Fourteenth Sunday In Ordinary Time
A proverb states, “You can’t go home again.” The proverb expresses the difficulty that can be incurred by a famous person returning to her or his home town. And that’s how it was when Jesus returns to Nazareth in this Sunday’s gospel reading. News of Jesus’ proclamation of the kingdom of God and His healing ministry throughout Galilee and beyond had reached Nazareth. As far as we know, Jesus had been a village carpenter for some years. He left Nazareth to answer the call of John the Baptizer and even submitted to John’s baptism ritual. He had inaugurated His own baptismal ministry, according to John 3:25 and 4:2. After the Baptizer’s arrest, Jesus’ baptismal ministry seems to have ended. He returned to Galilee, where His ministry now took the form of preaching and healing.
Faithful Jew that he was, Jesus goes to synagogue on the Sabbath. It was the custom when some-one of some fame visited a synagogue to invite the visitor to read a section of Scripture and com-ment on it. This is the background to the astonishment of Jesus’ fellow Nazarenes and the state-ment Mark attributes to them, “Where did this fellow get all this? What is this wisdom given to him?” A showoff? A village carpenter assuming he could explain the Scriptures? Unlike Saul of
Tarsus (St. Paul), Jesus had never been discipled to some great Torah scholar of the time. The Nazarenes had heard of some spectacular cures attributed to the power of Jesus, although some of his critics were already attributing that power to a demon. So they say, “What are these mighty deeds worked by his hand?”
As far as they were concerned, Jesus' words and the cures attributed to him were an overreach. They could not accept this. As they say, “Is this not the carpenter, son of Mary, brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not His sisters here with us?” Taken at first glance this reference to His brothers and sisters would have Jesus a member of a large family with at least six siblings. That is a problem for Catholic teaching! Mary’s virginity before the birth of her Son is clearly taught by both Matthew and Luke. Her virginity during or in the birth of Jesus, that her bodily virginal integrity remained intact, was taught by Church Fathers and Councils from at least the end of the fourth century.
That Mary remained a virgin after the birth of her firstborn is implied in John 19:26-27. There Jesus commends His mother to the care of “the disciple whom he loved,” and not to any supposed sibling. If we accept this teaching of the gospel not only as symbolism or theology but also as a historical remembrance, it would seem strange and contrary to filial piety for Jesus to reach outside the family for such an important function expressed in His last will and testament on the cross. The famous “until” of Matthew 1:25 does not prove that Mary had children after Jesus’ birth. Matthew’s intention is first of all to validate as fulfilled in the birth of Jesus the words of Isaiah 7:14 quoted from the Old Testament Greek (not Hebrew) in Matthew 1:23, “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and give birth to a son….” Secondly, Matthew establishes Jesus as Mary’s firstborn son, an important entitlement in biblical law and practice. The title “firstborn son” does not imply that there were others. From the third century on, Fathers of the Church taught the perpetual virginity of Mary. The Church Father Epiphanius, in a work written about 375, says of those who deny the perpetual virginity of Mary, “unheard of insanity and preposterous novelty.” And so we affirm with the constant teaching of the Church the perpetual virginity of Mary.
How then do we explain “the brothers and sisters of Jesus” of Mark 6:3; Matthew 13:55-56, besides Paul’s references to “the brothers of the Lord” in 1 Cor 9:5, and “James, the Lord’s brother” in Galatians 1:19, and John 7:3, 5, that “even his brothers did not believe in him?” There are three basic theories. The first: the brothers and sisters of Jesus are siblings, children of Mary and Joseph. This is the view of those who deny the perpetual virginity of Mary. It is also called “the Helvidian theory, so named after its fourth century proponent Helvidius. The irascible St. Jerome verbally crucified Helvidius for teaching this theory. A second theory: the “brothers and sisters” are children of the former widower Joseph by an earlier marriage. This view relies on a second century apocryphal (unaccepted) gospel called “The Protogospel of James.” This view is domi-nant in the Orthodox Churches and is acceptable to Roman Catholics.
A third theory: “brothers and sisters” is a general term for blood relatives or kinsman. See for example the Greek version of Gen.13:8, where Abraham and Lot, uncle and nephew, are “brothers.” Also Gen. 29:12-15.This is the dominant view among Roman Catholics. Both the second and third theories are compatible with the Church’s teaching of the perpetual virginity of Mary. Mark notes that the Nazarenes “took offense at Jesus.” Jesus responded with a proverb, “A prophet is not without honor except in his own country, and among his own relatives, and in his own house.” Mark pronounces a devastating sentence against the Nazarenes, “He was unable to do any mighty deed there…and he was amazed at their lack of faith.” For them, the village carpenter must remain the village carpenter and nothing beyond that. This catechetical story may warn us against the danger of letting human characteristics of relatives and others get in the way of seeing their potential for greatness.
