Now that my parents are both deceased, lineage and ancestry mean something new to me. Being able to locate myself in a line of people gives me a sense of who I am and where I came from. I know that not everyone has this readily available to them or because of situations like adoption or forced relocation they are now ‘located’ in a new lineage. But whether it is our biological family or our chosen family, we all participate in larger identities.
Today celebrates the feast of the Nativity, and the gospel for today goes into ancestry quite in depth.
The first reading, however, offers us a quick reminder that we never know what will emerge from our history.
In the prophetic book of Micah 5, God says, “You, Bethlehem-Ephrathah, too small to be among the clans of Judah, From you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel…” Like so many other situations in the bible, what the collective thought would be “important” doesn’t always turn out to be so. And what the collective thought to be insignificant turns out to REALLY be important.
We’re told today that from the lineage of this small clan of people will come the great leader of Israel. It won’t be from the places that we’d traditionally expect the powerful to come from – a famous family, an Ivy League school, a politically influential group. The greatness comes from an unexpected place.
I find that a lot of my life is like that – and my history. Events I may not have thought of as significant at the time take on greater meaning in hindsight. People who I may not have expected to change my life did so.
Which is why Richard Rohr, OFM, is so insistent that “everything belongs.” Fr. Richard says that when we can develop a contemplative stance towards life – where we are able to accept ALL of what has happened to us and let it have its place in our life – we are more likely to experience a deep freedom. Nothing has to be rejected or cast aside, and we remain radically open to the transformative power of each moment – even if we do not “like” what is happening or consider it of value.
Which is why I love the gospel reading from Matthew 1. I’ll admit, when I first encountered the bible this was a passage I never read because it was a long, boring list of names. And in some ways, it is. The primey purpose of the passage is to establish Jesus’ family tree and trace it back to the lineage of David. This was an important step for the early Christians to do for themselves and for others. But the geneaology does so much more!
What is amazing about the genealogy is that it includes some people that families usually TRY to leave out of these kinds of lists. One might be tempted to only mention the successful, talented and famous people in a lineage, but this one lists numerous people that did some pretty questionable stuff. As the famous comic Maxine once wrote, “I traced my family tree…Apparently it grew nuts and was pretty shady!”
Fr. Ron Rolheiser, in his article “Jesus’ Dysfunctional Family Tree” says, the gospels point to as many “sinners, liars, and schemers in his genetic and historical lineage as they do to saints, honest people, and [people] of faith…the lineage that gave us Jesus built itself up not just upon the great and the talented, but equally upon the poor and the insignificant. In the list of names that makes up the ancestors of Jesus, we see some that are famous and others that can make no claim to specialness or significance…” In fact, some did some things that no one would be “proud” to speak about.
And yet, there they are. Everyone belongs!
We might be able to relate to the lineage of Jesus as we reflect on both the people we’re glad are in our history as well as the people might wish were not there. And yet our scriptures today offer us the counsel that everyone and everything belongs somehow. It can all be used by God for a greater good or higher purpose. [Please note: I am not saying that bad things happen in life because God is testing us, wants to make us grow, or that God has a plan and that plan includes our misery and suffering! I don’t believe that. What I do believe, however, is that God can use any situation for a purpose that I may not always be able to see at the time.]
Which is why the famous scripture scholar, Raymond Brown, once said that “God writes straight with crooked lines.” Brown goes on to remind people in his book, The Birth of the Messiah, that not only did God use “crooked lines” back then but God CONTINUES to use crooked lines now – in our own lives and in salvation history. He says that the God of Jesus is “A God who did not hesitate to use the scheming as well as the noble, the impure as well as the pure, [people] to whom the world harkened and…upon whom the world frowned.” And he tells us that “this God continues to work through the same melange. If it is a challenge to recognize in the last part of Matthew’s genealogy that totally unknown people were part of the story of Jesus Christ, it may be a greater challenge to recognize that the unknown characters of today are an essential part of the sequence.”
What I love about that last part is the reminder that so many of the people in the bible – and throughout history – were just trying to live faithful, everyday lives (and some of them weren’t even trying to live that!). They had no idea that there was a bigger story emerging through them or their ordinary lives. And yet there was.
I know that I find this comforting. Maybe you do to. For me it takes some of the pressure off that I need to be doing something other than what is going on in my life right now for it to be “part of God’s plan.” And that my life, with all of its highs and lows, strengths and liabilities, is valuble as is.
As we go through our week this week, maybe we can hold these readings in mind and remember:
- That we do not always know what will be a significant or transformation event for us and are thus invited to show up as fully as we can to every event
- That our whole personal and collective history – with all of its faults and failures, saints and sinners – is welcomed by God and can be used towards some higher purpose
- That unknown and seemingly insignificant characters in the drama of life can often play a very important part in God’s plan (not unlike in nature where even the seemingly insignifcant member of an ecosystem plays an important role in the life of the whole)
- That the ordinary, everyday lives we lead in faith might just be more extraordinary and consequential than we ever imagined
4 Comments
Marie Peterson
Wow Mike…..and Thankyou!
Theresa Tensuan-Eli
Mike, thank you so much for this reminder that every moment, every encounter carries significance, and how amazing it would be if we could always be fully present to that – for me, today, this is a call to slow down the pace a bit to be able to be fully attentive to the person next to me, to the extraordinary signs of creation that surround us.
George Dardess
A fine reflection, Mike, one that got me thinking about Tolstoy’s War and Peace, and his insistence that so-called “great men”— in his case, Napoleon— aren’t the ones who make the world go around, but the “little people,” ordinary folks, saints and sinners alike, who build the world and direct it. That actually gives us all the responsibility to do our part in the building-up, because our contribution, small as it might seem to us, is vital for the world’s flourishing.
Phillip L. Darrow
Thank you, Mike. Marci and I had both discovered ancestors who came to America in the 1600’s. At one time, this would have been a matter of pride. But after learning of the terrible sufferings inflicted on indigenous peoples by these early settlers, the pride turned to consternation, even shame. Inasmuch as we cannot change the past, we must accept the “good, the bad, and the ugly” from our family tree, just as Jesus accepted each one of these people– both in his past and in his present surroundings.
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