The Sánchez Archives HOLY FAMILY SUNDAY Year B

By
Patricia Datchuck Sánchez

A Celebration of Family

SIRACH 3: 2-6, 12-14 or GENESIS 15:1-6; 21:1-3
COLOSSIANS 3:12-21 or HEBREWS 11:8, 11-12, 17-19
LUKE 2:22-40

On this, the feast of the Holy Family, the gathered assembly is invited to reflect, not only upon that holy threesome who have figured so importantly in our salvation history, but also upon all the other families that comprise the one universal family of humankind.

Unfortunately, and due to a variety of factors, the ties that bind us one to another within our global network of families have suffered a series of assaults over the past several decades. This is a fact that need not be argued; the evidence of relational weakness and even decay is obvious and this weakness affects every one of us to one degree or another. Rather than bemoan the fact and belabor the point, our attention might be better directed and our efforts better spent in trying to effect change, conversion and growth within the family unit. “If we can change the culture of our families” says Steven W. Vannoy (The Ten Greatest Gifts I Give My Children, Simon and Schuster, New York: 1994) “surely that change will radiate out to touch those around us.” In this way, our society will be improved from the inside out, family by family. The following fable offers a powerful example of the contagious grace of change.

The membership of a once numerous order of monks dwindled over the years, until there were only five brothers left in what had been a thriving community. For years, people from the surrounding area had been drawn to the monastery in search of the learning and spiritual renewal they found there. Now, no one ever visited as the spirit of the place and its inhabitants seemed to be slowly dying.

One day, however, a rabbi happened by to visit. When he was about to leave, one of the brothers asked the rabbi if he had any advise on how to revitalize themselves and make their monastery a spiritual center once again. After a few moments, the rabbi replied, “The only thing I can tell you is that the Messiah is one of you.” Flabbergasted, the brothers replied, “The Messiah among us? Impossible!”

As the weeks passed, the brothers puzzled over the rabbi’s startling revelation. If the Messiah were here, who would it be? Maybe, Brother Timothy . . . he’s the abbot and in his capacity as leader, he could surely be chosen to be the Messiah . . .

It couldn’t be Bro. Mark; He’s always so argumentative, but, he’s usually right . . . Or maybe, it’s Bro. Pius who tends the garden and the animals. He could probably nourish a troubled world if he were the Messiah.

Surely, it could be Bro. Dominic; he’s studious, learned and familiar with all the great spiritual writers. It couldn’t be Peter, could it? Certainly, the Messiah couldn’t be the one who cleaned toilets, dirty laundry and scrubbed the pots and pans each day. Or, could it?

Since the monks were unable to determine which one of them was the Messiah, they began to treat one another as though each were the one. Moreover, just in case he himself might be the Messiah, each monk began to treat himself with new respect and to conduct himself with greater dignity.

Within a few weeks, the monastery’s occasional visitors were awed by the love, goodness and revitalized spirituality they experienced. They returned again and again and brought new friends along. Soon, a few young men asked to be admitted to the order and the monastery thrived again.

Imagine the possibilities for growth and renewal if each family were to take to heart the rabbi’s words, “the Messiah is one of you.” How much more might spouses love and cherish one another . . . how much more might parents value their children, protect them, teach them and lovingly attend to their needs . . . how much more might children honor and appreciate their parents. If each member of every family were to reverence one another as the Messiah, i.e., as Jesus who is our Savior and brother, how much might that strengthen and secure those familial bonds that are the infrastructure, without which our society has no future.

Today, the love shared among the Holy Family offers us both a witness and a challenge. To love one another as they did requires that we look beyond the faults and idiosyncrasies that annoy us in order to discover the Christ who lives in each of us. Such love requires that we replace nitpicking, nagging and criticism with wise counsel, humbly offered, and encouragement and praise, generously bestowed. Such was the love that became incarnate among us and which we revelled in celebrating at Christmas. Such is also the love that has brought us to the end of this year and will carry us through to the new millennium and beyond.

SIRACH 3:2-6, 12-14

One of Winston Churchill’s biographers, William Manchester (The Last Lion, Little Brown and Co., Boston: 1983) once wrote that the eminent statesman’s feelings about his family were unquestionably warm and intense. Churchill regarded his home as an independent kingdom with its own law, its own customs, even its own language. “Wow!” was the family’s traditional greeting. When Churchill entered the front door, he would cry: “Wow! Wow!” Upon hearing him, his wife would call back in answer, “Wow!” Then the children would rush into his arms and his eyes would mist over. (Wow!) A statesman in his own right (many scholars think he may have served for a time as Israel’s ambassador to foreign courts), Jesus ben Sira, the second century B.C.E. author of today’s first reading also valued the special love and language that unites the members of a family. To that end, he invited his readers to cultivate a love that honors, obeys and cares for the other while speaking the language of comfort, kindness and consideration.

Writing for his Jewish contemporaries whose infatuation with Hellenistic culture and philosophy threatened to dilute and alter their traditional practices and beliefs, Ben Sira encouraged a renewed commitment to the Lord, the covenant and the family. He was well aware that within each family, future generations are nourished spiritually, physically, morally and culturally, so as to carry on, with dignity and purpose, the faith heritage of an entire people.

Today’s excerpted pericope is part of a longer general exhortation on family life and on the fourth commandment in particular (Exodus 20:12). Honoring and caring for parents was regarded as a sacred duty which admitted of no dispensation or violation. No doubt, Jesus Ben Sira would have strongly supported his descendant, Jesus of Nazareth, who castigated the Pharisees for skirting this duty. By declaring their possessions corban, i.e., consecrated to God, they avoided their familial responsibilities and breached the law of parental honor.

Counseling his readers against similarly dishonorable and dishonest behavior, Ben Sira also attached certain benefits to the proper attitude and respect for parents. In verses four and six, he cites the traditional blessings of long life and riches as rewards for faithful offspring. In verses three and fourteen, he contends that those who honor their parents are thereby atoning for sin. Scholars suggest that these exhortations be understood more as an incentive to obedience and reverence rather than as a guarantee of forgiveness.

Ben Sira understood that the honoring of parents, as well as all other upright behaviors must first be born of an interior conviction; he called this interior conviction “fear of the Lord” (see v. 7 which, unfortunately, has been omitted from today’s reading). Fear of the Lord, or the piety and spiritual posture that devolve from living the law, enable the believer to make proper atonement for sin. Christians understand that this atonement was brought to perfection only in the sacrifice of Jesus, the loving, faithful and obedient Son of God. Because of that atonement, the entire, redeemed family of humankind is privileged to belong and to share in the life of the triune family who is God. In today’s second reading, the author of Colossians will expand upon the wise counsel of Jesus ben Sira as regards familial relationships.

GENESIS 15:1-6; 21:1-3 (Alternate reading)

No celebration of our faith family could be compete without acknowledging the man whom the three major religions of the world (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) call father, viz., Abram, who by God’s promise and power became Abraham, the father of many peoples. In this excerpted text the promise of God to Abram (Genesis 15) is coupled and completed by the fulfillment of that promise (Genesis 21). Though childless and elderly, Abram was willing to accept that God would indeed make good on the very great reward that had been promised; he did not laugh or doubt or scoff or curse the night sky but he believed that the stars -more numerous that he could count- were a portent of the progeny that he and Sarah would be given. With the birth of Isaac (Genesis 21), the promise signified in those stars became a living breathing son and the first in along line of descendants, among which, we too are numbered.

For putting his faith in God, Abraham is called righteous. In this instance, explains exegete Cuthbert A. Simpson (“Genesis”, The Interpreter’s Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN: 1952), righteousness means a right relationship with God and it was conferred on Abram by God in response to the great patriarch’s faith. In other instances (e.g., Deuteronomy 6:25; 24:13), such righteousness was said to have been attained by obedience to the law. But Abraham, who lived before the gift of the law, was, nevertheless made righteous because of his inner attitude.

Later, after the gift of the law and after the coming of Christ who fulfilled both law and prophets, Paul would cite this text as the basis for his preaching on salvation, justification and/or righteousness. Paul would also call all believers to walk in the steps of our father in faith, Abraham (Romans 4:12). In his exposition of this text, Walter R. Bowie (“Genesis”, The Interpreter’s Bible, Abingdon Press, Nashville, TN: 1952), insists that the heart of the whole gospel that Paul preached is beating here, the gospel that does not put its store solely in human achievement but in God’s great power to make real what has been promised and to fulfill that in which we place our faith. With Abraham as our father and Paul as our brother, we who continue the struggle to be holy, faithful and obedient have strong family shoulders upon which to lean for support and encouragement.

COLOSSIANS 3:12-21

On a recent television “talk show”, the host had invited about two dozen children to appear as his guests. All of them, ranging in ages from three to thirteen years of age were wards of their respective state’s Children’s Services Program and were being cared for by foster parents. Some had been in the foster care system since birth; most had been passed from home to home. Every child expressed the same desire: to be permanently adopted into a family. When asked by the show’s host what “family” meant to him, one small boy summed up the feelings of the other children. “Family”, he replied, “is a place where people want you and love you and take care of you.” Most of us can be grateful that we have not been similarly deprived of that special place called family. But our gratitude for the gift of family must also be matched by a desire to preserve and strengthen the bonds that unite us and, when necessary, to expend whatever effort is needed to repair and renew those bonds when they are strained. To that end, the author of today’s second reading offers sage advice.

While the authorship of Colossians (and Ephesians, which is its literary “twin”) remains a matter of dispute, a consensus of contemporary scholars suggest that the letter was written by a disciple of Paul who wanted to offer the apostle’s authoritative teachings to later generations of believers. The verses which comprise this pericope are an excerpt from a longer exhortation which could have formed part of a baptismal catechesis (3:7-4:1). Those who have been incorporated into the family of the church through baptism are reminded that, along with their white baptismal robes, they are also to clothe themselves with those virtues which promote vital familial relationships, viz., “heartfelt mercy, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, forbearance and forgiveness.” Over all these virtues, baptized believers are also called to “put on love” (v. 12). As Arthur J. Dewey (Proclamation, Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN: 1996) has explained, what is essential to see is that the various virtues urged (culminating with “love which binds the rest together and makes them perfect”) build up the interdependence of the community. The various liturgical actions and rites are also for the upbuilding of the community (v. 16). Interdependence and not individual transcendence, characterizes the manner in which the community expresses its familial as well as its eucharistic life (v. 17).

As regards the relationships between husbands, wives and their children (vv. 18-21), the call for wives to submit to their husbands (v. 18) has raised many a feminine hackle through the centuries. Craig S. Keener (Paul, Women and Wives, Hendrickson Publishers Peabody, MA: 1992) insists that this exhortation does represent a departure from the traditional mores of the ancient world that regarded women as inferior and therefore, necessarily subordinate to men. According to Keener, the Colossians author does advise women to be submissive, however, he also urges men to love their wives in such a radical way that husbands become their wives' servants too.

Contemporary readers of this text might also remember the moral of this family fable with which this commentary was introduced. If each member of the family values and cherishes the other as the messiah in their midst, then the tendency to wrangle over roles, ranks and positions of authority will be sublimated by mutual love, respect, complementarity, support and service.

HEBREWS 11:8, 11-12, 17-19 (Alternate Reading)

In his essay entitled “Suspending the Ethical” (as translated and preserved in Provocations, Spiritual Writings of Kierkegaard, Charles E., Moore, editor, The Plough Publishing House, Farmington, PA: 1999), Soren Kierkegaard explored the faith of Abraham and concluded that in order to act as he did, our great patriarch had to suspend his own ethical judgment and fling himself, without seeing and without understanding into the arms of God. Common sense and good judgment would have stayed put rather than undertake a journey to an unknown destination in one’s elder years. Nevertheless, Abraham, by faith, packed his bags and set out (v. 8). Common sense and good judgment would have been resigned to the fact that old age and Sarah’s infertility would preclude the hope of children. Nevertheless, by faith, Abraham trusted in God and began to wait with Sarah in joyful anticipation for the children that had been promised him (vv. 11-12). Common sense, good judgment and a well-formed conscience would have balked at the idea of offering up Isaac, his only beloved son as a holocaust. Indeed even the suggestion of such a sacrifice would have been repulsed by any rational ethical person. But, and the scriptures have attested and Kierkegaard has affirmed, Abraham’s faith in God enabled him to set aside reason and suspend the ethical and ground himself in God. To live by faith is not to be unethical or irrational but it is to live a paradox. Faith is a miracle, says Kierkegaard and yet no human being is excluded from it . . . not Abraham, not you, not me.

In referencing the Isaac incident (vv. 17-19), the anonymous author of Hebrews calls Abraham’s experience a peirazo, i.e., a test, a trial, or a temptation. By virtue of that test, Abraham learned to believe that the God, who had first brought forth Isaac from what had seemed to be Sarah’s “dead” (barren) womb, could also bring him back from death to life. Having learned through experience that God could make possible what seemed humanly impossible, Abraham also learned to rely on that God in faith, even when his own better judgment, common sense and good conscience told him otherwise.

This test, explains Thomas G. Long (Hebrews, John Knox Press, Louisville, KY: 1997) was not merely a measure of Abraham’s toughness; it brought to light the basic framework through which he viewed life, i.e., through a faith that does not know how or when God will act but never doubts that God will. Notice that the Hebrews author referred to the fact that a lamb was given by God for Abraham to sacrifice (Genesis 22:8) and that Isaac was restored to his father as a symbol (v. 19). This reflects the faith of the early church that regarded Isaac as a type of Christ. This was, says Long (op. cit.) but a foreshadowing of the real thing - the great reversal of history when the God of peace would provide the lamb for sacrifice and then bring “back from the dead our Lord Jesus” (12:20).

In our own lives, we too experience “tests” that demand that we place faith ahead of knowledge, common sense, good judgment and even rationality. Abraham, whom we call our father in faith, has shown us how we are to conduct ourselves; God alone gives us the grace to do so.

LUKE 2:22-40

Many parents, in an effort to retain the fond memories of their child’s first years, keep a book or journal. In it, they record the data that tells the story of a life, from first words and first steps to the first day of school, etc. Pictures are also included to provide an ongoing visual account of the child’s growth, development and budding personality. In a sense, today’s gospel could be appreciated as an entry in Jesus’ “baby book”, however, the information herein goes far beyond physical characteristics. Indeed, Luke’s infancy narrative (chapters 1-2) as well as that of Matthew (chapters 1-2) are profound theological statements concerning God’s saving plan as revealed in the person and through the mission of Jesus.

This pericope which forms the conclusion of the Lucan statement is comprised of two of ancient Israel’s birth rituals, the presentation or consecration of the firstborn child and the purification of his mother. By law (Leviticus 12:2-8), mothers were purified after birth, not because of any moral uncleanness but for legal and ceremonial purposes. Two offerings were prescribed, a lamb for a holocaust of praise and a turtledove or pigeon for a sin offering; however, if the couple could not afford an animal, the law permitted them to offer a pair of birds.

Another law (Exodus 13:2, 12) stipulated that firstborn sons belonged to God and should be presented in recognition of that fact. Once presented however, the child could be redeemed by an offering of five shekels (Numbers 18:15). Luke’s description of the presentation of Jesus recalled the similar presentation of Samuel (1 Samuel 1:11, 22-28). Both children were born under unusual circumstances (Hannah was barren; Mary was recognized as a virgin); both were presented to God in a holy place where they received the blessings of an elderly man (Eli, Simeon); and both remained in the service of God, Samuel as sage and prophet and Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah.

Jesus’ role as Messiah is enunciated by Luke through the witness and words of Simeon and Anna. Simeon’s prayer or canticle (vv. 28-32), i.e., the Nunc Dimittis, serves the same function in the Lucan narrative as do the canticles of Mary (1:46-55, Zechariah 1:67-79) and the angel messengers (2:13-14). In each instance, the canticle interpreted, in faith, the significance of the event it accompanied while proclaiming the salvific action of God. A consensus of scholars agree that the canticles were probably pre-Lucan compositions, known and sung by the early church and inserted by the evangelist into his narrative. Through Simeon’s song, Luke assured his readers that the fruits of the messianic age, i.e., the peace, fulfillment, saving deeds, light and glory, had indeed been realized and were to be enjoyed by all people. However, Simeon’s song of celebration had a double edge in that it also revealed the conflict and division which the presence of the messiah would bring (vv. 34-35). Later in the gospel, the Lucan Jesus would affirm the challenge which faith in him would entail (Luke 12:51-53). His saving involvement with the world demands a choice and every choice has it consequences. To accept Jesus in faith is to accept not only the joy of salvation but also the cross which is the path to glory. To reject Jesus in disbelief is to reject both life and light and, with them, the glory of the saved.

Although her testimony is mentioned only indirectly (v. 3: “she gave thanks to God and talked about the child”), Anna’s presence in this narrative is comparable to Simeon’s and is equally prophetic. As Raymond E. Brown (The Birth of the Messiah, Doubleday and Co. Inc., New York: 1979) has explained, she is not so silent as she appears. Luke intended that her widowhood, devoted to worship, and her prayer and fasting should have its own eloquence, vocalizing the ideals of those poor and pious Jews, i.e., the anawim, who humbly, and in hope awaited the appearance of the Messiah. Theirs is the spirituality that should be our own while we await our Messiah’s second and final appearance and while we search for his abiding presence in one another.

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