Misplaced Priorities

Gospel: John 7: 40-53

The controversy around Jesus in today's Gospel portion has two important components.  The first is that the conversation centers around what is unimportant - the origins of Jesus as compared to the origin expectations in the scriptures.  This question overlooks the more important issue of Jesus' ministry of doing good for others - of healing, liberating, and feeding people at table.  People would rather have Jesus die than perform these good deeds.

The second component is the fact that people are so convinced that they know where Jesus is from that they do not take the time to even explore the question at all.  They do not consider at all the possibility of someone being born in one place, moving to another place, and being raised in that new place.  The animus against Jesus is so great that no openness whatever exists to exploring the question they regard as so important.  

How often do we regard less important questions like people's origins as more important than whether or not people are doing good deeds of mercy and love? We would rather see migrants and refugees caring for their families die because they are from that place.  We would rather see children orphaned or in abusive foster homes instead of in loving homes of gay or lesbian parents.  We would rather people go without the sacraments than to consider ordained ministry open to wider parameters.  Jesus was solely about the healing, liberation, and nourishing of people, and so must we be.