Did Mary have children other than the Lord Jesus? This question is not as central to the truth of the Gospel as is whether or not Christ had a human father, because on that question turns the very possibility of the divinity of Jesus. But Mary’s perpetual virginity is still part of the deposit of faith, and the Catholic answer to this question has always been clear and constant: Mary remained a virgin throughout her life, and her only offspring was Jesus, the Son of God.
All Christians of the Orthodox Churches also hold this same teaching, as do some Protestants, including several of their founders like Martin Luther, John Calvin, and John Wesley. But most Protestants today have come to believe that Mary did have children other than Jesus, and to justify their claim they point to today’s reading from the Gospel of Saint Mark and to a similar passage in Saint Matthew.
Adelphos is the Greek word used by Mark to describe the people called brothers and sisters of Jesus, but this same word is used elsewhere in Holy Scripture, in the Old and New Testaments alike, to describe not only children of the same mother or father but also those who are bound by other forms of kinship, such as cousins, half-siblings, step-siblings, and even those who simply share the same religion.
These various uses of adelphos mean that the presence of the word by itself does not demonstrate that Mary had children other than Jesus, and several other explanations have been offered over the centuries to identity these people. They could, for example, be children of Saint Joseph from a previous marriage, or they could be the children of Mary’s sister, also named Mary and apparently the wife of Clopas.
Among the many arguments for the perpetual virginity of Mary, the two I have always found most compelling are these: First, after the Resurrection, no one ever said “I am the sibling of the Savior.” And second, on the Cross, the Lord Jesus entrusted the care of his mother to the Apostle John, a man not related to them by blood or marriage - something that would have been unthinkable if Mary had other children of her own.
But Mary’s perpetual virginity is not the central question in the Gospel today. Instead, we are confronted with one of the main difficulties facing anyone who is asked to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of the living God and the Savior of the world: namely, how can a man be the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob?
The first thing to notice is that the people of Nazareth admit that Jesus is extraordinary; they perceive his knowledge, wisdom, and authority, and they know of his mighty deeds, the miraculous signs about which we read in the Gospel on the last two Sundays. These miracles are the signs that reveal the true identity of Christ by disclosing his dominion over nature, including disease and death.
But despite all that, the people of Christ’s home town could not get past his humanity. After all, they knew his family. They knew his humble origins. They considered him just a carpenter, a man without formal education or rabbinical training, and they of course assumed that he was the natural son of Joseph. They could not perceive any possible explanation for his extraordinary bearing and accomplishments, and so Mark tells us “they took offense at him.”
The word translated here as “took offense” is a form of the word scandalize, meaning that they tripped over him. They found Jesus a stumbling block, and this same term is used by both Peter and Paul to describe Christ. In First Corinthians, Paul writes in chapter one, beginning at verse twenty-two: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.”
And in the first of his two New Testament letters, Peter uses the image of stones to explain both Christ and his Church. He writes in chapter two beginning at verse four, “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
Peter continues: “For it stands in Scripture: ‘Behold, I am laying in Zion a stone, a cornerstone chosen and precious, and whoever believes in him will not be put to shame.’ So the honor is for you who believe, but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone’ and ‘A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense.’” Peter concludes that unbelievers stumble on this stone, on Christ, because “they disobey the word” of God.
The Scripture passage about the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone is from Psalm 118, and the Lord Jesus speaks these same words about himself in Matthew’s Gospel at chapter twenty-one, verse forty-two. Put most simply, men stumble over Christ rather than accept him as Lord and Savior because they disobey the Word of God, they refuse to trust the Word made flesh in the obedience of faith, and they will not offer their lives as a spiritual sacrifice in Christ Jesus to the praise and glory of God the Father. And all of this is so because men make their own hearts and minds the measure of all things rather than submit their lives to the judgment of the Word of God, a judgment that always calls us to repentance and faith in the Gospel.
So, which will Christ be for us: the cornerstone of our lives or a stumbling stone over whom we trip and fall? Let’s go back to the synagogue at Nazareth and listen. When the people took offense at Jesus, he said to them “A prophet is not without honor except in his native place and among his own kin and in his own house.” In saying this, the Lord was reflecting the long experience of all the prophets sent by God to proclaim his Word to Israel, and that is the topic of today’s first reading from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel.
“Son of man, I am sending you to the Israelites, rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have revolted against me to this very day. Hard of face and obstinate of heart are they to whom I am sending you. But you shall say to them: Thus says the Lord God! And whether they heed or resist - for they are a rebellious house - they shall know that a prophet has been among them.”
Friends, it is not only the children of Israel who are a rebellious house, hard of face and obstinate of heart. It is the entire human race, all the children of Adam, all of us, who are rebels and in revolt against the law and love of God, and our propensity to disobey the Word of God and reject the Gospel of Christ is not because the eternal plan of salvation is inscrutable or too difficult to understand.
No, we reject the Gospel because we will not serve. We choose not to trust the Lord, and we reject the power and the wisdom of God because to accept Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior is to join him on the Way of the Cross. And that is why Christ is a stumbling block to so many rather than the cornerstone of our lives; we will not serve, and we absolutely will not endure suffering.
I said a moment ago that we are confronted today with one of the main difficulties facing anyone who is asked to believe that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of the living God and the Savior of the world: namely, how can a man be God? And that, of course, is always the heart of the matter.
The people of Nazareth knew beyond doubt that Jesus was the son of Mary, but they could not conceive that he was also God the Son, the Eternal Word by whom and for whom all things were made. And even the miracles worked by Christ were not enough to awaken in those people saving faith that Jesus Christ is Lord. So we deceive ourselves if we think that witnessing miracles or seeing Christ in the flesh would make it easier for us to trust the Word of God and believe in the Gospel.
Of course, some people are content to see in Jesus merely a wise and benevolent teacher. But Aslan is not a safe or tame lion, and Jesus cannot be reduced to a noble guru of enlightenment through selflessness. Take, for example, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the American Declaration of Independence and one of the leading and most versatile intellectuals of his time. Jefferson the astute philosopher and statesman was also a heretic who denied the divinity of Christ, and he edited the New Testament to suit his rationalist convictions by removing from the text everything he found implausible, meaning anything supernatural or miraculous.
What was left in Jefferson’s Bible was the story of an inspiring philosopher who offered his students a path to happiness through the admirable principles of non-violence, simplicity of life, and universal love. But what was left out of Jefferson’s Bible was everything that makes it possible to say that Jesus Christ is Lord because he is the Word made flesh who redeems us from sin and death and who opens the path to everlasting life by taking to himself our human nature so that he can share with us his divine nature. Sadly, one must wonder today how many teachers of theology, including not a few who are ordained and hold offices in the Church, have more in common with Thomas Jefferson than with the Apostle Paul.
But make no mistake: as C.S. Lewis explained, Jesus of Nazareth is one of only three things: a liar, a lunatic, or the Lord. And if he is not the Lord, then Jesus cannot be either a wise teacher or a moral exemplar because he is a liar or a lunatic or both. Mr Jefferson’s Enlightenment religion was not Christianity, and neither are the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism or neo-Gnostic fantasies which now dominate so much of our culture and pose as spirituality, even among many of the baptized.
Friends, we must clearly understand why these fraudulent faiths are not Christianity, both for the sake of our own faith and for the sake of those to whom we are sent as witnesses, as living stones being built into a spiritual house, the Church, to be a holy priesthood and offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.
For the Savior to be our cornerstone rather than a stumbling block over whom we trip and fall, we must know by grace through faith that the Son of Mary, who has no human father, is none other than the Son of the living God, the Second Person of the Most Holy Trinity, God made man. And that alone is how we can say, with the life-changing conviction that will lead others to saving faith, that Jesus Christ is Lord.
Here is the text of my homily for 7 July 2024, the 14th Sunday of the Year.
Fr Jay Scott Newman
Faith and Trust in God Our Father . He is All in All.
Deacon Dick Murtaugh.