Just when you thought it was safe to think Jesus had got His anger out of the way, up comes a huge clash with the religious rulers throughout the majority of chapter 11 in the gospel account according to Matthew.
If the previous disagreements were mere skirmishes, neither party holds back in full scale opposition to each other. It is here that the Pharisees agree that Jesus must die – a quite remarkable agreement between religious rulers expected to behave themselves in a rather more courteous and respectful manner. Jesus has no qualms in exposing the evil intents of the religious rulers not unlike John the Baptist had earlier on, which only raised the ire further of his enemies. That in itself should be some indication as to the foe of the Kingdom – not just religious authorities, but necessarily systems and orders that do not perpetuate Kingdom life. Exposing the discrepancies and failings of these systems don’t lead to necessary positive reform, but to a backlash of persecution and overall hostility.
It’s not on that, however that I want to focus in terms of the insights from the 12th chapter. From verse 46-50 a most remarkable episode takes place that goes a long way to showing the cost of following Jesus and pursuing the Kingdom agenda.
So Jesus is talking to the crowds and gets a message that His family is waiting for Him. He then announces that actually His mother, brother and sister is anyone who follows His Father.
Now I’m fairly certain that this statement has been misunderstood on two different ends of the spectrum.
Extremist cults have used a statement like this to create their own insular exclusive groupings and effectively forbidden members to engage with family members who are not a part of the group. The thinking here is that Jesus means literally that when you follow Him and commit yourself to the Kingdom you divorce yourself from the rest of your family who become a distraction and potential source of hostility to what the group holds dear.
Were this what Jesus meant you would have thought His relations with His family would have been estranged and alienated, yet who is there with Him to the very end if not for His mother? Who is waiting after His resurrection for the promised Holy Spirit but His family? Jesus is not preaching hatred of family. Jesus is not advocating raising hostilities against your family.
On the other hand you have those from safer expressions of Christianity who virtually remove the fangs of any threat in His amazing statement – one that He will repeat in another form throughout His ministry. It is such a shame that we take something Jesus says and go out of our way to sanitise it, just in case it makes us uncomfortable, or requires something from us to comes across as rather unconventional or inconvenient.
Are we looking for the proverbial middle way? Not sure if it’s that clear cut. What I do think is that here Jesus makes a statement of intent of church as the family of God. So easy to get stuck up with titles and hierarchy and forget that actually the deal is about being reunited with a Father who cares, through a son that is given to be our brother en route to the ultimate family reunion at the end of time. It really is a family affair and we get to embrace that here and now to a greater degree than we experience in the biological family framework.
Considering how strong those family ties can be, to know the love of God for those pursuing His will is even stronger should be manifest in how church lives as family. How sad then to see church function as if it’s a lot of things, but the spiritual family of god would hardly count. In a faith that holds the love of God and the love we have for each other as the standard by which others know we are who we say we are, why does it appear we’re consumed with other issues, rather than this?
It’s not all bad. I have experienced church where bonds are really like brother and sister, the concern for one another is intensely deep beyond cultural and ethnic boundaries and there is a lasting desire to help each other become more like God. I can say from such experiences that church life has to be more than meetings in buildings once a week. Being the family of God is life together that is a lot more than currently seen in a number of church lives I observe.
Following Jesus does not mean choosing to hold hostilities with biological family members, but it does elevate the previous relationship with complete strangers to ones held close like a brother, because of the love of the Father that makes us family. Now we’re in a position where Kingdom values rule also in terms of relationships and it is about time that we were committed to what that lives like as well as look like.
For His Name’s Sake
Shalom
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