You can’t pick your family … or can you? Blood relations are supposed to be the strongest on earth. But this is a myth quickly undone by simple logic. Your parents chose each other. No one compelled them (ideally), and no one dictates they stay together, or crumble apart. It was and remains (ideally) a choice of two people to become one and remain that way. Your parents are not related to each other by blood relation, unless that blood relation is quite distant. Yet the bond a husband can have with his wife, and she with him, is a bond capable of being stronger than titanium dipped in Jesus more permanent than any other on earth; or as flimsy as the tissue paper of self-will that demonstration will show. But the core of a family is at its core, a choice to love. And where perhaps our hearts are still fickle in the choice of our partner for life, they seem less so in our choice of son, daughter, or parent.
Adoption is yet another choice to make blood, what inheritance failed to create. Adoption does not diminish the love it states, it perhaps makes it greater. It is a greater commitment. Taking in a child, who is not blood, and make that child part of a family, is a statement about how deep the choice to love can truly be. Even in the face of divorced couples, children remain children, adopted or not. The love shown to them, the care taken of them, does not diminish because it began with a choice, it deepens because of it. And over time, when the child’s curiosity about biological parents emerges, love for adopted parents remains a choice in nearly every life. At the root of the bond between a parent and a child, is a choice to love, whether by inheritance or by fortune. The choice begins the journey, the choice remains throughout the journey.
These choices do not only reveal themselves in marriage and in adoption of any form. They can emerge in the relationships we form with our closest friends over time. Because the choice to love is by definition a choice; other close relationships can form where brothers of no relation think of themselves as brothers in any case. It may be a different kind of love, but it is a love nonetheless. Situations where friends of the family become part of the family are common, blurring the definitions of family altogether; and frankly emulating more what heaven will ultimately be like. Agape love is no less a love than any other kind of it. And the love Jesus, The Father, and The Holy Spirit have for you is the pinnacle of what love can be defined as. Not a romantic love, but a love so deep, the God of the Universe would die to save only you if that is what it took. In every situation, love remains a choice.
This is a lesson the sons of Abraham were reluctant to learn in the time of Jesus, and perhaps we are today as well. Jews in the time of Christ believed that bloodline led to salvation. Christians in our day believe that tradition, church, and religion do the same. Jews in the time of Christ were proud to call Abraham their father. Christians in our day are proud to look back at the patriarchs of our faith and claim association with them over common beliefs. But the average, or particular, or singular Jew in the Sanhedrin at the time of Jesus did not have the exact faith of Abraham. It is why Abraham is remembered, and the average Jew is not. It is the same with you and I. Neither of us were pinning the list of church reforms on the door, knowing it was likely insuring our own death sentences today. We like to look back at reformers like Luther, but we do not face Luther’s danger in the face of death in our world. Strange though, the propensity to look backwards for assurance that salvation is ours, when all along, Jesus is right in front of us and how seldom we seem to look there.
But Jesus has different ideas about family, than perhaps the tradition Jew did in His day, or the typical Christian does in ours. Matthew wrote of this in his gospel in chapter twelve picking up in verse 46 saying … “While he yet talked to the people, behold, his mother and his brethren stood without, desiring to speak with him. [verse 47] Then one said unto him, Behold, thy mother and thy brethren stand without, desiring to speak with thee.” This is a simple situation. Jesus is preaching, likely from inside Peter’s house in Capernaum. Likely the crowds are thick there, inside and outside the house. It makes it difficult for anyone to get inside the house. You will recall the men who took the roof apart to get their friend close to Jesus for healing. This is likely a standing room only crowd, and every single listener is intent to hear the word of God from the mouth of God Himself.
But despite this, the family of Jesus wanted to see Him. Perhaps they had important news, perhaps they only wanted to socialize. It did not matter. They were unable to get anywhere near close enough to Jesus to accomplish what they had in mind. The reason; too many other people were so desperate to hear what salvation was, and how it comes. In spite of this, His family persisted. They get a messenger to get the news to Jesus so He can remedy the situation. Jesus responds in verse 48 saying … “But he answered and said unto him that told him, Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? [verse 49] And he stretched forth his hand toward his disciples, and said, Behold my mother and my brethren! [verse 50] For whosoever shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven, the same is my brother, and sister, and mother.”
Much to unpack here. Jesus begins by questioning the messenger with a very strange question. “Who” is His mother, and His siblings? The answer should have been obvious. But even in this question is an implication that “blood” does not grant one special privilege. Beyond this, is a subtle message to our Catholic friends who so venerate Mary. Jesus places His mother Mary in the same category as He does everyone else, nothing more special about her. And Jesus is clear that He has siblings. As Jesus had to be first born (according to Jewish tradition), having further brothers and sisters, makes Mary a normal wife, not a virgin for the length of her life. But even the mothers who read this text cringe with the idea that their child might look at them with the same eyes He looks at the entire rest of the world.
Next, the ideas of Family are radically expanded in the view of Jesus. Everyone who shall do the will of my Father which is in heaven … becomes the family of Jesus Christ. Jesus does not just say, every Jew by birth. Nor does He say, every Christian who claims to follow Jesus. He states everyone who like Himself defers His own will, to do the will of the Father which is in heaven, becomes His idea of family. Being Jewish by birth, or being Christian by faith, does not make you in harmony with the Father God. It gives you a good start, but is nowhere near enough to finish the job. For that you need a deference of your will, and an embrace of His will. That only happens as you surrender the core of who you are to Jesus, so that He can bring you into harmony with God. Doing what you think is right, is not enough. Jews did that. Christians still do. And it is not enough. The blood relatives of Jesus were doing what they thought was right, at the moment, and were going to be disappointed. What Mary and the siblings of Jesus were thinking was the right thing to do, was not, at least not right then. More important things were going on. The salvation of others was going on. On that scale, everyone can wait.
While Jesus has only One Father, He is quite liberal with titling anyone else who submits to the will of His Father in heaven as being “brother, sister, or mother”. Here again His mother is not a title He makes sacrosanct above all others. She is only another member of His family. Here is where the ideas of family get radically expanded in the eye of Jesus. In heaven, outside of the spousal relationship Jesus created at Eden, everyone else we encounter will be our family – by choice. We will choose to love them as we love our siblings or parents or children, because we will choose to love them that much. I can entrust my children with you in heaven, because I know you will love them as much as I do. You can entrust your children with me, for the same reason. I will not covet your wife, as you will not covet mine, not just because the Law forbids it, but because we love each other that much.
You will note Jesus does not include husband or wife in His list of family members. His “bride” is the church, as He loves it that much. The church is special to Him and unique, and singular, even though it is made up of many of us who believe. At the core of all of this remains a choice to love. At the core of love itself is a definition that includes choice, or it can be no real love at all. We were not created as robots for this very reason. God is love. God chooses to love. We were created in the image of God. We are capable of love, or not. We must choose to love God, or not. Our love for God cannot be forced and He will never force us to love anything or anyone. We make a choice to do that. This is how God wants it. He reveals His love to us, long before He ever asks for ours in return. There is every reason for us to love God, and only one not to. Selfishness is the enemy of loving God. It turns out you can only love yourself or God, not both.
Many Christians believe that loving one’s self is healthy, and must be done before they are capable of loving others. This is a lie, evidenced by the very life of Christ Himself. Jesus did nothing to love Himself, and everything to demonstrate love for us. Jesus never took vacation. Jesus never ate all the food first, He gave everyone else the food first, served everyone else, and only then would consider eating. Talk about not being strong enough. But Jesus got His strength from doing the will of His Father, which like Him, was to love everyone else before anything resembling self-love. Not a single evidence in scripture of self-love, or using His power to help Himself, not once. And somehow, we think it is different for us? It’s not. The choice we make to love, is a choice we make to love someone else. When instead we choose to love ourselves, divorces ensue, families dissolve, everything that ever really mattered is sacrificed on an altar of pleasing self that has no end to it.
Family bonds are as strong as the depth of our surrender of will to Jesus Christ. Choices to love that stem from this kind of surrender to Jesus are like titanium dipped in diamonds. The choice to love self instead, can form bonds only as strong as tissue paper waiting the next form of self-gratification. As for me, I prefer the permanence Jesus can offer, and the fulfillment only Jesus can bring; than the mess of things I know I make, and history is quick to reveal …
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