Luke 8:19-21
Then his mother and his brothers came to him, but they could not reach him because of the crowd. And he was told, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you.” But he said to them, “My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.”
This chapter in Luke’s story, as we noticed earlier, is a bit of a hodge-podge of different elements – parables, teaching, and wisdom sayings so far, and in the next scenes a miracle, casting out a demon, and several healings. And in the middle of it all are these peculiar verses about Jesus’ family.
Both Luke’s treatment and placement of this scene varies from Mark’s. In Mark, Jesus’ family wants to see him because they’re worried about what they’re hearing about him and want to make sure he’s okay. Here they seem just interested in what’s going on. But they can’t get to him. Jesus’ popularity is now so great that he’s like a celebrity whose entourage simply can’t be breached.
And when some members of the entourage tell him, he retorts that his true family are those who hear the Word of God and do it.
Except that I don’t think it’s a retort. I think Jesus means it. I think he’s saying that this new kingdom he proclaims is so disruptive that it changes everything. I mean, we’re talking about a farmer who throws valuable seed everywhere and the promise that everything hidden or confusing will be made clear. Nothing, Jesus says, will be quite the same in the kingdom of God, even our dearest relationships.
We may not be quite ready to hear this yet, we may not even quite understand it yet, but grace, mercy, and love – the primary attributes of the kingdom Jesus proclaims – are disruptive. They shake things up, re-order just about everything, and cause us to wonder what in the world is going on. Because our world runs by law, by rules, by a certain predictable order, and while that offers a modicum of stability in our day-to-day affairs, it doesn’t capture the desire of God to repair and redeem all things; indeed, to make all things new.
Grace is messy. New life is disruptive. Mercy shakes things up. Nothing they touch will ever be the same again.
In light of this, do we still want to pray, “Thy kingdom come…”?
Prayer: Dear God, we have no real conception of just how much will change when we are brought into your kingdom, and if we did we’d probably run the other way. So we pray that you would catch us up in your mercy and surprise us with your grace that we may be brought into the wild and unexpected new life you promise…even if we’re not ready for it. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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