Still Possible

Most of the times that this has been the gospel on Sunday, the homily has focused or at least taken a significant detour into explaining that by "brothers and sisters" of Jesus, the townspeople emphatically did NOT mean actual fellow children born of Mary (and Joseph).  And I've always found it weird that we care that much about Mary and Joseph not having any kids.  Of Jesus not having a family line.

Don't get me wrong, I think our world would respond to blood relatives of Jesus Christ...poorly.  Making worldly kings of them or giving them cult-like status are among the least terrifying things I can think of us doing with descendants of the same line as Christ.  If Mary did have any children, perhaps it is a kindness of the early church that we know nothing of them.

But I notice Jesus does tell parables about siblings.  The Prodigal Son is the best known, but there are all kinds of brother pairs and flocks of sister that are or aren't sympathetic to their fellows.  And I wonder if, even they weren't his brothers, Jesus was co-raised in a flock of people.  And not just his cousin John the Baptist.

I think it's easy to feel for those cousins who grew up alongside Jesus Son of God and John the Baptist (just so they can't take the excuse of not being divine as well as human).

But if we feel for them, why don't we feel for the people of the town?  The childhood friends of Jesus?  The girls who had their first crush on him?  The adults who were annoyed at the too-clever-for-his-own-good whippersnapper?  The jocks who remember beating him at whatever version of street baseball they played?  The budding rabbis who trained more to understand less than Jesus?

There's something terrible about someone from your precise background turning out so wise and holy.  There's something that feels like an accusation, even if it isn't intended as one.

But maybe it is an accusation.  And maybe we should take it as one.  Maybe when we see a prophet, when we know a prophet, we shouldn't let our insecurities and defensiveness make up the "rebellious people" of the first reading. 

Maybe seeing someone we used to think was ordinary become extraordinary SHOULD feel like a punch to the gut.  Because that means not only that it was possible for us and we blew it...but that it's STILL possible for us.