URC Daily Devotion 3rd February 2025

St Luke 11: 27 – 28

While Jesus was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’  But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’

Reflection

Is this a bit of repartee between Jesus and a spirited woman in the crowd or something deeper?
  
In our contemporary culture there’s a high view of family which is seen as the building block of society.  One can’t read agony aunt columns without seeing some dilemma about family relations.  Reality TV shows look at family rifts and reunions; in the paper this morning I read a moving account of Matt and Luke Goss,  once part of the band Bros, whose estrangement has lasted decades.  Our nations are often told about estrangements in the Windsor family with Andrew’s latest misadventure with a Chinese spy leading to his removal from the Christmas gathering at Sandringham and with Harry and William living out their estrangement in the media. 

It’s not surprising that family is seen with such importance – for many of us it’s where we’ve been nurtured and taught, loved and held secure.  It’s something that’s redefined as couples (same or opposite sex) move in together and have children without getting married first and as same sex couples marry.  Even after divorce there’s still family where kids are concerned.  This institution is at the heart of our society even as it develops and is redefined.  And yet…for many family is not safe, loving, and secure.  For many it can be a place of pain, violence, horror and estrangement.  

It’s puzzling, then, that the Church has wedded itself to traditional understandings of family rather than, say alongside models of love and support based on friendship.  Jesus, as far as we know, never married.  His public years were spent in the company of friends, not family, as he breathed his last he created a new family relationship between his mother and “the disciple he loved”.  Perhaps his words in today’s passage indicate a reluctance to valorise family relationships over others; surprising as if anyone was blessed it was his mother!  As ever, Jesus is more nuanced about our social building blocks than we realise.

Prayer

Lord Jesus
help us to find love in likely and unlikely places
to seek bonds of affection, care, and security
wherein we grow and develop,
wherever you provide them,
that we may be blessed
as we hear and respond to your call.
Amen.