From the Gospel of John:
After this Jesus went about in Galilee. He did not wish to go about in Judea because the Jews were looking for an opportunity to kill him. Now the Jewish festival of Booths was near. So his brothers said to him, “Leave here and go to Judea so that your disciples also may see the works you are doing; for no one who wants to be widely known acts in secret. If you do these things, show yourself to the world.” (For not even his brothers believed in him.) Jesus said to them, “My time has not yet come, but your time is always here. The world cannot hate you, but it hates me because I testify against it that its works are evil. Go to the festival yourselves. I am not going to this festival, for my time has not yet fully come.” After saying this, he remained in Galilee.
(From the Daily Office Lectionary – John 7:1-10 (NRSV) – March 2, 2013.)
Thirty or so years before the episode described here by John, Mary “gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn” in a town called Bethlehem. (Luke 2:7) We are told here and elsewhere that Jesus had brothers, and his brothers were named “James and Joseph and Simon and Judas.” (Matthew 13:55) He had sisters, too, but their names are not reported in Scripture.
We know next to nothing about his family life. His siblings are not mentioned in the two stories we have from his childhood and adolescence. One supposes it was pretty typical of his time and place. We are told that a Jewish man in First Century Palestine live a life of hard, physical labor either in the farm fields or in the workshop. His wife prepared meals, kept the house, made and washed clothing, and bore and cared for the children. Babies were breastfed, and weaned after 18 months to 3 years. At the age of 13, boys entered adulthood and were apprenticed to learn a craft. Although there is no evidence that boys at the time underwent a ritual bar mitzvah as current Jewish adolescents do, Shmuel ha-Katan a Talmudic scholar writing at the close of the First Century AD does indicate that the completion of the 13th year marked the age for responsibility to the Law. Girls assisted their mothers with domestic work and rearing the younger children; at the age of 12 they were eligible to marry.
If we assume Mary’s and Joseph’s family followed this pattern Jesus and his siblings lived together for at least their formative years. Furthermore, it appears from this story (and others in the Gospels) that as adults the children lived nearby. This seems to have been a tightknit family, although maybe one with some issues. Modern psychology has shown that first born children hold the exclusive attention of the parents and grandparents until the birth of the next child. This is believed to allow for the development of a confident individual who is certain of his place and does fear competition. Jesus would certainly seem to live up to this expectation.
Eventually, the first born does have to deal with the challenge of newcomers. The second born usually ends up in a fight for attention that starts even before he or she is weaned. The expectation that the second will achieve the same standards as the older sibling can result in self-undercutting behavior or in over-achieving behavior in competition with the elder sibling. We don’t know who was the second child in this family; if the listing of Jesus’ brothers’ names in Matthew’s Gospel is in birth order, perhaps it was James. Given that James later became the first Bishop of Jerusalem, that is an interesting possibility.
The arrival of more brothers and sisters may lead second and later children to “middle child syndrome” where the child, being neither youngest nor oldest strives to find a rational role to fill within the family. The youngest children of a large family can face a variety of confusing relationships. Could this be the reason that “not even his brothers believed in him?”
Of course, all this is speculation. We don’t, as I said before, really know anything about Jesus’ early family life. Nor do we have any basis for supposing that the family of Joseph and Mary conformed to these modern psychological stereotypes. What we do know is that Jesus grew up in the bosom of a family, reared by a loving mother and foster father, surrounded by brothers and sisters. In doing so, he sanctified family life in whatever form it may come – large families like his own, childless couples, single-parent households, same-sex couples with or without children – in whatever configurations human beings may form themselves into household units, those families are holy families because each, in its own way, replicates the family in which the Son of God was reared.
The Book of Common Prayer (1979) of the Episcopal Church includes a traditional prayer for families. I’ve edited it to be more inclusive than the original:
Almighty God, our heavenly Father, you set the solitary in families: We commend to your continual care the homes in which your people dwell. Put far from them, we pray, every root of bitterness, the desire of vainglory, and the pride of life. Fill them with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, godliness. Knit partners together in constant affection. Turn the hearts of the parents to the children, and the hearts of the children to the parents; and so enkindle fervent charity among us all, that we may evermore be kindly affectioned one to another; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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Father Funston is the rector of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Medina, Ohio.
It’s called bibliolatry and it’s been around a long, long time. The dictionary definition of bibliolatry is “excessive reverence for the Bible as literally interpreted.” What I most enjoy about modern bibliolatry is that it denies that it is bibliolatry in the most circular and bibliolatrous of ways. 
Despite the tradition that the Psalms were written by King David, any good commentary will tell you that this Psalm was written probably in the first decades of the Sixth Century BC, at around the time of the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians circa 598 BC. Some scholars would even suggest that it was written as late as the Maccabean era (circa 165 BC). Personally, I tend to go with the earlier date; the Psalm’s description of wide spread destruction of religious meeting places seems more in line with the pre-Exilic invasion.
Recently, a graphic has been making the rounds on Facebook. I received it from another church and posted it on my parish’s Facebook page about 24 hours ago with the caption, “Something to think about.” As of the moment I am writing, this graphic has been “liked” 235 times. It has been shared 1,412 times. And according to Facebook’s calculations, it has been seen over 132,400 times. That’s only as originating our page. It is being posted and shared on other pages and, no doubt, has even larger numbers than these at some of those other pages.
As I read the lessons and Psalms of the Daily Office lectionary for today, this was the passage that spoke loudest to me, but I did not want to write about it. I tried to reflect upon and author a meditation about some other bits of the Scriptures appointed for today, but my thoughts kept returning to this one. 
These two verses have probably caused any number of people to scratch their heads in bewilderment over the centuries. Those who read them in English without looking behind the translation to the original language wonder, “What on earth does this mean?” Those who read them in Hebrew wonder, “How can God have such a terrible sense of humor?”
Several years ago – 33 to be exact – Bruce Dern starred in a little-remarked movie entitled Middle Age Crazy; it dealt with the main character’s midlife crisis of turning 40 years of age. 
A few days ago I wrote about my interest in superstring theory, m-theory, and the multiverse concept which springs from my life-long love of science fiction and the especially the “alternate reality” sorts of tales. I suggested that Jesus’ miracles might have been accomplished by his somehow accessing an alternate reality to affect this world; that would imply some sort of access to knowledge of those other universes.
Some years ago, my wife and I were members of a congregation in Southern California where the assistant priest was a military chaplain originally from Georgia. He was normally rather soft-spoken, but when he would introduce the traditional (Jacobean English) version of the Lord’s Prayer using the words from The Book of Common Prayer he would emphasize one word: “And now, as our Savior Christ has taught us, we are BO-WULD to say . . . .” 
Every time I recite Psalm 19 with its words of praise for the Law, I am caught up short by verse 12. In verses 7-11 we read that the Law is perfect and just, that it provides wisdom and rejoicing, that it is more desirable than gold or honey, and that in keeping it there is enlightenment and reward. Then comes the kicker, “Who can tell how often he offends? Cleanse me from my secret faults.” In other words, despite all the grandeur and wonder of the Law, no one can actually keep it!
