First reading: Genesis 22:1-2,9-13,15-18
Psalm: Ps 116:10,15-19
Epistle: Romans 8:31-34
Gospel: Mark 9:2-10

“This is my beloved Son.”

Relatedness:

Today we continue our Lenten study of family focusing on the topic of relatedness, how we relate to the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit and each other as well as the things that mark, or indicate that relationship.

The dictionary tells us that relatedness means a particular manner of connectedness or relationship. The opposite, unrelatedness means to be disconnected.

In educational psychology human relatedness is defined as the ability to bond emotionally with others.

Allison:

Allison grew up in a loving and supportive family. She was an honor student whose life stalled, then careened dangerously downhill because of alcoholism. Throughout her life she felt disconnected, unrelated, and was unable to develop friendships. It was only after “hitting bottom,” and a chance encounter with a struggling member of Alcoholics Anonymous, Mike, that her own life was put back on track. At her second AA meeting Allison was invited to speak. There, she found her Higher Power. She recognized God in the faces of the people in the room. She said: “I saw it…the understanding, the empathy, the love…This is what I had been looking for all my life.”

Allison found relatedness. First in Mike who “got her,” understood where she was and her need. Then in that AA meeting she broke through and saw the love of God in her connection to others. What she experienced was a sense of belonging, relatedness.

Allison’s life bloomed. She is gainfully employed, supporting herself financially, with plans to buy a house. She has friends because, as she described it, she had learned how to be a friend, to be related. She went on to find a special man for her life with whom she has been involved for almost five years.

God created:

In our study of family, we realize that God’s creation is centered on our relatedness, our connection to others starting with our parents, siblings, and our extended families. We reach out from there to friendships and larger social relationships.

As we discussed last week, God works through families and the larger social family. In His creation, these relationship, this relatedness is at the heart of His design for His family.

References:

In today’s readings and Gospel we hear about relatedness. Abraham was put to the test, and the test required him to do the hardest thing possible. It is why its description is so stark, so shocking. Abraham was asked to sacrifice the son that he loved.

In our Gospel, the Father overshadows Jesus and the Apostles at the Transfiguration, clearing stating for all: “This is my beloved Son.”

Saving through relatedness:

In case we might miss it, God lives in a state of relatedness. He is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, three persons in one God. The center of that relationship is tremendous and perfect love. That is why God understood how hard of a test He was imposing on Abraham, and why He rewarded Abraham for his willingness to offer his beloved son as sacrifice.

Consider how we are saved by that exact relatedness. The Father’s Son, Jesus, was offered on the cross for us. While God stayed Abraham’s hand from sacrificing his son, God sacrificed His own Son, Who He loves with tremendous and perfect love, for all of us.

We are both saved, and assured of our relatedness to God, through the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus.

To God:

God loves us so much, so tremendously, that He gave His Son for us. We are not just bystanders, or people unworthy of love, unrelated. God loves us with the very same love He holds for His Son Jesus. In Jesus, we have become members of God’s family. We are children of the our Father. Jesus is our brother. Our relatedness to God, our connection to Him is not something we invented, but something God desired. God took action to create our relatedness to Him and to each other.

To each other:

By being made children of God we have become related, connected to each other. We are siblings.

Our relatedness exists in what we share: We have one birth into the family of God through water and the Holy Spirit. We have one faith. We have one Father in heaven and one Lord and Savior, our brother Jesus Christ. We share in the one Spirit. We speak the same language in worship and prayer. We do the things that family does – in spending time together, communicating, trusting, fulfilling each others needs during times of struggle, and celebrating together in times of joy. We share the same ancestors in faith and are joined with them, with our Blessed Mother and all the saints. They pray and intercede for us because we are all family.

In God we are connected. We are related. We are in a relationship with Him and each other. We are bonded as family, spiritually and emotionally with each other.

We have one goal, and it is not just getting to heaven because who wants to be in heaven alone. It is reaching heaven as a family where we will dwell as one. We will reach heaven through our relatedness, through the hands that help, support, and guide us, who pray for us in our mutual journey to God. This is our family of faith here on earth and in heaven. Amen.

First reading: Genesis 9:8-15
Psalm: Ps 25:4-9
Epistle: 1 Peter 3:18-22
Gospel: Mark 1:12-15

“God said to Noah and to his sons with him: “See, I am now establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you.”

Families:

Consider Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham. Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses, David, Mary, John the Baptist, Jesus, and Peter – what do all these, and the rest of the heroes of the Bible all have in common? They were all members of families.

Noah had his wife, his sons and their families. Abraham had Sarah and their son Isaac. Isaac had Rebekah, Esau, and Jacob. Jacob had Rachel and Leah, and his seven sons including Joseph. From the Old Testament to the New, we see family.

Think too of all the words used in the Bible to denote family. The New Testament mentions brother, or brethren, 319 times and child, or children, is used 168 times. Everything we see of God’s revelation comes to us through the lens of family.

Theme:

Our Lenten theme is all about family. We will work though this Lent learning about God’s promises – promises made to the body of Christ, the family of faith. Our first reading, where God makes promises to Noah and his family, his descendants, is a foreshadowing of the way God relates to us as family.

God wants us as family:

God always deals with family, with people’s relationships to Him and each other. God isn’t building His kingdom on hermits and loners. Rather, He is looking to us as His children, and a single body — the body of Christ. God’s family is more than just the individual believer, a local community or church — it is all the faithful, past, present, and future joined together as family.

Remember that Jesus always referred to His Father as our Father. This wasn’t some sort of light saying, just to make us feel good. Jesus meant what He said. His Father is our Father. Jesus even taught us to pray, invoking the Father.

But its tough:

The way God set everything up can be tough at times. Family relationships aren’t always easy. You remember the old saying: “You can pick your friends, but you can’t pick your family.” Sometimes that’s said after a family member has disappointed us or let us down. Still, they are family, and we offer forgiveness and reconciliation to our family. That is the model for the entire Christian family. We are all related together in that way, and we share in one body and one blood – the blood of Jesus Christ.

The key is that family is central to our lives as Christians. This unity, in family, makes us stronger, heals our wounds, brings us joy, and allows us to support each other in tough times.

Reconnecting:

Jesus’ entire ministry was centered on revealing the Father to us. He came to rebuild His Father’s family and He accomplished that on Calvary. There He broke down the enmity between God and man. He healed our separation, our distance from God. There He reconnected us to God, and joined us together.

God is our Father, and we are Jesus’ brothers and sisters. This makes us His family and family to each other. No one is excluded or outside the family, and our arms are open to all who wish to enter our family. They can come, just as we did, to be born into God’s family through the waters of Baptism, by regeneration.

Road ahead:

There’s a lot to study this Lent. Today we have focused on the fact that God’s model, God’s way, is that we live as family. He is our Father, Jesus is our brother. We are members of one body – the Church which is the body of Christ. We have been born into this family and that same birth is available to all. Anyone can join God’s family by accepting Him.

From here we will learn about our relatedness, how we relate to the Father, Jesus, and each other and the things that mark, or indicate that relationship. We will learn about our responsibilities as family members. We will consider our importance to the family. We will learn about the gifts that come from being members of God’s family. Finally, we will rejoice in the victory we have been given by the inheritance that is in store for members of God’s family.

We are family:

God didn’t send Noah onto the boat alone, and He hasn’t given His promises to a few individuals who exist apart and alone. His promises and His love are for all of us as members of a family. God is our loving Father, and we are His children, brothers and sisters of Christ and each other. Amen.