June 10, 2012 – Mark 3:20-35
Mark 3:20-35
The Family of Jesus’ Black Sheep
Second Sunday after Pentecost [Lectionary 10B] – June 10, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
So: turns out Jesus is kind of on the outs with his family. Who knew?
We don’t get a chance to hear this text very often, so it’s kind of startling.
Jesus doesn’t seem to have gotten the “Family Values” memo.
Mark’s Gospel – the earliest Gospel written – maybe gets us closest, in some ways,
to what life with Jesus was really like.
We’re used to hearing that Jesus is on the outs with the religious leaders,
the scribes and chief priests.
But his family?
This morning, we hear that not only do the scribes think Jesus is possessed by a demon.
We also hear that his family thinks he is out of his mind, thinks he is insane.
The NRSV translation unfortunately clouds this.
It’s not “the people” who say he’s gone out of his mind, it’s “they,” meaning his family.
If nothing else, it’s helpful for us to hear just how startlingly different and
unusual Jesus must have seemed to everyone, including his biological family.
I mean, Jesus is obviously the black sheep of his family.
He hasn’t done what’s expected of him.
He hasn’t gone into the family trade.
He hasn’t got gone to work to support his family.
And he hasn’t got married.
He hasn’t really been the good boy who’s done whatever his parents have told him to.
Instead, he’s gone out to join his crazy cousin in the desert, out there on the lunatic fringe,
where they are gathering a very new and different kind of community.
Jesus has since been traipsing around Galilee when he should have been at home,
talking to people those in polite society didn’t talk to,
touching and embracing people you just didn’t embrace,
and – horror of horrors in that society – eating with those considered
sinful and unclean and dishonourable.
By his association with them, Jesus has brought shame to his family.
Jesus is the black sheep of his family.
So: for all you black sheep out there: this one’s for you.
Jesus does explain here that there is method to his madness.
In his response to the scribes, he says far from being possessed,
what he is in fact doing is God’s will:
Breaking into Satan’s house, binding the supposed Strong Man Satan,
and then plundering what Satan has taken,
reclaiming all those lives that Satan has bound and setting them free.
This is the divine will, according to Jesus, and if it means breaking familial and
societal and even religious taboos then so be it.
For Jesus, social niceties, religious mores, even familial obligations and duties are not
the most important thing.
For Jesus, the most important thing is doing God’s will:
freeing this creation and everything in it from what is holding them back from
becoming all they can be, which is, for him, agents of God’s loving will.
For Jesus, the most important thing is God’s loving mission to love, bless,
heal, and set free this whole creation and every person in it.
It’s likely, I think, that these crowds who keep following him are those he has set free,
from sickness through healing, from hunger through food,
from exclusion through inclusion, from guilt through forgiveness.
These are the one’s he’s reclaimed from the Strong Man Satan.
He’s done it so that they, in turn, can set others free from what ails and binds them.
These, he says, are his true mother and sisters and brothers.
In fact, when you think about it, everything for him is subordinated to God’s loving mission.
As the preacher Will Willimon notes, it’s not just biological family that Jesus is against.
He sets himself just as much against money and success and government officials and
religious authorities.
Jesus will not make an idol out of anything, even family.
Along with Luther, we believe any of God’s good gifts can become an idol or a god,
the most important thing in your life.
And when that happens, things get out of kilter.
Alcohol is a gift of God, but when it becomes a god addiction and pain and death are the result.
Our sexuality is a great gift of God, but when it becomes a god abuse, broken relationships, and
the objectification and commodification of humans beings are the result.
Family is a great gift of God, but when it becomes a god it can be stifling and oppressive
and even abusive, and it can isolate people from other households and
from our neighbours in need.
It’s not, of course, that family is inherently bad for Jesus.
Like anything in God’s good creation, we can make it an idol and then it becomes oppressive.
But it’s not inherently bad.
Family can also be an agent of God’s mission, a place where God’s mission is served.
When I see families in which there is mutual service, that family is serving God’s mission.
When I see families that figure out ways of serving God’s mission together,
that family has subordinated itself to God’s mission, and that’s a healthy thing.
And what help keeps everything in perspective is that, for Jesus,
family is not the most important thing.
God’s loving mission to all creation and all people is the most important thing.
God’s love for every person regardless of biology, regardless of what genes they’re carrying,
regardless of who they’re related to, regardless of their ethnic background:
God’s mission to love this creation and every person in it and
set them free from the Strong Man Satan is the most important thing.
I hope that’s some comfort and some good news for all the black sheep out there.
Jesus breaks down barriers based on biology, and nobody thanks him for it.
Jesus loves, and we love, because God has an infinite love for each person.
We may not like some of the people God puts into our orbit.
But we love them not for anything in themselves.
We love them because God loves them with an infinite love.
But remember: that got Jesus into a lot of trouble. And it may involve trouble for us.
Many scholars think that the earliest and most persistent accusation against Jesus –
that he eats and drinks with sinners – is what ultimately really led to his crucifixion.
But Jesus did it anyway.
What makes family, says Jesus, is not genetics, but the love of God for each of us.
Jesus seeks the lost sheep who perhaps have difficulty fitting in with their human families.
Jesus gathers these lost sheep – the black sheep, maybe – into a new family.
Our central act of worship isn’t, in reality, some strange weird thing that’s
hard or difficult to understand.
Our central act of worship, done right here every Sunday,
is a family meal around the gracious table of God.
It’s a meal where all are welcome.
If you’re not sure where your place is, you have a place here.
If there is conflict with your human family, you have a place here.
If you feel like an outsider your place is here.
It’s God who gathers us here, and God makes no distinction between people with any of
the categories that we use to classify people every day.
I don’t care how old you are, I don’t care what you’ve done, I don’t care what you’re wearing,
I don’t care whether you’re gay or straight, or rich or poor:
the God of all grace has a place at this family table for you.
Where you are entitled to the most precious thing you will ever receive: the life of Jesus.
His unconditional love. His freeing forgiveness. His food without price.
You receive it with the hope – but never the demand – that you will become what you receive.
An agent of this freeing love in this divine family whose purpose is to do God’s will of
reclaiming lives from the bondage Satan holds them in.
Baptism, certainly, signifies entrance and adoption into this family.
On Sunday morning we gather with members of our true family, those with whom we
seek to do God’s will of loving this world and every person in it.
On Sunday morning we greet one another as sisters and brothers of one another,
and as sisters and brothers of Jesus who share his Father’s task with him.
In this community I have found brothers and sisters who are just as much and more
sisters and brothers to me than members of my biological family.
On Sunday morning, it is okay to greet our children and our parents with the term sister and
brother, remembering that being siblings in this family is more important than
our biological relationships as parents and children.
Jesus was different; he appeared to be out of his mind.
To bear his name and to be a Christian is to be different and
perhaps to appear to be out of your mind.
He gathers us here – all his black sheep – feeds us at his table,
reclaims us from the blackness that seeks to claim and bind us,
offers to clothe us in the whiteness of his love,
and names us beloved brother, beloved sister, doers of God’s will. Amen
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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