March 7, 2021: Mothers and Sons – Amanda Lum

Hanging on the cross, Jesus said to his mother, “Here is your son,” and he was not referring to himself. This is not the first time Jesus messes with the accepted idea of family. In another story, his mother and brothers think he’s not making wise decisions and they call for him, only for him to say, “Who are my mother and brothers?” It’s a new way of relating to others in his Kingdom; not the way culture has understood it. Everyone, Jesus insists, is family and to be treated as such. This is what the “disciple who Jesus loved” understood, for it is reported that this disciple took the mother of Jesus to live in his home.

 

It is presumed “this disciple” (you know, the one whom Jesus loved) is John. That’s one way of understanding it. But what if by not naming this disciple throughout the Gospel, John is giving a subtle nudge for us to find ourselves in the story. What if John is asking us to see ourselves as the “disciple whom Jesus loved?” What if we are standing at the cross? What if we pay witness to the shame Jesus bears as he hangs there, suffering, the object of scorn? If this is the case, then this is our mother, and we are the child. Because in the kingdom, we are family.