Holy Family Sunday

Holy Family (31 December 2017)

Sir 3:3-7, 14-17a; Ps 128:1-5; Col 3:12-21; Matt 2:13-15 19-23

Theme: Above all these, put on love.

I used to be a cantor in a Catholic church, and when it was time to sing Psalm 128, I would always cringe. After suffering in silence for several years, it turned out in conversation with another female cantor that we both were put off by the words of the Psalm. Our pastor, who was part of the conversation, was shocked that we disliked the Psalm’s comparison of “your wife” to a “fruitful vine,” and the blessing on “the man who fears YHWH.” He thought the Psalm was beautiful and touching with its warm evocation of family life, but who wants to be valued solely for her ability to produce many children to build up a patriarchal household? The pastor had unquestioningly identified with the contented paterfamilias, while we women had seen that the Psalm was really not about us!

For contemporary readers, the passages from Sirach and Colossians may prompt similar reactions. Admittedly, the mention of both mothers and fathers in Sir 3:3, 6, 16, likely influenced by the commandment (Exod 20:12; cf. Lev 20:9), is welcome in a writing so notoriously misogynistic: “So negative are Sirach’s views on women that one scholar has argued that the text reveals an author whose misogyny is pathological even by the male-dominated standards of the author’s own day (Trenchard)” (Eisenbaum, 298). The patriarchal family system presupposed in Colossians 3:12-21 takes for granted a household where wives defer to husbands, children obey their parents, and slaves must obey their masters. Such household codes were well-known in antiquity (e.g., Aristotle, Politics 1,xii-xiii), and presupposed that males and elders were naturally more suited to leadership than women and the young, and that slaves were inferior beings without the capacity to make their own decisions. The deutero-Pauline author of Colossians has a distinctive spin on this ideology that scholars call “love patriarchalism,” in which husbands are instructed to love their wives (3:19), fathers are enjoined not to provoke their children (3:20), and slaves are reminded that their true master is God (3:22-24; cf. Eph 5:21-6:9; 1 Pet 2:11-3:22). Although this ethic moderates the rigid hierarchy of the patriarchal household, it still conceives families in hierarchical terms of status, gender and age, and falls short of the counter-cultural egalitarianism of Gal 3:28.

Against this backdrop, the portrayal of Joseph in Matthew is refreshing. Matthew’s infancy narrative focuses on Joseph, not Mary. When he initially finds out that his betrothed is pregnant, presumably by another man, rather than angrily calling for her punishment as an adulteress—an offence worthy of death (Lev 20:10; Deut 22:22; cf. John 8:1-11), “he resolved to divorce her quietly” so as not to shame her (Matt 1:19). He accepts the divine assurance that the pregnancy is “of the Holy Spirit” (1:20), and faithfully protects Mary and a child not his own to the point of fleeing with them to Egypt until the death of Herod (Matt 2:13-15, 19-13). Contrary to the Christian tradition that Joseph was much older than Mary, it is likely that both partners were in their teens, thus making the young man’s loving care of his unconventional family even more praiseworthy.

Bibliography: Pamela Eisenbaum, “Sirach,” Women’s Bible Commentary, Revised and Expanded Edition, ed. Carol A. Newsom, Sharon H. Ringe and Jacqueline E. Lapsley (London: SPCK, 2014), 298-304; Pontifical Biblical Commission (PBC), The Inspiration and Truth of Sacred Scripture: The Word that Comes from God and Speaks of God for the Salvation of the World (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 2014).

For Reflection and Discussion: In the light of today’s commentary, discuss the PBC’s that scripture interpreters need to distinguish between what “should be considered perennially valid and what should be considered relative, linked to a culture, a civilization, or even the mentality of a specific period of time” (PBC, no. 132).

This week’s Sunday Gospel Commentary was prepared by

Mary Ann Beavis, Ph.D., Saskatoon, Canada, Bat Kol Alumna 2004, 2006, 2012,

Email address: mbeavis@stmcollege.ca

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PLEASE NOTE: The weekly Gospel commentaries represent the research and creative thought of their authors, and are meant to stimulate deeper thinking about the meaning of the Sunday Scriptures. While they draw upon the study methods and sources employed by the Bat Kol Institute, the views and conclusions expressed in these commentaries are solely those of their authors, and do not necessarily represent the views of Bat Kol. Questions, comments and feedback are always welcome.

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~~1983–2017~~

Bat Kol Institute for Jewish Studies, Jerusalem

“Christians Studying the Bible within its Jewish milieu, using Jewish Sources.”

Website: www.batkol.info; gill@batkol.info