The Family Of God
Mark 3: 31-35
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Back to Basics The
New Testament Witness of the Apostle
Peter |
Max
A Forsythe | |
There are so many things going on in this passage that we can barely scratch the surface of usable teachings. Let me begin with this story. Years ago, when I had thought that I could choose my life's work, goals and theme, I composed a fanciful coat of arms and a personal motto. "God, Country, Home" was the theme of my pre-military experience. One of my acquaintances was offended at the third place that home and family were accorded, as if my personal allegiance was owed there first and above all. And of course, community would be ever so much more appropriate than some vague allegiance to an unspecified country.
Since I had been raised and trained to think independently - I paid my critic no heed. And the words of that phrase are still emblazoned on my father's barn - because he liked what I had written. As the years passed and during my military service I discovered that the liberal establishment of my family denomination was very much like my earlier critic. How dare I give allegiance to God and country above their anti-war establishment concerns. As I moved into becoming a perennial candidate for the ministry - I was constantly hounded to accept the feelings of the "faith-community" to which I had been born and to which I must become obligated if I were ever to have any position of importance! All the pressures that could be asserted were used and wherever possible congregational and even family attitudes were turned against me to make me conform. What is wrong with that you may ask?
Well, it is like this - earlier in the last century one lady took it upon herself to begin a life long crusade to have one Lord's Day set apart to honor mothers. She wrote letters, she attended meetings and at long last attained her treasured goal which most church's feel obligated to honor and set aside. However, if you visit the home church of this lady you might be surprised at what it has become. That congregation no longer exists to honor our Father, His Son and Holy Spirit. Instead it has become a chapel museum in memory of the "mother" of mother's day! Now many sentimental types would think that there is nothing wrong with that! Let me restate the fact more forcibly: A Church of the Living God has been turned into a Chapel dedicated to the memory of a mortal human being! If you do not see beyond the sentimental and perceive a real theological problem there, then there is absolutely nothing more that I can say that will do you any good for eternity!
Yes indeed, the Law of Moses tells us that we are to honor our fathers and mothers so that our life may be well lived! But that does not convey to us the oriental habit of ancestor worship all too common in Asia. Neither does it imply that we may supplant the God of heaven in churchly songs such as the Roman "herm" Ave Maria. You would have thought that the writers of that nonsense might have read this passage and understood what Jesus was getting at!
All three of my commentators, in various degrees of language, insist that salvation in Christ transcends blood relationship! It is especially well for those people who grew up in the church to comprehend this necessity. Too often, those of us who have never been without a Church, begin to feel like we are descendants of the Pilgrims, or like the Jews of Jesus' time - are saved merely by being the sons of Abraham. As if genetic relationship implied any special privileges. Billy Carter once made such an assumption and nearly ended up in jail over some money received from a terrorist state in the seventies. As one screenwriter once observed, the person who wrote "blood is thicker than water" was seeking some inheritance of wealth. So this is to be our first point - the family of Jesus must learn that they too can only come to him like every other person ever born: through the grace and mercy of our God in heaven.
A second point in this passage is related. Life long relationships sometimes change as one generation grows older and becomes dependent on the younger. Early on, when Jesus was twelve, He was teaching in the Temple and Joseph and Mary returned to Jerusalem to fetch him home. While he already knew that He owed a higher allegiance to His real Father in heaven, he obediently went home and awaited His proper time to be revealed as a Teacher of the Law. By then, Joseph apparently has passed away and Mary, in the biblical custom became the responsibility of her oldest Son - Jesus. We should always understand that He who was without sin did have some financial means to provide always for her well-being. And indeed on the cross He remembered His responsibility and passed that "power of attorney," if I may use a modern phrase, on to another responsible party.
One of my commentators, Dr Alan Cole, notes that Mary imposed upon Jesus at the Wedding in Cana to perform the miracle. Then he observes pointedly that "Even to Mary, this Christ was a stranger, until she learned the nature of the new relationship that must bind her to Him." We can even see in some of the arguments between the disciples, that the relatives of Jesus had to learn that that relationship proved nothing of either human or divine importance. Just as older adults must become dependent upon their children in one form or another with advancing age, so must Mary - the mother of Jesus find the proper saving relationship to her Son.
Is it only Protestant Theology that has grasped this point? Mary has no merit of her own, otherwise Christianity is not a faith of saving Grace! Mary has no genetic relationship that empowers her salvation, otherwise Christianity is not a religion of saving Faith! Salvation is by faith alone through grace alone in Christ alone! And to that understanding the genetic family of Jesus must be forced to accommodate their understanding if they would have salvation in and through Him! So must we all, we who like the immediate family as well, are adopted into the family of God.
A third point that comes to mind in the reading of this short passage is what it means to be a Christian family. Now, early on the Jewish Church realized the implicit wideness of God's mercy and included foreigners into their families. By that means Ruth is adopted and marries into the genealogy of Christ. Rahab, the unlikely prostitute, realizes a life saving and life changing relationship with the people of Israel. Job may even be counted amongst the patriarchs with no evidence of his bloodlines being given!
This really, truly adoptive nature of the family of God has been lost in our time. The importance of the nuclear family of blood relationships is an embarrassment to the evangelical church. Even the world realizes that the concept of family can be extended to include genetic strangers. Unfortunately in the worldview - the stranger are the strangers - the better they may deserve the term family of man!
It is high time for the sanctified by grace family of God to realize the church growth potential of adopting others into their nuclear families. Yes, I know that the government would really like to impose upon Christ's Church and dump the welfare crowd into our hands in order to bankrupt the church. However, where Christian slaves may be purchased and redeemed in the Sudan and brought to America for freedom, the Church perhaps has a responsibility. Refugees from every continent should be made welcome and where they can be weaned to full independence - so be it.
If we want to strengthen the church here in America, what better way than to adopt those who want to be adopted into our families and congregations. Obviously, screening methods would need to be established and some unrepentant sinners would have to be turned out. Unfortunately the cultic pagan Mormons have realized the potential here and they have done what real Christian groups have often failed to grasp.
Our last point this morning should be the most obvious, even as the liberals understood it - the church is truly a faith community. The sad part is that so many organizations have missed the focus of that faith which is truly and only in and through Jesus Christ. "For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother." Even as Jesus observes just before those words, "He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, 'Here are My mother, and My brother!'"
I often think of Abraham in this regard. Was his mind so narrowly focused on having a genetic family that he never realized the wideness of his unrelated faith family? Certainly, not all of his progeny have the true faith, after all - from Abraham came three of the world's greatest religions. The Jewish and Muslim religions and the Christian faith. Notice the distinction that I put in that sentence. Only those who know and obey Christ have a saving faith! And just as real families gather around a table to eat and drink, so too does Jesus later institute the Family of God sacrament of eating His flesh and blood in the bonding of communion. But that is another story in the grand revelation of the salvation history given through Christ to thousands of adopted brothers and sisters whom the Holy Spirit has brought into His Kingdom. May we be counted therein, today and always. Amen.
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Resources Used | |
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Cole, Alan. |
Tyndale New Testament
Commentaries: |
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Keener, Craig S. |
The IVP Bible Background Commentary:
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Pringle, William. |
Calvin's New Testament
Commentaries: |
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The
New Geneva Study Bible
(NKJV) | |
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Mrk03d |
30 January 00 |