PATIENCE AND FORGIVENESS

For most of my growing-up years, I had to share a bedroom with my brother.   I say that “I had to” because I didn’t want to.  But in a 4-bedroom house with 8 people living in it, there are only so many places to store the bodies.  It meant that I had no place just to be alone, to be in control of my own environment, whether it was the music on the radio or the posters on the wall.  There was always this other person who had the same claim to that space that I had, and I often resented it, which was fairly silly since I never had earned any right to a private bedroom in the first place. Fortunately, though, the door to that room had a lock on it, which meant that whenever I got there first, problem solved – no matter how hard my brother shouted and hollered from the hallway outside.  It was very selfish of me.  

But as time went along our relationship began to change.  He became less the occupying force in “my” space and more of a friend.  In high school, when I would sneak out of the window after hours to party with my school buddies, I discovered that he wouldn’t tell on me to Mom and Dad.  And when he started to do the same thing, I kept my mouth shut too.  We’d become allies in the art of keeping secrets and encouraging deception.   Those, of course, are not virtues to be proud of; but these are:  Patience and Forgiveness.  And these gifts are among the blessings that can only be learned in a family, where one is required to learn that the world is not centered solely on me.

The word “family” can mean many things.  It can mean what we sometimes refer to as the “traditional” family, like the one in which I grew up.  It can mean what we call a blended family or a single-parent family.  It can mean a religious community or a parish.  And it can be as big as what we name the “human family”.  It’s whenever and however we are invited, and in fact required, to live not only for ourselves but equally for the sake of others.  And that demands Patience and Forgiveness.  Invariably people around us will frustrate and disappoint us, will irritate and hurt us – sometimes on purpose.  They will surprise us in ways that we may not understand or appreciate.   That’s what happens in any family.   Patience and Forgiveness.  

In today’s gospel of Luke, it seems that Jesus is pushing the boundaries about how the idea of family is to be understood.  And he has managed to upset his parent in the process.  “Son, how could you do this to us?!”  They ask upon discovering him in the Temple.  If Jesus had been a more sarcastic person he could well have responded, “What did I do? You’re the ones who left town without knowing where I was...”  But his words were meant to expand the idea of “family.”  He didn’t tell Mary and Joseph that he remained in the Temple.   He said that he stayed in “my Father’s house.”  Family certainly includes our biological relatives and in-laws.  But it can’t end there.  And we have trouble enough being patient and forgiving with those who live in our own house, imagine the demands of this gospel for our living in the world.   Jesus’s holy family did not consist of three people, then or now.  It is millions or billions of people, all with the same dignity and the same claim on God’s attention that we presume for ourselves.  Patience and forgiveness, despite our disagreements and fights and resentments.  We need to live together.

Last night my brother hosted a Zoom call for me and my siblings, which was a joy.  He has lived in Scottsdale, AZ now for at least 25 years.  And that seems about right for me.