Each of us has a circle of family, friends, acquaintances, co-workers, school mates, class mates, etc. These various groups are made up of people with whom we are comfortable and with whom we are ready and willing to cooperate. By the same token, each of us has a circle of people whom we avoid or shun for a variety of reasons. The readings for today's liturgy challenge us to examine those boundaries and, possibly, to cross the unseen barriers that keep us from association.
The Book of Ezra consistently offers us the notion that the restoration of Israel and its temple after the exile was brought about through Darius, a Gentile ruler. At this time in their history, Jewish people had placed strong social barriers between themselves and the Gentile world. Careful reading of this book, however, challenges the notion that people of different religious beliefs are natural enemies. Without Darius, the Jews would not have been able to rebuild and rededicate the Temple of Jerusalem. They never would have been able to return to their ancestral homeland.
The Gospel reading from St. Luke looks at family and its boundaries. The people of the Middle East at the time of Jesus lived in families that were centered round a patriarch. Brothers, the male children of the patriarch, lived with their wives in the home of their father. When the father or patriarch passed away, the eldest brother took his place. Women lived in the homes of their in-laws. The children, those we would call cousins, were all regarded as belonging to one family. They would have called themselves brothers and sisters. When a group of people who would have been identified as the family of Jesus, his brothers and sisters and his mother, approach Jesus, he reminds all of them that anyone who hears the Word of God and does God's will is his brother, sister, mother and father.
In our present situation, national, ethnic, religious and racial boundaries are very much in the news. Christian vs. Muslim, black vs. white, first world vs. third world, homosexual vs. heterosexual are all terms with which most of us are very familiar. War and violence characterize the interactions between these groups. I was fortunate that early in my life I learned that such differences between peoples were artificial. My mother grew up during the Great Depression and was forced to work in the cotton fields of Texas where she learned that people of different races were able to live together peaceably. She passed that knowledge on to her children.
As some of you know, in addition to being the chaplain here, I am the administrator of an apostolate that links people together through correspondence. Most of the time, the correspondence is faceless. On a number of occasions, members have expressed surprise to find out that their fellow correspondents are people of a different ethnicity or race or religion. Perhaps they had never thought of writing to and receiving letters from a person who was different from them. However, the revelation stirs up thoughts similar to the one that I am trying to make today. As St. Peter says to the Jewish community of Jerusalem when he is accused of preaching in the home of a Gentile, "God knows not the difference."
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator