livingtheword

Discussion Guide for 10th Sunday: Who is Jesus’ Family?

Reflection Questions

• The first reading reminds us we are created for relationship with God. When we love someone, we like to know where they are, what they’re doing, and instinctively want to protect them. What’s it like to realize God is searching for you; wanting to know how you are and to listen to what is happening for you? Talk with God about that.
• The tragedy of sin is that it damages the relationship of love and trust between God and his people. Self-deceit, thoughtless choices or destructive life patterns are ways we try to hide from ourselves and God. What are you uncomfortable talking to God about or facing in your life? Accepting responsibility and natural consequences are part of maturing. Can you think of a time when God allowed consequences to help you grow and mature? How has that experience impacted your faith and trust in God?
• St Paul talks with conviction about ‘knowing’ that Jesus rose from the dead and that we too will be raised up with Jesus and be with all believers. How strong is your conviction about the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life? What aspect of your faith needs strengthening? What could help you grow more firm in faith?
• What is Paul’s perspective on affliction and hardship? He is suggesting that our struggles somehow ‘train’ us and get us ready to live eternally in the glory of God. Does the thought of heaven permeate your daily life? What would change if you let yourself believe more deeply? How difficult
  or easy is it for you to share the Good News of the Resurrection? What stops you?
• Paul links living a life of thanksgiving to the Resurrection. What practical steps will you take to build greater thankfulness into your daily life?
• Jesus has been preaching the Kingdom, healing many sick, and casting out demons in the region around his home base of Capernaum, along the Sea of Galilee. His family thought he was quite ‘mad’ and tried to ‘seize him’, while the Scribes thought he was possessed by Satan. Jesus’ response
  was to tell stories to try to get them to recognize their error. Can you see anything of yourself in the attitude of His family or the Scribes? What challenges you most about being a disciple? How do you react when those you love, and respect misunderstand or mock you? Share those challenges with God.
• In Judaism, blood relatives and kinship are critically important. Jesus makes it shockingly clear that natural kinship is superseded when we enter the kingdom of God. We become sisters and brothers of Jesus, heirs to the kingdom of God and eternal life with him when we do the will of
  God. Who are the people around you in need of healing, comfort, compassion, mercy and the gift of hearing the Good News and the witness of thanksgiving in your life? How is the Holy Spirit nudging you to do the will of God
• How will you ‘livetheword’ this week?

web: www.livingtheword.org.nz e-mail:contact@livingtheword.org.nz. Livingtheword weekly resources this week by Bev McDonald, Marist Laity NZ, www.maristlaitynz.org based in the Diocese of Auckland, NZ