Sarx

Third in the 2009 series on the Great O Antiphons. The complete text of the Antiphons is here, and a meta-post listing all the meditations is here.

 Radix Jesse, qui stas in signum populorum, super quem continebunt reges os suum, quem gentes deprecabuntur: veni ad liberandum nos, jam noli tardare.

 Root of Jesse, who stand as a sign for the people, kings stand silent in your presence, whom the nations will worship: come to set us free, put it off no longer.

This is late… but I think it makes sense to post this on what is US THanksgiving, a day when families gather from far and wide. It makes sense to me because this verse, about the Root of Jesse, is assigning to Jesus a family, a tribe, a specificity, a location. Jesus’ life and teaching, “The CHrist Event” as some called it, or the “Christ Mystery”, is a point in history, but it is a point along a line of events, or better yet, a thread in a woven tapestry of history.

WHat I see in the “root of Jesse” imagery is that Jesus has a backstory that runs throughout the history of Israel, at least, but though other tribes as well: Ruth, for example, is not of the House of Israel by birth. It’s indicative of a human history: like other humans.

We have families, tribes, locations, but unlike Jesus many of us are rootless and, today in the USA but other days in other places, when we gather as a family (especially as a large family) our rootlessness somehow makes us uncomfortable. Most of us, I think, experience our holidays this way, with a “family” event and an event that might be called “Family of Choice”. And, when I am honest, there is more joy in the “Family of Choice” event.

Last night, I joined with 58 of my friends in a Thanksgiving Feast at my house. It was joyous and chaotic, a proper festival. There were foods and enjoyable treats, wines and beers, hugs and all sorts and conditions of people. THere was dancing in the kitchen whilst the turkey was carved, and pies on the sideboard, and half-gallons of microbrews.

Humans are, if you’ll pardon the shallow metaphor, Jesus’ family of Choice. There are stories in the Bible of Jesus own birth family thinking he was a bit wonky. Jesus says his “real” family is anyone who does the will of God. So while the root of Jesse is in the background, the family of choice becomes the foreground.

Advent celebrates the birth family but we spend almost all of our liturgical year remembering the family of choice.

The problem, of course, is that Jesus becomes rootless thereby, as do we all. It is good to remember the “real” family: the birth family, the source. The older I get the more I see the truth of the statement that “The apple does not fall far from the tree.” I’m always my mother’s son, my grandparents’ heir. Each of us, I think, will find it thus is we are honest.

Jesus comes to us from the root of Jesse: a family of sin and joy, of love and triumph, of fall and redemption. How is it that it can not be so? I’m sure some passover feasts were marred by squabbles. I’m certain sometimes children and parents had issues. In a couple of days we will remember Jesus as the heavenly star of the East. Today, though, it’s good to remember him as human. Here. One of us.

And to realise that all the problems we have with families are well known by God who makes us his family of choice.