Family Photographs – Br. Lain Wilson
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Today’s Gospel lesson isn’t about Jesus.
Rather, it’s not about the Jesus we have come to know, to accompany in his ministry with the disciples. Instead, it’s about another Jesus, one of memory, of presumption, and of misplaced expectation.
In the Rule of our Society, we understand as part of the practice of silence the honoring of “the mystery present in the hearts of our brothers and sisters, strangers and enemies,” a letting go of “curiosity, presumption, and condemnation which pretends to penetrate the mystery of their hearts.”[1]
We can see in our Gospel reading today what this looks like in practice. It is significant, I think, that the only references to Jesus’s “hidden years”—those years of growth and formation between infancy and baptism—in Matthew’s gospel (and Mark’s) is this brief encounter between Jesus and those from his hometown. It’s a relic of a silent period, a family photograph held in the hands of these people, who glance uncomprehendingly between it and the living Jesus standing before them.
Is it any surprise that Jesus “did not do many deeds of power there” (Mt 13:58)? All those who have come to Jesus for healing have done so with the hope and expectation that he will be able to effect their transformation, that he will indeed have power to save them. These individuals from Jesus’s hometown instead hold this still family photograph in their hands, between them and the living Jesus. They expect them to match, and they’re surprised when they don’t. But their mistake is taking as real the image in the photograph.
Each of us has likely experienced this in our own lives. Reunions or weddings or funerals: all bring together memories and presumptions and misplaced expectations about who we are and who we were. My twentieth high school reunion is this year—I am acutely aware not only of the images, the still photographs, of people from my past that I carry with me, but also about those of me that they carry with them. Neither are real.
And each of us similarly carries an image of Jesus. Something from our childhood formation, something from our fear or anger, something that we hold out in front of us and that blocks us from an immediate, fresh encounter with the living Lord. Something that keeps us from being surprised by joy in that fresh encounter.
What is that image for you?
Just as in silence we honor the mystery at the heart of our brothers and sisters, so too in prayer we honor the mystery at the heart of God, letting go of that image, lowering the still photograph and allowing God to reveal Godself to us in new and surprising and, perhaps, unsettling ways. Know that this is the living God, speaking in our hearts, powerful to save.
Amen.
[1] The Rule of the Society of Saint John the Evangelist (Lanham, MD, 1997), 54.
Brother Lain, the insights you share in your homilies bless me over and over again; and they bless all those I share them with! Thank you, dear Brother.
I have a big reunion coming up. Eight of us who were at school together (and still in touch) reach seventy. A reminder to meet people where they are now not as they were,
I personally remember my childhood days, there were cultural demands that when one fell sick they needed to seek help from some charlatans or diviners as it was believed that every sickness was caused by ancestral spirits. It was believed these people that I have mentioned would ward off those spirits. My parents were facilitators in my case whenever I had fallen sick. At the same time I was going to Sunday School and learnt as much about Jesus. For me then I understood Jesus within the context of whatever my parents ushered me into. This was the image of Christ which I had and it really prevented me from having a refreshed mind about Jesus. The cultural dictates resulted into a different understand of Jesus Christ. It is obvious that the cultural dictates obscured the image of Christ. Through meditation and prayer, I have come to understand Jesus Christ in a new way and all the cultural dictates have been defeated. Thanks be to God.
Thank you. Jesus is alive. Godde is alive. We need to be willing to be ever fully alive ourselves in order to meet them truly.
Wonderful reflection, Br Lain!
Who is Jesus now? In this present moment who is the Jesus I am in prayerful conversation with?
What is Jesus saying to me this moment? Jesus the Living Word!
Thank you, Brother Wilson, for reminding us that God’s revelations to humanity continue unabated. They are fresh, personal, vivid glimpses of God’s purposes, wisdom, mercy, ministry and love. And as you said, they are indeed powerful to save. May we all open ourselves to God’s illuminations.