While he was saying this, a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, "Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!" But he said, "Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!" (Luke 11:27-28 NRSV)
This passage from the Gospel of Luke has long been used by opponents of the over-exaltation of Mary one finds within Roman Catholicism, and, to a lesser degree, Eastern Orthodoxy. In this passage, just as Jesus did in other texts (e.g., Matt 12:46-50), Jesus shows that he is establishing an eschatological family where the members are tied to one another, not biologically but spiritually, and does so by rebuking a woman who is giving Mary praise based on her biological motherhood. The NEB is correct in the following comment about the meaning of the woman’s comments in Luke 11:27:
Both the reference to the womb and the breasts form a figure of speech called metonymy. In this case the parts are mentioned instead of the whole; the meaning is "Blessed is your mother!" The warnings seem to have sparked a little nervousness that brought forth this response. In the culture a mother was valued for the accomplishments of her son. So this amounts to a compliment to Jesus.
Instead, the true mother/brother/sister of Jesus are those who do his words; as we read in Luke 8:21, for instance:
But he said to them, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." (NRSV)
Some Catholic apologists have tried to get around the plain meaning of this passage by focusing on the particle μενουν (rather/on the contrary). As Mario Lopez wrote:
What does Luke 11:27-28 say about Mary? Does it downplay her role? I will let a Protestant, Margaret Thrall, a Protestant scholar, explains what Jesus means:
“What you have said is true as far as it goes. But the blessedness of Mary does not consist simply in the fact of her relationship towards myself, but (menoun) in the fact that she shares in the blessedness of those who hear the word of God and keep it, and it is in this that true blessedness,”.(Margaret Thrall, Greek Particles in the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1962), 35.”
While I have not read Thrall’s book on Greek particles (if anyone wants to get me a copy, I won’t complain!) However, to say that this is an abuse of the particle as well as the exegetical meaning of Luke 11:27-28 is the nice way of summing up this “response.” Note the following scholarly comments on the particle:
μενουν
Combined Particle (μεν + ουν)
1. Rather, on the contrary.
G.K. Beale, Daniel J. Brendsel, and William A. Ross, An Interpretive Lexicon of the New Testament: Prepositions, Adverbs, Particles, Relative Pronouns, and Conjunctions (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2014), 64
BDAG:
4814 μενοῦν
• μενοῦν (also μὲν οὖν) Lk 11:28 (for negative s. οὐ μὲν οὖν) and μενοῦνγε (also μενοῦν γε), particles used esp. in answers, to emphasize or correct (B-D-F §450, 4; Rob. 1151f), even—contrary to earlier Gk. usage—at the beginning of a clause (Phryn. 342 Lob. [322 R.]) rather, on the contrary (Soph., Aj. 1363; Pla., Crito 44b; X., Cyr. 8, 3, 37) Lk 11:28 v.l. Indeed Ro 10:18. ἀλλὰ μενοῦνγε more than that Phil 3:8. μενοῦνγε σὺ τίς εἶ … ; on the contrary, who are you … ? (or, who in the world are you to [take issue with God]?) Ro 9:20.—M-M.
Louw-Nida:
89.128 μενοῦν ; μενοῦνγε: relatively emphatic markers of contrast - 'but, on the contrary, on the other hand.' μενοῦν: μενοῦν μακάριοι οἱ ἀκούοντες τὸν λόγον τοῦ θεοῦ καὶ φυλάσσοντες 'on the contrary, those who hear the word of God and keep it are happy' or '... fortunate' Lk 11.28.
That a “low Mariology” was read out of this passage in the earliest Patristic literature can be seen in the following comments from Tertullian:
And did not Christ, whilst preaching and manifesting God, fulfilling the law and the prophets, and scattering the darkness of the long preceding age, justly employ this same form of words, in order to strike the unbelief of those who stood outside, or to shake off the importunity of those who would call Him away from His work? If, however, He had meant to deny His own nativity, He would have found place, time, and means for expressing Himself very differently, and not in words which might be uttered by one who had both a mother and brothers. When denying one’s parents in indignation, one does not deny their existence, but censures their faults. Besides, He gave others the preference; and since He shows their title to this favour—even because they listened to the word (of God)—He points out in what sense He denied His mother and His brethren. For in whatever sense He adopted as His own those who adhered to Him, in that did He deny as His those who kept aloof from Him. Christ also is wont to do to the utmost that which He enjoins on others. How strange, then, would it certainly have been, if, while he was teaching others not to esteem mother, or father, or brothers, as highly as the word of God, He were Himself to leave the word of God as soon as His mother and brethren were announced to Him! He denied His parents, then, in the sense in which He has taught us to deny ours—for God’s work. But there is also another view of the case: in the abjured mother there is a figure of the synagogue, as well as of the Jews in the unbelieving brethren. In their person Israel remained outside, whilst the new disciples who kept close to Christ within, hearing and believing, represented the Church, which He called mother in a preferable sense and a worthier brotherhood, with the repudiation of the carnal relationship. It was in just the same sense, indeed, that He also replied to that exclamation (of a certain woman), not denying His mother’s “womb and paps,” but designating those as more “blessed who hear the word of God.” (Tertullian, On the Flesh of Christ, chapter VII)
For more on Patristic Mariology and Mary, see, for example, my article:
Latter-day Saints and others (e.g., Evangelical Protestants) are correct, both biblically and historically, in rejecting the over-exaltation of Mary one finds within Roman Catholicism.