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While Jesus was speaking to the crowds,
his mother and his brothers appeared outside,
wishing to speak with him.
Jesus demonstrated his focus on the primacy of the Kingdom of God. Just as he told would be followers that he could not wait for them to bury their dead or say farewell to their family (see Luke 9:59-62) so too did he himself place the criteria of the Kingdom above natural bonds of blood. He had said that whoever "loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me" (see Matthew 10:37) but in this way he demonstrated that he himself made the same sort of sacrifices that he asked of others. We might well imagine that the work of preaching, healing, and casting out demons was exhausting and that Jesus might have found time with his mother and his cousins to be a restful reprieve, but he did not indulge in it.
But he said in reply to the one who told him,
“Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?”
The new level of interpersonal relationships possible for followers of Jesus transcended those on only a natural level. Jesus certainly had nothing against family bonds. The commandment to honor one's parents was his idea. But he knew that simply being related by blood to another did not assure that the resulting relationships would be good. He desired to give a new basis of solidity to our relationships with one another, one which would transcend our bonds of blood, making it possible for us to become brothers and sisters of one another and of Jesus himself.
Here are my mother and my brothers.
For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father
is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Although on a natural level it seemed like a slight to Mary his mother, seen through the eyes of faith it actually elevated her. For she and she only perfectly accepted the will of the heavenly Father when she said yes to the message of the archangel. It was her acceptance of the Father's will that made her the mother of Jesus both naturally but even more so by faith. And so what Mary did can become a model for us, for how we can say yes, and bring Jesus more and more into our world and circumstances, how we too can in some sense be mothers to the word of God.
It is by faith in baptism that we are able to join the family of God. From this we understand more what Paul wrote when he said that "it is those of faith who are the sons of Abraham" (see Galatians 3:7). We see a deeper truth in what Jesus said when he warned, "And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children for Abraham" (see Matthew 3:9). Our hearts, then, were the stones. Before faith we could do little but grind against one another, crushing others or being crushed ourselves, "hated by others and hating one another" (see Titus 3:3). But by faith we experienced the promise made through the mouth of the prophet Ezekiel, "I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh". (see Ezekiel 36:26). God raised up children of Abraham from hearts of stone.
Jesus did not privilege natural relationships because these were limited, and could not be shared. He required of his mother that she do the same. Because their relationship was supernatural it was something that could be imitated and something into which we ourselves could enter. Bonds of blood might have had a sentimental appeal but they were ultimately limits that the Kingdom itself had to transcend if it was to become an international Kingdom for Jew and Gentile alike. Mary may have had to remain outside while Jesus continued to teach that day, but as a consequence she became Queen Mother to the entire Church. She is now supernaturally poised to teach and to help us to give birth to Jesus in our own lives. She not stands ready to teach us what she herself first demonstrated, that when we prefer the Kingdom to all else we really will receive all else besides.
Who does not persist in anger forever,
but delights rather in clemency,
And will again have compassion on us,
treading underfoot our guilt?
To the degree that we have chosen selfishness over the Kingdom we can take comfort in the fact that God shows clemency not grudgingly, but with delight. He desires to restore us even more than we desire it for ourselves. Our hearts may be drying out, seemingly reverting to the stone from which they came. But he himself desires to be the dewfall that makes us live again.
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