Hymn of Discipleship *Who Is My Mother, Who Is My Brother?* Witness of Scripture: Mark 3: 20 - 35 Anthem *Come Down, O Love Divine* William H Harris. Chancel Choir Sermon *Family Values* David Spain
Recorded on June 9, 2024
Back in the day—whenever that was—back in the day in some of the churches in Texas, people had an interesting way of referring to each other. It was common to hear brother and sister used in reference to each other—brother Jim will lead us in the benediction, sister Jane will lead us in the singing. Although our church did not identify a ‘Father Priest’ or a ‘Mother Superior,’ we were brothers and sisters to each other. Back in that day the church family in which we were siblings tended to be confined to the walls of that church—it was an insular family that did not extend across the tracks or across the denominations. But, within that church, we had brothers and sisters, a reminder we were part of a family larger than the one into which we had been born.
We don’t hear that kind of language so much in this church, although when we celebrate the sacrament of baptism, we do recognize that in Christ we become brothers and sisters—“Joe, my little brother in Christ…Judy my little sister in Christ,” the minister says while baptizing in the name of the “Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” As we delight in the joy of baptism, our faith reminds us we are part of something larger than our family of origin and even this church family, for we baptize into the church universal. We become siblings with believers everywhere—even the ones across the tracks and across the denominations.
The relative ease of such sibling talk in this day did not land as softly when Jesus first used it in his day, as Mark’s gospel tells us. In fact, there was trouble in the family—both the family of origin and the family of faith, and shockingly it is Jesus who is stirring the waters. Sometimes Jesus calmed the waters, and sometimes he made waves. Mark has called a family meeting, and he does so by using an intercalation. Well, no wonder there is trouble—what in the world is an intercalation!? It is basically a story within a story. Mark starts off telling us about Jesus and his family, and then he inserts another story before returning to the family table.We know people who tell stories like that—they begin with one story, then all of a sudden they tell something else because in the process of telling the first story another thought is triggered until the story teller realizes the tangent, stops and says ‘Anyway…back to the main story.’ When you hear someone do that, you can impress them by saying, ‘What an interesting intercalation!’ Aren’t you glad you came today! Mark gives us a Jesus mash up story.
Mark begins by telling us Jesus had been on the road calling disciples, healing the sick, casting out unclean spirits, preaching, eating with sinners and tax collectors, rethinking the Sabbath, and blessing 12 others to go into the world and do what Jesus has been doing. After that initial foray into ministry Jesus decides to head home for a spell. Home, that place where Robert Frost said ‘when you have to go there, they have to take you in.’ Jesus heads home and we have every reason to believe he will spend time being replenished by mother’s cooking and joking around with his siblings.When he hits the outskirts of his hometown, the crowds are already assembling but not for the hero’s welcome home parade. Mark says when Jesus’ family got wind of his arrival, they went to restrain him.There were those who said of Jesus “he is out of his mind,” and the way Mark writes the story, his family might have been included in those who thought Jesus had lost it. This is not exactly a ringing endorsement early in Jesus’ post carpenter career.
Well, that happens doesn’t it. Early in people’s career, they are energetic, idealistic, going to change the world even if you have to bust a few folk along the way. Let him get a little experience, a few marks on him and Jesus will tone it down.In the meantime, let’s get him home, get him rested and well fed and talk some sense into him. ‘We just have your best interest at heart, Jesus.’That makes sense…Jesus’ family is concerned about him. We are not as clear about the scribes who interrupt this family weekend retreat. Mark says they have been hot on Jesus’ trail, following him all the way from Jerusalem. Now, it is not fair to make the scribes into some kind of foil to make Jesus look good and Judaism look bad. That has been done way too often over the years with terrible consequences.And yet, these scribes trailing Jesus are not terribly interested in a productive conversation. They decide to question Jesus by calling him names.Joseph and Mary named him Jesus, but the scribes call him Beelzebul—which if anyone ever calls you that, don’t take it as a compliment. It has several layers of meaning, including ‘lord of the flies,’ or ‘lord of the heap’ that the pet leaves in the back yard. Well, we are just all getting along great here, aren’t we! Can we imagine people talking to Jesus like that? Name calling is not a recent invention people use to discredit others…doesn’t make it right, but it has been around for a long time.Jesus, interestingly, doesn’t respond in kind, and that is instructive. He does not say, well you scribes are Beelzebub. Instead, Jesus tells a story that reveals how silly and illogical these scribes are being. He drops a few delightful pearls of wisdom along the way—a house divided cannot stand, and that has forever been true. He also talks about the one unforgiveable sin which is blaspheming the Holy Spirit. What is Jesus talking about here? It is essentially this…that God’s Spirit is a Spirit of love and healing and reconciliation, and Jesus is embodying that loving, healing, reconciling Sacred, holy spirit.If someone rejects that, then there is no other way to be in relationship to God and to Christ. God is known through love, healing, reconciliation…if you reject that, there is no alternative to being in relationship to God.It’s like saying, I refuse to breath oxygen for air. You can make that choice, but there are no alternatives for oxygen…it is an unforgiveable choice. Of course, people can still walk around being unloving, unhealing, unreconciling…but the breath of God cannot move through people who do that. In the face of the scribes’ accusations, Jesus does not succumb to their name-calling, but he does counter with the powerful perspective of how faith lives and behaves. It did nothing to endear him to the scribes who have been trailing him from Jerusalem; and all these years later, it still may leave some people wondering how they feel about following Jesus.
Well, after this fun little intercalation Mark says, ‘Anyway,’ his mother and brothers are there and the crowd is so big they can’t get to Jesus so they send word they are waiting outside to take him home. “Who are my mother and brothers,” Jesus said. Had he been running for office, this is where he would have lost the contest. Fortunately, Jesus wasn’t running for Messiah even though many of his disciples hoped he was looking to win the palace. They never quite understood that Jesus did not want to occupy a palatial throne for a period of time; instead, he wants to become the core of people’s heart, soul, mind, strength. That is a much more challenging election, but Jesus never loses sight of that kind of reign in people’s lives even though so many, including his own closest advisors, don’t seem to understand. Jesus wants to be enthroned in peoples’ lives, but he never appeals to the worst in people, to the biases in people, to fear that can be manipulated, to feelings that can be weaponized or people who can be demonized. In fact, Jesus does the opposite. Rather than circling the wagons and drawing in, Jesus pushes and expands. Maybe he could have been a bit more sensitive when he said what he said about mother and brothers; but Jesus always sought to expand the Table when people gather.
We remember when Jesus talked about family, he said some interesting things.He said sometimes families will agree about him but sometimes they won’t. Another time, when he was asking people to follow him, someone wanted to take care of some family business first and Jesus said, “well, never mind.” Even when he was 12 years old, he let Mary and Joseph know that his Father’s house was more than a dwelling adjacent to a carpenter’s shop. Discipling is a dramatic and decisive claim because Jesus asks people to ponder what is of ultimate value in life. Following Jesus may not always be a hand in glove experience, so don’t be surprised by that. As Mark tells this story of Jesus and his family, we recognize Jesus takes a deep value—family ties—and expands it well beyond the conventional definition. If it got back to mother Mary and Jesus’ siblings that he asked ‘who are my mother and brothers,’ it might have stung a bit.But it is not that Jesus is rejecting them; he is simply saying that family is more than any configuration of chromosomes. Family ties, says Jesus, are rooted in the One in whose image we are made and in the way we live that loving, healing, reconciling life. Jesus’ family, writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “was not a matter of who had the same last name or lives at the same address but who serves the same God, which means that his family became huge beyond counting, with lepers and tax collectors and Roman centurions in it, with scruffy looking men who smelled of fish and ladies in robes made of gold brocade and hordes of squealing children.” (Gospel Medicine, p. 18)
We are incredibly fortunate at First Christian Church of Norman to celebrate many wonderful weeks. The week of Thanksgiving with its images of gathering around the Table; the week of Christmas with the Nativity window and the hymns of the season telling the most wondrous of stories; the celebration of Easter that leads into the Sunday of celebrating baptism; the preparations for World Communion Sunday as we are reminded of our global camaraderie. But, perhaps this week is the best week of all, because this Sunday that leads into next week is living proof and loving witness that we are doing what Jesus said makes us family. We recognize with these who are serving on mission this week, living God’s will by helping to build homes for those who are vulnerable, that we are part of that ever-expansive family Jesus values. The thirty or so of you who will be serving this week, those whose lives you will impact, we who support you in your efforts, know what Jesus said about that—“whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’ We don’t have to travel back in the day for brother Jim or sister Jane to lead us, because you are our siblings loving, healing, reconciling—giving fresh breath to Christ’s family values.