Matthew 12:46-50
While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
The thrust of Jesus’ words are far more radical than we may initially suspect.
There’s no question that family matters in our twenty-first century world and culture. There’s also no question that family mattered even more – far more – in the first-century world. Kinship ties were everything. The debts and obligations naturally owed to one’s extended family members are difficult for us to imagine.
Which is why Jesus’ words probably struck his hearers as, at the very least, outlandish, if not downright offensive and even rather heretical, as it sounds like he is denying the kinship ties that held first-century culture together.
Except that Jesus isn’t really denying his family. Rather, he is radically extending the very notion of family itself in order to move beyond blood ties to include all those who join him in living according to the logic and law of God’s coming kingdom. Jesus’ family, that is, includes anyone who recognizes their need and asks for help, anyone who helps others in need, anyone who extends the care and compassion of God to all those who are vulnerable or at risk.
This is a family that not only moves beyond normal kinship and blood ties, but also defies culture, ethnicity, and even time itself, as we who are living two thousand years later are equally and fully a part of this family. Radical indeed!
Prayer: Dear God, open our eyes to see everyone around us as your children and thereby our family that we may join with them to extend your love to all in need. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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