Who Are My Mother and My Brothers?

What is a family? Perhaps you remember the popular TV show “Father Knows Best.” It aired from 1954 to 1960 on CBS. Set somewhere in the suburban Midwest, the show featured the Anderson family: Jim, an insurance agent, played by well-known actor Robert Young, Margaret, a stay-at-home mom, played by veteran actress Jane Wyatt, and their three children, Betty, Bud, and Kathy. The kids got into the usual scrapes that kids get into. Margaret was a loving, supportive mother, who exemplified the voice of reason, while father Jim always had sage advice for whatever situation the family faced. During the six years the show ran, rarely were there shouting, violence, or nasty words, nor did the family face alcoholism, dire poverty, serious health problems, or sudden death. Instead, “Fathers Knows Best” gave viewers "truly an idealized family, the sort that viewers could relate to and emulate.” One can easily imagine that, after the turmoil and losses of World War II and Korea, that idealized family was exactly the balm that 1950s America desperately wanted.

Is the “Father Knows Best” model what you think of when you hear the word “family?” In the ancient world, of course, in Jesus’ time, such a family would have been rare if not virtually unknown. Families were then – and actually still are in many parts of the world – extended families. Women married into a family headed by a senior male, in which three, perhaps even four, generations lived together in the same compound or village. In some Muslim countries, in some traditional African cultures, and in some defiant Mormon communities in this country, men may have had more than one wife. In some African cultures too and in traditional Chinese culture, one’s family also includes one’s ancestors.

Today we are at last beginning to recognize that the nuclear “Father Knows Best” family is not the only – or even the ideal – description of family. We have begun to see that there are many other ways for people to be family. For different reasons, we are beginning to see again families comprised of three generations in the same house. Two elderly women may live together as a family. A gay couple may enlarge their family by adopting children.

As we begin to accept that there are diverse forms of family structure, we may also need to accept that we have many different feelings about our own families, especially our families of origin. Think about it, what are your own feelings about your family? Was your family so loving and supportive that you totally relate to “Fathers Knows Best?” Or was your family less than ideal, perhaps even dysfunctional and abusive?

As we hear a Scripture reading like the passage we just heard from the gospel according to Mark, it’s important to recognize that we bring a host of different associations and feelings to the idea of “family,” associations and feelings that might color how you hear today’s passage. We’re now in the long growing season of Pentecost. In the first half of the Christian year, we anticipated Jesus’ birth, celebrated the coming of the Word into the human family, watched Jesus reveal his true identity to those around him and to us, walked the sorrowful road with him to Jerusalem, mourned his death, and rejoiced in his rising to life again, his ascension, and his awakening within us of the Holy Spirit.

Now, in the second half of the Christian year, we are called to grow in our commitment to Jesus. We do that by reflecting more closely on how Jesus lived and what he taught. This year, we return to the Gospel of Mark in order to deepen our immersion in Jesus’ story. As you remember, Mark was written in the late ‘60s AD. It was the first gospel to be written, and it probably represents the earliest compilation of the traditions and memories of the first generation of Jesus’ followers. No doubt reflecting the experiences of Mark’s audience, the gospel often shows Jesus in conflict with those around him, especially with the religious leaders. Often his own followers too seem to be clueless as to what he is trying to teach them.

In today’s reading, Jesus has just returned to Nazareth after performing a series of miraculous healings. Right away, before he can even finish his meal, he faces two challenges. As is often the case with Mark, one, the conflict with the Scribes who illogically charge Jesus with being in league with demonic forces, is sandwiched within the story of his conflict with his family members. Since conflict with the religious authorities will come up again before we finish with Mark, here I want to focus on Jesus’ interaction with his family members.

There are at least two ways to hear this story, depending on your feelings about your own families. If you came from a loving, supportive family, you might see the concern of Jesus’ mother and brothers as quite genuine, as evidence that they truly worried that he was becoming mentally unstable. After all, he had left his family profession of carpentry to become an itinerant preacher, and he had persuaded several men from fishing families to travel with him. Although he was not a trained physician, he had cured the sick. He had violated deeply held social and religious norms by touching a leper and healing on the Sabbath. Would we not react the same way as his mother and brothers did, if one of ours did such odd things? Did we not try to keep our children from fleeing to Canada during the Vietnam War and from becoming “flower children?” We might even see Jesus’ response to his family members – “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” – as overly harsh, even cruel. Perhaps Jesus was suggesting that even the most loving families can be inward-looking and limited, generous with each other but unconcerned about the needs of others.

On the other hand, if you came from an abusive and dysfunctional family, and especially if you suffered psychological and physical abuse, you might be overjoyed by Jesus’ invitation to be part of his loving family, to have him for a brother, and to have a loving and gracious God as your Father and Mother. You might be delighted that now, finally, you can be accepted for who are you, forgiven all your failures, and lovingly embraced by a welcoming community.

The point of this story is that, whatever our families of origin, whatever kinds of family we now find ourselves in, we are all called to accept Jesus’ invitation to join a new kind of family, a family committed to loving God as deeply as we can and to caring for our neighbor as ourselves. Jesus calls us into a family in which our roles are not defined by blood, gender, ethnicity, sexuality, economic status, or previous failings and sins. Jesus calls us into a family that includes all: the wise and the righteous, the nobodies, the tax collectors, the prostitutes, and the sinners, a family in which we are all God’s children, and in which all of us are loved and accepted. That is the good news. That is the sign of the nearness of God’s Reign.

Oncologist Rachel Naomi Remen tells the story of a rabbi at a Yom Kippur service. On the Day of Atonement Jews everywhere seek God’s forgiveness. Instead of directly preaching on forgiveness, the rabbi walked up to the lectern with his infant daughter in his arms. She was a year old and absolutely adorable. As she smiled at the congregation, and then at her father, he smiled back and then began to preach about the meaning of Yom Kippur. The baby grabbed his nose. The rabbi gently took her hand away and continued preaching. Then the baby took his tie and began to chew on it. Everyone chuckled. The rabbi rescued his tie, smiled at his child, looked over her head at the congregation and said, “Think about it. Is there anything she can do that you could not forgive her for?”

Just then, she reached up and grabbed his glasses. Everyone laughed. The rabbi himself laughed, as he retrieved his glasses and settled them back on his nose. Still smiling, he waited for silence. When it came, he asked, “And when does that stop? When does it get hard to forgive? At three? At seven? At fourteen? At thirty-five? How old does someone have to be before you forget that everyone is a child of God?” To which I would add, how old does someone have to be before you forget that all of us are members of the same family, that all of us are Christ’s brothers and sisters?

My friends, this is the good news. All of us are God’s children, all of us have been forgiven and accepted, regardless of who we were and are, and all of us are sisters and brothers of Jesus and of one another. In this place, in this island of love and acceptance, we can begin to reflect out to ourselves and to the world, the love and acceptance we have found in God. As retired Methodist Bishop Will Willimon reminds us, “Every time the family of God gathers for Holy Communion … or a covered-dish fellowship supper, or serves up soup to the homeless on the street corner, the world looks at this odd family and says, ‘Jesus is hanging out with the same reprobates that got him crucified.’ And we say, ‘Thank God.’”