Tenth Sunday in Ordinary Time, June 9, 2024 - Genesis 3:9-15; 2 Corinthians 4:13-5:1; Mark 3:20-35

During the past spring, three rock stars started out on big tours and, at some point, had to cancel or postpone. Jennifer Lopez, Patti Smith and Bruce Springsteen. And, although Bruce is the OG, among them, all of them are getting on in years. And it’s interesting what people in the music industry will tell you. They always say that one of the most difficult things about touring is how lonely it gets to be. How lonely. How isolated they feel, except from the small group of their backup singers, musicians and crew. On the other hand, they also say to you that the thing they love best about singing is singing for a live audience, being with their fans and getting the feedback from a live audience. So, they’re two sides of the coin and they’re almost contradictory, one from the other. It helps us to understand what’s going on in today’s gospel story.  

Now, to understand the story, you have to know a couple of things about St. Mark. One of the gimmicks that St. Mark uses to tell stories is he creates a sandwich. He starts to tell a story, stops, tells another story, then finishes the first story. And the trick is that what’s going on in the second story helps us to understand the first story and what’s happening in the first story helps us to understand what’s going in the second story. The other thing is that St. Mark’s gospel is the story of the lonely Jesus. As we go through chapter after chapter, one after another different groups of people abandon him. Today, it’s early on in the gospel. The first group to abandon him, ironically, is his own family. Did you notice how the story began? It says Jesus and his disciples were home again. No, they weren’t. Jesus’ home was Nazareth. They were going back to a larger city, called Capernaum, which Jesus had made his headquarters. And what you have to know about this story is what happened just before this story.  

Just before this story, Jesus chose from his many close associates - his disciples - twelve people to be his Apostles. And all the names are given. And the last one is, “… and also Judas the Iscariot, who betrayed him.” So, they all go into the house with Jesus. They are his inner circle. 

Then we get the story about the Scribes and Pharisees coming from Jerusalem to confront Jesus. And it’s interesting what they say. Jesus has some fun with them.  He asks them a couple of riddles. “If Satan is divided against himself, how can he stand?” That’s not possible. And, after he’s teased them for a little while, he gets very serious with them. He says, “Every sin that human beings commit can be forgiven them, except the sin against the Holy Spirit. That is an unforgivable sin.” What is he talking about? 

He is talking about the contradiction in the lives of the Pharisees. They believed and taught in utter sincerity that keeping the Torah was the way to please God. And the more you tried to please God, the more God was pleased with you. And the purpose of the Torah - even though some of its laws seems silly to us - was the safety and protection of God’s people. So, Jesus is basically saying, “Here you have a guy, me, who has spent his whole day curing people, making lives better for people, just like the Torah wants me to. And you accuse me of acting from some demonic influence.” That’s the unforgivable sin. Because you’re contradicting the thing that you claim most to believe in and stand for. That’s the whole point. 

Then we get back to the first story. Apparently, Jesus’ family had come from Nazareth. They’re coming to take him home. And Jesus is having none of it. He has chosen a different family from his biological family. He has chosen the family of his closest followers. And yet, even one of them, at the end, will cause him to be utterly alone, lonely and isolated. Sometimes we have to choose something over family.  

When I just entered the Seminary, I was at a family gathering on my father’s side of the family, the Italian side. You know how gregarious Italians are. We were sitting at the dinner table, all around, and there’s one of my cousins there, a little bit older than me. She’s like a senior in college and I’m a freshman. And she says, in front of all of my aunts and uncles and my mother and father, “I don’t know what you want to be a priest for.” And there’s this dead silence. Before I could say a word, her mother - who is not notably great at going to Church - says to her daughter, “Well somebody’s gotta do it.” And that’s the answer to a lot of things. Somebody's gotta do it. 

When I was between junior and senior year in high school, I had to go to the hospital for surgery and I was terrified. And I prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed and prayed to God that it would be ok. You know what, it was worse than I imagined. Not only that but, when I came home, I had to spend the whole summer idle, which meant I couldn’t go swimming in Masten Lake or anything else like that. But, during that summer of idleness, after all that horror story I went through, I learned to play the guitar, I learned to cook, and, when I got back to school in September, I was permanently excused from gym because of the nature of my injury. So, it was a win-win-win. But it took me many years to realize that that’s how God had answered my prayer. He gave me the space and time to do two things that gave me lifelong pleasure. Music and cooking. But you have to understand a couple of different things. Sometimes we think God doesn’t give us what we want. But we have to be grateful for God’s gifts all the time. Because sometimes, they come wrapped in a strange package. You know? 

Have any of you ever shopped for a very special gift for someone you loved dearly, and wrapped it up, and brought it to them on Christmas or their birthday, and they opened it up and tossed it aside? Do you remember how hurt you were? They didn’t even know how hurt you were. That’s part of this story too. That’s what Jesus is talking about to the Pharisees. You are throwing away, you’re tossing aside, God’s greatest gift. Me. This is what you longed for. This is why you keep the Torah. And you’re blowing it. And, to his biological family, he is saying, “I have the right to choose what I do with my life, and who I spend it with. And you have no right to criticize me publicly for doing it.”

We belong to a chosen family, all of us. The Catholic Church. Because of our desire to participate in the egalitarian society we belong in, sometimes we downplay our Catholicism. But it is a family, either we have chosen ourselves or it was chosen for us at our baptism. And strengthening that family and taking strength from that family should be a very important part of our lives. Sometimes you think God is not listening when we pray because things don’t turn out the way we want them to turn out. But there are hidden gifts that God is always bestowing upon us that we should not discount.   We should not toss to the side. 

So, let us now join in one of the greatest gifts that God has given us in Christ.