We had been listening to our Rabbi speaking us for some time, until it seemed there was no time anymore, just the sound of birdsong outside and the voice of the Teacher. Gradually those who had come to argue and criticize fell silent as men drew closer to him to catch each word and children quietened and laid their heads on their mother’s breasts. No one moved, the room was full, and it seemed as though we sank deeper and deeper into the wonder of his words. I began to see, although it was beyond my understanding, how it was that ‘something greater than Jonah,’ and even, ‘something greater than Solomon,’ was here with us. The Word: I wanted to listen to him forever. I wanted to gaze into his eyes and listen to his voice and live my life in docility to this ‘ Son of Man’ and to his Father. I was his disciple and yet I was becoming something more. And, I recalled the other words he had spoken, ‘something greater than the temple is here,’ and I trembled.
The beloved
The words of the prophet Isaiah: swam into my mind and Jesus looked at me and caught my gaze as I recited in the silence of my mind,
“Behold, my servant whom I have chosen,
my beloved with whom my soul is well pleased.
I will put my Spirit upon him,
and he will proclaim justice to the Gentiles.
Intrusion
And then the moment was broken as a young man entered the house and pushed his way into the room. He was, he announced, a kinsman of Jesus and, as he had brought others of his kinsmen here, with his mother, he expected the Rabbi to leave this group of strangers and be present to his family without delay.
I felt a strange grief, knowing that I was not one of his kin, I was just a man, with no kin now, who loved him and wanted to live by every word he spoke.
Who is my mother and my brothers?
Jesus turned to the man and said,
“Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?”
And then he turned and held out his arms,
“Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
It was as though he spoke those words directly to me.
Handmaid of the Lord
The man turned away and strode out of the house, gathering his kinsmen around him. I wondered how Jesus could bear to be a man without family, belonging to all of us and yet belonging to no one. And then I saw the woman, the woman who had held back from the group when they entered the room and then waited patiently as he turned to us. She gazed into his eyes with an expression of the same love that I felt for him. He slipped his arm around his Mother’s waist then and she smiled. This woman had been more docile to the will of his father in heaven than anyone who had ever lived. She was also so in tune with her Son that her eyes reflected the light that shone from his. As she turned those eyes to me it seemed that they were his eyes and the gaze was his gaze. I whispered, ‘Mother.’
