Our Gospel reading takes place fairly early in Jesus's ministry. He has been baptized, he has spent forty days in the wilderness, and he has begun proclaiming the Kingdom of God going around Galilee teaching and healing. We are early in that process. He hasn't gone very far, yet. People are beginning to hear about him. Crowds are beginning to come. There are stories about so many people coming at times that it is dangerous. Not a danger of Covid exposure in the crowd, but the danger of getting crushed by people. It is like the doors-first-opening-on-Black-Friday-at-the-big-box-store kind of danger. And while a lot of people are liking what Jesus is saying and doing, others are not. They are concerned. Just as Jesus is gaining friends and followers, he is also gaining enemies, people who are not concerned about the danger of the crowd, but rather concerned about Jesus and the danger that he and his teaching pose. So they are going around saying things like, "We are not so sure about this Jesus guy and all the stuff that he is doing and saying. We are not really sure the spirit behind him is of God. Maybe it is a different kind of spirit--you know what I mean--an evil spirit." They are trying to sow the seeds of doubt in the people and to rile up the crowds against Jesus.
They eventually go to Jesus's parents and siblings and say to them, "You've got to come and do something about this Jesus. He's gone off his rocker. He is a danger to himself and to you, the family. You need to go set him straight." And the family listens. Jesus's mom and his siblings go and try to restrain Jesus.
Jesus knows exactly what is going on when he gets word that they are there. He knows that this is not a friendly family visit, so he says, "Who are my mother and my brothers? Those folks out there with whom I share blood, or those folks right around here in this moment who share my spirit? Who are my family? Those folks out there who are trying to restrain me, trying to keep back the spirit of God, or you folks right here around me who are trying to do the will of God? Who are my family?"
When Jesus was an infant his parents took him to the temple for the required offering. When Mary and Joseph arrived at the temple, they met an older gentleman whose name was Simeon. Simeon had been promised that he would not die until he saw the Lord's Messiah, and the Spirit had moved him that morning to go to the temple. When Simeon laid eyes on Jesus, he knew that Jesus was the one. Simeon burst out with the beautiful words that we pray in the Daily Office at both Evening Prayer and Compline, "Lord, you now have set your servant free to go in peace as you have promised. These eyes of mine have seen the Savior whom you have prepared for all the world to see, a light to enlighten the nations, and the glory of your people Israel." And yet these beautiful words are not the end of what he said. He looked at Mary straight in the eyes and said to her, "This son of yours will be responsible for the rising and the falling of many. People will be opposed to him, and a sword will pierce you own soul as well."
I can't help but wonder if the story we have today in the Gospel is one of those moments when Mary's soul was pierced by Jesus when he rejected her when word got back to her of what he had said. Did she feel that sword pierce her own soul?
The word Gospel means Good News. I don't know about you, but today's Gospel reading when Jesus rejects his family does not initially, at least, come across to me as Good News. For me, there has not been a distinction between the blood ties of my biological family and trying to discern God's will. My family has supported me in discerning and following God's will. It is in my family that I learned about God, and most importantly, about God's love. The family of my childhood is where I first learned about love. My parents loved me and taught me that God loved me. In the family that I have now, I am trying to teach my kids the same: that they are loved by their parents and by God.
And yet for others, for people whose families are not cradles of love, they might even be places of abuse and violence, for them this story is a story of power and liberation. This is very much Good News to know that those family blood ties are not so strong that we must put up with abuse and violence and rejection. Instead, there is another family, the family of God, the family of Jesus, a family trying to do God's will, a family that is basking in the love of God, a family who cares about their flourishing. When we look at it that way, we can see how this truly is the Gospel. This is Good News, indeed.
As the Church we are meant to try to create this sort of family. A family of nurture and care, a family of relationship and communion, a family that can truly welcome those who are hurt in their other families so they can find the love of God, a family that can support us so that we can create homes where that love of God is found. The Church has certainly stumbled in this task at times, and for that we need to repent and seek forgiveness and to try again to create this sort of community, a community marked by nurture, affection, and love; a community shaped by true, deep and abiding communion with God and with one another.
AMEN
