Genesis 3.8-15, Mark 3.
20-35
…And they all lived
happily ever after… Most good fairy
tales end with a marriage, a long awaited union of two souls who have found
each other after many trials and tribulations. they stroll off into the sunset
together into a life which we are left to assume will be coated with magic dust
forever after, a model of peace and harmony. But Life isn’t a fairy tale, and
the Bible, thank goodness, recognises that from the outset. Our readings today
are perfect examples of its realistic view of the trials and tribulations of
family life.
In our first reading, the
gloss of true love has worn off pretty quickly for Adam and Eve. She may be the
only girl in the world and he may be the only boy, but that doesn’t stop them
falling out almost as soon as they have got together, amid bitter recrimination.
The Bible tells us that Adam was with her when the serpent tempted her to eat
the forbidden fruit, but did we hear him trying to argue her out of it? Not a
bit of it – he was quite happy to join in, munching away with enthusiasm, and
was just as responsible as she was. Now that God is confronting them, though,
it is a different story. He doesn’t just blame her, he blames God as well. “The
woman that YOU gave to be with me, she gave me the fruit from the tree…” This
couple have no sooner found paradise than they have lost it.
And then in our Gospel
reading we see another family having one of those little moments most families
would rather the world didn’t witness. A son gives his family the brush off in
a way which makes me wince, as a mother myself.
“Who are my mother and brothers?” he says, ignoring them in favour of
the friends he has gathered around himself. The problem for us is that this
particular son is Jesus himself. If you are looking for a poster-boy for
traditional family values, Jesus isn’t the obvious choice, and his treatment of
his anxious family here underlines that. He doesn’t seem ever to have married.
He doesn’t appear to care about what would have been considered his sacred duty
to continue the family line, and his message throughout the Gospels is consistent
with what we see here. Family can mean something far bigger than simply those
to whom you are related to by blood or marriage.
The early church seems to
have been equally sceptical of conventional family relationships. That was
partly because they thought Jesus was going to come back at any moment. If you
were married, you should stay married, and live faithfully and lovingly with
your spouse, but if you were single, St Paul said, better to stay single like
him. But another important factor was that choosing to follow Jesus had cut many
of them off from their families and communities – they’d had to create new
networks of support among their fellow Christians, and some had never had a
secure place in a family. Enslaved people, unsupported widows and orphans,
people who were on the margins, were particularly drawn to Jesus, and to those
who later preached and lived his message of inclusive love. Traditional family
life, wasn’t nearly as high on their agenda as many Christians like to think.
So what are we to make of all
this? Should we be throwing away all our family ties? I earnestly hope not,
because I am rather fond of mine, but this story is a reminder to us that the
Bible doesn’t put family or marriage on a pedestal. What matters in the Bible
isn’t what form a household takes – Biblical households were as varied as
modern ones – but what happens within that household, the quality of
relationships, the love that is shown by its members, or the lack of it
That was something, of
course, which Jesus was passionately concerned about. His central message was
about love – whether within or outside family life – valuing others as the
precious children of God which they really are. He treats those who are weak and
vulnerable in his society’s eyes with particular care and honour, welcoming
children, healing the sick and disabled, making it clear that they are not
burdens but equals. He calls his followers to take seriously their
responsibilities to those who depend on them – supporting elderly parents, not
casually divorcing unwanted wives who will have no way of providing for
themselves.
His attitude to women was
especially unusual in his time. In a culture where they were largely confined
to the home, Jesus encourages them to take a full place as his followers. A
woman at a well in Samaria, or Mary of Bethany, resisting her sister Martha’s
call to leave the theological discussion to the men, and come and peel the
potatoes, Jesus praises and affirms them. “There is need of only one thing.
Mary has chosen the better part and it shall not be taken away from her.”
Jesus is deeply concerned for
families in the Gospels. After all, families are the context in which most
people live most of their lives, whether they are under one roof or scattered
far and wide. But the focus of Jesus’ concern isn’t on the outward appearance
of the family – what shape it takes, whether it conforms to the patterns his
culture expected it to. It is the inner, real experience of the people in it
that he cares about. Families, then as now, could be wonderfully supportive and
liberating, or they could be prisons in which the God-given gifts of their
members withered and died.
That’s why Jesus reacts as he
does to this visit from his own family which we heard about in today’s Gospel
reading. Opposition to his message is
starting to mount. He is challenging the religious leaders, and they don’t like
it. They accuse him of being inspired by Satan, not by God, and the rumour on
the streets is that he has gone mad. His notoriety is bringing shame on his
whole family and in an honour-based culture where conformity was highly valued,
that was a serious matter. They come, says the Bible, intent on restraining him
– the word that is used implies force. They want to drag him away, and put a
stop to his preaching. Perhaps we can sympathise – they are bound to be
anxious. But just because they are his family, even if they are motivated by
care as well as shame, that doesn’t mean they are right. Children aren’t the
possessions of their families. They are God’s gifts to the world, with callings
and tasks of their own, and Jesus is the prime example of this. He needs to
resist the temptation to fit in with the wish of his family that he should come
home, keep quiet and do his duty as a good son, because if he does that he will
have to abandon his message and his ministry.
Of course, there are times
when we should listen to those nearest and dearest to us – they may be telling
us things we need to hear – but we also have to learn to trust ourselves and
our own ability to hear the voice of God, which calls out to us “Where are
you?”, that voice which calls us back to himself and, back to ourselves
too, to become the people he created us to be, each with unique gifts to give
to the world, and a job to do. Families which encourage every person to heed
that voice, will be ones which are indeed richly blessed, and the source of
rich blessings to others too.
Amen
No comments:
Post a Comment