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"Every family has one!"

"And he's ours...."

"Without a doubt!"

"The black sheep!"

The black sheep? Who were Jesus' cousins talking about as they sat fanning themselves on the porch that hot afternoon in Nazareth?

"Yes, Jesus is our black sheep," Joses nodded gravely. "He doesn't take after his mom or his dad. I don't know of any of us who are as crazy as he is. I'd say John comes the closest. He's really weird -- eating insects, into leather, and a real hell raiser with the authorities!"

"But that's Mary's side of the family, not ours. I'm worried what people will think about us," Jim said.

"Right!" Joses waved a hand. "I've already had total strangers come up to me and say, 'You're Jesus' cousin, aren't you? What's he up to anyway?' What can I say? What can any of us say? That he's running around the countryside giving pep talks to losers about some pie-in-the-sky day when they'll all be winners?"

"Or that he wastes time telling stories and hanging out with guys who are out of work like himself," Jim added. "And if that isn't enough ... that Jesus parties with pretty shady characters, doesn't have a place of his own, and wears the same outfit his mom gave him two years ago!" "Yeah, I know he got a kick out of the fact that it's a one piece tunic, but enough is enough already!"

Joses shook his head. "What bothers me most are the wild stories I'm beginning to hear about him acting like some faith healer: laying hands on the crazies and trying to touch others' hurts away."

"You'd think he was some heaven-sent masseur!" Jim interrupted, his voice tinged with sarcasm. "Let me tell you, these stories worry me too, but not half as much as the reports I'm getting about his run-ins with the authorities. Seems he doesn't like the way they keep shop. He scolds them for preferring their pocketbooks to the poor; chastises them for endlessly primping and preening in public; and lashes out at them for saddling who he calls 'the little ones' with oppressive laws. I tell you if he keeps undermining their authority, you and I, and the whole family are in for trouble," Jim concluded ominously.

"Yes, they'll send a team down here to snoop around and dig up dirt to implicate all of us with trumped up charges," Joses warned. "We've got to do something before that happens. We've got to go to Capernaum where they say he's hanging out and bring him back with us."

"I'm not certain he'll listen to us," Jim said. "I don't think he trusts us. But if we can get Mary to come, he may give us a hearing. She hasn't seen him for a while, and we'll tell her we'd like to visit Jesus and we'd like her to join us."

"Good idea," Joses said. "Remember, no talk about him being a problem child. She thinks the world of him -- like he's God's gift to the world and all that. We'll just try to convince her while we're walking that maybe Jesus needs a little rest and we'd like him to come home for a while. She'd like that. Maybe she'd even make him a new tunic!"

"Yeah, might even get him to cut his hair and shave!" Jim said.

"Now you're talking! Well, let's get at it! We can't lose any time," Joses said.

Jim and Joses persuaded Mary to come along with them to Capernaum. She seemed puzzled by their sudden solicitude for Jesus since they had never seemed fond of him when he lived at home. As Mary remembered it, Jesus had often tried to be their friend, but they always had excuses for not spending time with him. Even at the family get-togethers Jim and Joses avoided Jesus. But then those two tended to go their own ways, avoiding most of the other family members as well. "I wish I could reach them," Jesus had told his folks on several occasions. However, now the two wanted to visit Jesus, and even though Mary had reservations about their intentions, she decided to give them the benefit of the doubt.

They arrived at the public square in Capernaum just in time to see a large crowd gathered around a man who was speaking to them. Shading his eyes from the noonday sun, Joses squinted and cried, "It's Jesus!" The three walked as quickly as possible to the gathering. As they stood at the back of the crowd Mary tapped her finger on a big, burly man's shoulder. After she had gotten his attention, she told him she was Jesus' mother and asked if he could muscle his way through the crowd to tell Jesus she and his cousins were waiting to see him. The man grumbled, hesitated, but finally angled his way through the crowd and disappeared.

A couple of minutes later he returned. Laughing, he told her, "Jesus says we're all his relatives if we act like family and care for one another like God wants us to do."

"Now what's that supposed to mean?" Joses asked angrily.

"Hey, buddy, I'm just giving you the message. Interpret it any way you like. If you're his cousin, you oughta know what he's talking about. You've always cared about him, haven't you?"

"Of course I...." Joses was going to say he had always cared, but he noticed Mary's eyes fixed on him and he said nothing more.

Pressing the point, the man directed his comments to Jim, "I mean you'd try to reach out to him if you thought he was in trouble. Right?"

"Well, I...." He too caught Mary's eyes and sputtered, "I ... I ... I ... of course, of course!"

By this time the crowd had thinned out and the two men took advantage of the situation. Joses elbowed Jim, "Let's get away from this guy! He's getting to me." They practically carried Mary as they shoved their way to the center of the crowd. "He's telling a story," Joses whispered.

"Who among you, if he has a hundred sheep and loses one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wasteland and follow the lost one until he finds it? And when he finds it, he puts it on his shoulders in jubilation. Once arrived home, he invites friends and neighbors in and says to them, 'Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.' I tell you, there will likewise be more joy in heaven over one repentant sinner than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need to repent."

After Jesus had finished, his face lit up as he caught sight of Mary and his cousins. "Mom," he cried as he ran over to her and gave her a big hug. "Jim, Joses, what a surprise! I was just thinking about you. I've found you at last!"

"Thinking about us?" Joses puzzled.

"Found us?" Jim muttered. "Why...." Jim couldn't finish the sentence since Jesus was embracing them both like long-lost brothers.

"You're going to stay for a while, aren't you?"

"Well...." The brothers looked sheepishly at one another. "We ... uh...."

"Of course you are. We've got so much to talk about. And nothing is more important than being with you ... and Mom, of course," Jesus laughed.

Tears had formed in the two brothers' eyes as they put their arms around Jesus' waist. They had come to bring the black sheep home with them and for some strange reason they felt they were being welcomed back into the fold ... where they belonged.


Reflection


"I'm lost! I hope I can find my way," could as easily be the cry of someone who finds no meaning in life as it could be the complaint of a frustrated driver in a strange city. Yet the simple admission that we are lost is essential if we are ever to find our way. Unfortunately, we do not make these admissions easily. Just as we can insist that we know where we're going as we drive around in circles in the strange city, so we can also insist that we know where we're going in life when we really don't. Mindlessly watching television, endlessly having affairs, or working nonstop day after day are a few of the ways in which we get lost and lose all sense of purpose and meaning in life.

However, once we recognize we are at a loss about what to do with our lives then we are already beginning to walk in the light. No one is so far gone as the one who is completely unaware of being lost. Rather than despairing of finding our way once we have seen the light and admitted to being lost, we might regard that very insight, intuition, or recognition as a first step in coming out from under the basket.

How do we react when we discover we have been lost? Do we despair or become depressed? Or do we see that "seeing" is itself light, a gift from the Light?