Blessed Is Your Mother!

Did Jesus rebuke a woman who tried to venerate his mother?

Gary Hoge

Most Protestants consider Catholic and Orthodox veneration of Mary, the mother of Jesus, to be excessive at best, idolatrous at worst. And they point to an interaction Jesus had with a woman in the crowd to show that Jesus himself rebuked that woman’s attempt to honor his mother:

As Jesus was saying these things, a woman in the crowd called out, “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” He replied, “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11:27-28)

Some see this woman in the crowd as a sort of “proto-Catholic” who was trying to exalt Mary at the expense of Jesus, and who was swiftly rebuked for it. But if you read it again, you’ll see that the woman wasn’t praising Mary, she was praising Jesus. She might just as easily have said, “Blessed is the ground you walk on!” or “Blessed is the town where you grew up!”

In fact, she didn’t even use the word “mother” (μήτηρ—MAY-tare), she used the word “womb” (κοιλία—koy-LIA). Literally, she said, “Blessed is the womb that gave you birth.” Clearly, this wasn’t praise of Mary, whom this woman couldn’t have picked out of a lineup, it was praise of Jesus. 

Protestant Bible commentator Matthew Henry wrote that the woman was essentially saying:

What an admirable, what an excellent man is this! Surely never was there a greater or better born of a woman: happy the woman that has him for her son.¹

Thomas Constable, former pastor of Plano Bible Chapel, agrees that the passage is about Jesus, not Mary:

The woman expressed how wonderful it must have been for Mary to have given birth to such a son as Jesus. This was an indirect way of complementing Jesus. His response did not reflect unfavorably on Mary. Her privilege as the mother of the Messiah was great indeed (cf. Luke 1:45). However those who heard God’s word of salvation through Jesus and His disciples, believed it, and acted upon it had an even greater position.²

Jesus didn’t deny that his mother was blessed, and Scripture is clear that she was (Luke 1:42, 1:45, 1:48), but he challenged this woman’s assumptions about why she was blessed. Again, according to Matthew Henry,

He does not deny what this woman said, nor refuse her respect to him and his mother; but leads her from this to that which was of higher consideration, and which more concerned her: Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God, and keep it, Luke 11:28 …This is intended partly as a check to her, for doting so much upon his bodily presence and his human nature, partly as an encouragement to her to hope that she might be as happy as his own mother, whose happiness she was ready to envy, if she would hear the word of God and keep it.³

The main reason Mary was blessed is because she heard the word of God and obeyed it. When the angel told her what was about to happen to her, she replied, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). And later, Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit said, “Blessed is she who has believed that the Lord would fulfill his promises to her!” (Luke 1:45).

 

Interestingly, it’s possible that Jesus didn’t say, “blessed rather …,” but “blessed indeed…” That’s because the Greek word translated “rather” is a contranym. (A what?) A contranym is a word that has two opposite meanings depending on the context. Some examples of contranyms in English include cleave, which can mean “join together” or “break apart,” enjoin, which can mean “impose” or “prohibit,” sanction, which can mean “authorize” or “punish,” and buckle, which can mean “fasten” or “collapse.”

The Greek word in question is μενοῦν (menoun), and it can mean either “rather, on the contrary,” or “indeed, much more.”⁴ According to the Analytical Lexicon to the Greek New Testament, menoun serves “to take up what has just preceded, [to] either emphasize or to correct: indeed, really, truly, rather.”⁵

In two of the three other times the word menoun appears in the New Testament it is obviously best translated “indeed,” not “rather”:

But I ask, have they not heard? Indeed (menoun) they have … (Romans 10:18).

Indeed (menoun), I count everything as loss … (Philippians 3:8).

Knowing what we know about Mary’s obedience to the word of God, and consequent blessedness, it’s possible that Jesus meant to emphasize, not to correct. If so, the conversation would have gone like this:

Woman: “Blessed is the mother who gave you birth and nursed you.” 

Jesus: “Indeed, blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it.”

In other words, “Indeed, my mother is blessed, not because she’s my mother, but because those who hear the word of God and obey it, like she did, are blessed.”

Either way, the passage in Luke 11 isn’t about Mary, or Marian veneration, so it neither supports nor opposes giving honor to Mary. It’s about how Jesus handled an overly enthusiastic stranger in a crowd and used her outburst to teach about the blessedness of those who, like his mother, hear the word of God and obey it.