in her lower place. The justification for this requires some scriptural dishonesty, but the repetition of an interpreted scolding by the Son of God gets legs by folks intent on reducing focus on Mary as the Mother of Jesus into a behind the scenes gal. She's holy, but let's not get too excited.

“Rather!” Jesus says emphatically with pointer finger held high in today's reading. He seems to purposely reduce Mary’s motherhood beneath his Messianic position. Well, that's the controversy, anyway.

To fully set up this train of thought, Jesus contradicts his parents’ worry and their authority over him (leaving them in terror for 3 days). He contradicts his mother’s wishes at a wedding (Mom!) perhaps because a family’s reputation doesn’t meet the high bar of his mission. And when his family is worried that Jesus has gone nuts, the Messiah flattens his relatives to the same place as everyone else, including his Mother. 

One could conclude — with such evidence — that Jesus is rude. His mother is a significant part of these scripture selections. Is Jesus teaching his followers not to honor Mary as Catholics have done so for thousands of years?  

Jesus is always consistent. He clearly says, “Pay attention” in these readings. He also follows up by insisting that his followers “adhere” and “comply with” the word God. He is the Word. He is the one whom they should follow. There is that point, but it's not about downplaying his mother, for goodness sake.

The temple experience where Jesus at only age 12 corrects his parents isn’t him being rude. It is an awakening. Jesus really is the one whom both Mary and Joseph heard about, as told to them by angels. He is the Son of God and Man. Remember, Mary’s concern holds sway. After her angst at his being absent for so long Jesus “remained obedient” to his mother and father. He loved them as a good son.

Jesus loved his mother dearlly, just as God loves all who plead with him. At the Cana wedding, Jesus is obviously moved by his Mom.  Her plea changes the course of his earthly ministry. His “time” began at that event. That's not scolding. That's huge respect for Mary, something he wants us all to know. Mary shows us Jesus is approachable.

Mark reports that Jesus' waiting family, hearing that Jesus had offended religious leaders, rushed from Nazareth to gather him up. Their role as his kin drove them to rescue him. At that encounter, Jesus broadens his role as brother to all of creation. It was not to belittle his family, but to raise all men and women up to the status of his kin. His mother was not aghast at his behavior. She, and probably James too, among his extended family members, were simply awakened further that Jesus’ relationship drew all of creation to him. His suffering did not need rescuing. He was there to rescue everyone.

These incidents get included into scripture because they set Jesus aside from every other creature, yet within the same world. It’s the impossible reality to grasp. An incarnated God, born into his own creation, has a mother and kin. He isn’t just God as observer and incidental hero. He’s all in. Most importantly for all of us? He also had a Mom. 

Let’s review today’s gospel from that framework, not the ridiculous idea that Jesus is dissing his mother. Consider, first, the setting. Jesus was talking with an arrogant crowd, folks stuck in a cultural religion that couldn’t see him for who he was. The Jewish nation had morphed into legalism, the counting of sins and exacting punishments. They weren’t just suspicious of Jesus. He stood out as an anarchist, a saboteur, because they used God to their advantage and Jesus didn’t fit the mold of their legalistic god. Pharisaical folks and their followers were God's henchmen. Jesus assured them, with uncanny boldness, that he could not be manipulated and he never meant to recruit anyone as a henchman. 

A living God, a loving God usurped the Jewish system. God invented a system of rules which the Pharisees followed. They were assigned by God as police, judges, jury, and executioner. They were empowered to keep the rules in place. God’s love had nothing to do with it. Consequently, they ruled by fear and fealty. Jesus, however, was not afraid. He held fealty only to his Father. He taught this same message to everyone — be not afraid. He called the Chosen people to follow him, because he was the incarnation, the face of the Father. 

A series of events took place before the woman’s comments about blessing the breasts that fed Jesus and the womb that held him. Luke put these events into this order on purpose, for all of us to see. Jesus had just exorcised a demon from a mute man. Jesus was charged with being a demon for healing that man. He was called a demon of Beelzebul, a slang nickname for Beelzebub, or Satan. In order to excuse himself from such a claim they asked him to prove them wrong with a “sign from heaven.” 

What kind of folks jump from an exorcizing to a demonic display? Folks who can’t fit Jesus into their religious hierarchy. His followers were a lowly lot, common folks and stigmatized sinners. He, therefore, must be a demon entrapping people. They completely disregarded the signs he had given them. They were only interested in subjugating Jesus, not worshiping him.

Jesus destroys their demon premise by explaining that they are the ones brainwashed and poisoned by Satan. Not him. Demons, in fact, were systematically overpowering the Jewish because they had no divine defense. Legalism and practices, holy as they were, were not going to save them. Jesus said they needed him, the living Son of God, to rescue them. Without Jesus they would be fatally overwhelmed. “Whoever is not with me is against me, and whoever does not gather with me scatters.” (Luke 11:23)

Following the woman’s compliment about his mother’s holy body parts, Jesus urges the scrupulous Jews who lived by darkness to live instead by light. Let God’s light shine through them. Yes, his mother was blessed to be the Mother of God, but she was more blessed as the hearer of the Word, which she acted on from the moment of Jesus’ conception to the day Jesus asked John to take her as his mother. The mother of the Messiah focused on the revelation of the scriptures alive in the Messiah. They should to.

Women dreamed of being the Messiah’s mother. It was to be an esteemed role. And, certainly, Mary was called blessed. But a mind poisoned by Satan must be awakened beyond hopes of being Jesus’ mother or Jesus’ confidante. 

After talking to the people about darkness and light, urging the Jewish people to reveal who God is rather than concentrate on fear and fealty, one of the Pharisees invited him to dinner. That dinner party turned into a ploy to endear Jesus’ affections. The man wanted to be Jesus’ confidante. Jesus dismissed his effort, again warning everyone they were being poisoned. 

“When he left, the scribes and Pharisees began to act with hostility toward him and to interrogate him about many things, for they were plotting to catch him at something he might say.”

How are we being intimate with Jesus? Are we focused on the honor of being Jesus’ mother, or his spokesperson? Or, are we women who point to Jesus like Mary, and men like Joseph who quietly do as Jesus’ Spirit prompts and leads us? 

The incarnated Messiah, the rabbi of the 12 and teacher of disciples, the murdered and then risen Christ, is now our King. He is also our brother, one of us. Not like us, but one of us. To be called blessed, truly his beloved brothers and sisters, we don’t need to lift ourselves up in this world, shine over others, perform every thing to perfection, or fawn over God in an embarrassing grovel to have him do our bidding.  

“Rather, blessed are those who hear the word of God and observe it.”