New Family in Jesus

 6-6-21

Grace to you and peace from God our creator and from our Lord and savior Jesus Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit, amen. 

It’s sort of comforting to know that in Jesus’s own family, Jesus was the “black sheep” …  that even in Jesus’ family, things are complicated. 

We are back in the Gospel of Mark after a really long time in John. Remember, this is THE year of Mark’s Gospel, the snappy, fast moving gospel with a sometimes grumpy Jesus.. .and today he definitely seems grumpy with his family.

It’s early in his ministry, and Jesus has gone viral. Jesus was already preaching, teaching, healing, and gathering the 12 disciples, wandering here there and everywhere followed by huge crowds. His family must have though they lost control, and were after him to reign it in. Presumably with Joseph absent, Jesus would be the male head of the household, expected to behave in a certain way in the highly patriarchal hierarchy of the ancient roman world. But, here, as Jesus proves again and again, Jesus is very bad at upholding the patriarchy.

Actually, Jesus is pretty bad at maintaining societal rules at all. In fact, in exasperation of his less-than-supportive family, he declares all the women and men present in the crowd to be his family, based on their commitment to God, rather than affinity by a heteronormative family unit, as was normal both back then and now.

It’s Pride Month, and from what I have heard over and over again from my gay, lesbian, trans, and queer friends is this familiar familial story. Rejection, lack of support, or grudging acknowledgement from family, is all too common.  Instead, some gather around them a “found” family.

This is what Jesus is modeling for us here – a new type of family system, where our siblings do not necessarily share our genes, but instead share our passion for the gospel.  A new family where our siblings might not be related by blood, but instead united through the blood of Jesus. A new family brought together not by the waters of a mother’s womb, but by the waters of our baptism and the promise of an empty tomb. A new family that is not bound up by strict gender roles or hierarchy norms that claim to be Christian that actual does harm.

This kind of family Jesus is forming is not bound up in the patriarchal interpretations of the Bible, including Genesis. Genesis 1 and 2 tells not just one story but TWO stories of creation, culminating in God creating Adam and Even to partner in their care of the earth. Later, In Genesis 3, the snake convinces Eve to try the fruit from the forbidden tree. Eve eats, then Adam eats. Their eyes were opened, and they knew they were in big trouble.

Throughout history, Eve usually gets the whole blame for The Fall, which became the justification for sexism in Christianity – in one book I read during my “Reading Week” last week, said “They take Eve being deceived by the serpent and claim that if the man had been the ‘head’ of his wife… or had lead his household… the fall would not have happened” (p. 22, Dialogues on Sexuality).

BUT, If you recall, Adam was RIGHT THERE, and, when God questions Adam about what happened, he passes the blame onto Eve AND God, then says, “The woman WHOM YOU GAVE ME, SHE gave me the fruit.” Not like a “head of household” at all.

Eve is not perfect, she but doesn’t deserve all the blame. Genesis does NOT state that Eve was a seductive temptress and therefore all women are inherently more sinful than men. This story has been used and abused as a reason to mistreat women. Similarly, Genesis is also not a science textbook. AND Genesis is NOT a primer on WHO IS ALLOWED to get married – there is no mention of vows, a white dress, cake, or the chicken dance is mentioned. 

Instead, Genesis tells us that love, and relationships are messy and problematic and broken and full of mistakes and blame. Sometimes we are passive like Adam, to stand by and watch while objectionable things happen and make no attempt to stop them. Sometimes we are Eve - curious, testers of limitations and seekers of knowledge and risk takers, who sometimes goof up big time.  

The Adam and Eve in all of us all too often trust the words of the crafty serpents around us, rather than the incredible promise that we are loved and claimed as God’s children in God’s family. When our own families reject or question us, when the rest of the world tells us the opposite, God tells us that we are worthy, we are loved, and we are enough. 

We belong to this new family because of Jesus. The family that Jesus creates is not created around a husband and a wife. It’s created around mentors and nurturers like parents, and equal relationships between siblings, caring for one another… a family that is beyond blood ties and clan affiliations.  Jesus calls this new family – still full of imperfections –to be a new kind of kingdom, a kingdom where everyone is treated with fairness and respect, where all feel safe, welcome, and valued, both within our buildings and out in the world. Every Sunday, every day, every moment, is a “family reunion,” minus the potato salad. It’s a RE-UNION as “members of the Body of Christ.”

Jesus breaks this boundaries and constructs because hierarchies harm the people with privilege as well as those without. Then, when he breaks down these building blocks of society, some people felt threatened at their loss of power, and accused Jesus of being possessed by demonic, evil powers. Here, Jesus shows us that in following the vision that God has for the human family will cause some loss – loss of respectability, loss of relationships, loss of influence, loss of stability. But to ignore or compromise on Jesus’s message of radical inclusive love means turning our backs on who we belong to and who we are called to be.

Jesus embodied his message until the very last – even giving up his life on a cross in order to create this family. Yes, Jesus own mother Mary was there. But Jesus was also surrounded by his by his new family – faithful women surrounded Jesus to bear witness, to stand by him. And in standing by him, they saw for themselves that death, rejection, and sin does not have the last word. And they shared this with the rest of God’s family. So that NO ONE is EVER left out again. Thanks be to God. Amen.