Throughout Lent we are exploring what it means to be "the Jesus family." This series of reflections and activities have been developed by Pastor Bryant and will be posted here each week for those who cannot be with us on Wednesday evenings. Our next midweek service will be February 25 at 7:00 p.m. at West Lake Johanna. For our Ash Wednesday service, we focused on "The Jesus Family" as a way of understanding our relationship to God and one another. Here is the transcript of the sermon:
Sermon for Ash Wednesday
February 18, 2014
“The Jesus Family”
Ephesians 4:1-6
"I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all."
Mark 3:31-35
"Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, 'Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.' And he replied, 'Who are my mother and my brothers?' And looking at those who sat around him, he said, 'Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.'"
What does family mean to you? We all probably have our own answer to that. Sure, there’s the stereotypical “family household” defined by the census bureau this way:
A family consists of a householder and one or more other people living in the same household who are related to the householder by birth, marriage, or adoption.
Family is a word tied to deep emotions for us, either positive or negative. The stale language of bureaucracy somehow fails to capture the depth of meaning these relationships have for us. Is it simply the people you live with? I think for many of us, we would expand the word family beyond the walls of our dwellings to include the closest relationships of our lives. You may have friends that you would say are “like family” to you.
If the government can’t fully define family for us, maybe companies can. The language of family is pervasive in advertising. A quick online search of simple phrases like “From our family to yours” or “We’ll treat you like family” revealed companies selling everything from healthcare to tires to beef. There’s nothing like the purchase of all-weather radials and a big steak to make you feel like one of the family, huh? This kind of advertising works, though, because just the word family is meant to invoke images of warmth, welcome, and wholesomeness.
Our faith is filled with familial language. We pray to God as “our Father.” We are called “children of God.” We call one another “brothers and sisters” in Christ. So what does all this mean? Is it like selling tires or steaks? Do we use this language just to evoke warm, fuzzy feelings? Or is there more to it? Is there something deeper going on when we refer to ourselves as God’s children and to one another as brother and sister? Can we grow deeper in our relationship to God and one another by exploring what it means to be a family? I think so, because using that specific language isn’t done simply to provoke an emotional response within us, but instead to tell us something about the nature of those relationships. It provides a framework for understanding the fundamental ways that we are meant to relate to God and to one another. In other words, just as we might describe family as our foundation in life: those who literally provided the building blocks of who we are through our DNA and by giving us the formative experiences of our lives, so too the familial language of faith is meant to profoundly shape us and our view of the world.
Take the example of praying to God as “our Father.” This language is scrutinized by some for invoking a male name for God, when of course God is neither male nor female in the biological sense. And it gets criticized at times out of concern for those who have experienced much pain at the hands of an abusive father. These are fair concerns, and not to be taken lightly, but we continue to use the word “father” for God first and foremost because Jesus uses this word when speaking to and about God, but also because it has profound implications for how we understand and experience our relationship with God. The Greek word is “abba,” literally “dada.” You can hear it as one of the earliest words a child could say. “Ah-ba.” It’s a simple, familiar word, meant to describe the close connection between a parent and child. When we pray to God, we pray as little children. We are as dependent on God as a little child is on their parent.
So one reason we use this language is because it helps us understand the depth of meaning that these relationships have for us. Just as we use the word family to describe those closest to us in the world, we use the word family to describe how close we are meant to be to our fellow Christians. We call one another brothers and sisters. As in the example of referring to God as “abba” or “dada,” our use of this language comes from Jesus and his disciples. In drawing followers to himself, Jesus makes it clear that he isn’t just forming an interest group or social club. God is his Father and his followers are his family.
In Mark’s Gospel we heard the brief story of Jesus’ biological family looking for him, trying to reach him through the crowds that are surrounding him. Earlier in the same chapter, they’ve tried to persuade him to stop teaching and healing, because they think he’s “beside himself” or, in modern language, going a little crazy. Jesus, of course, will have none of this, and when they persist in trying to reach him, he gazes upon those gathered around him and says, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” This isn’t meant to be an insult or dismissal of his biological family. We know from other stories that he loves and cares for them. He says it for the benefit of those gathered around him, for you and I, so that we can understand the depth of relationship that he seeks to establish with his followers. We aren’t just students or disciples, we are family.
It’s important for us to understand this. As the church, we don’t invoke familial language willy nilly or by our own choice. We use this language because it’s the language Jesus uses for God and for us. If we are Jesus’ family, if we are “the Jesus family,” it’s not because we at some point decided to be Jesus’ family or chose it for ourselves because it sounds nice and cozy. We are Jesus’ family precisely because he has claimed us as his family.
It’s appropriate for us to remember this on Ash Wednesday, as we mark the sign of the cross on our foreheads. The first time the cross was marked on our foreheads at baptism we were told “you have been sealed by the power of the Holy Spirit, and marked with the cross of Christ forever.” When something is sealed, it is official. God’s claim on you is final. On this day and in this season of penitence, we remember that we are nothing without God’s love and grace. We are dust. In the scope of the universe, we are less than dust. We are an infinitesimal speck on an infinitesimal speck in the vastness of the cosmos. And yet we are called beloved children of God, claimed by the one from whom all light and life come. God’s baptismal claim alone is what forms our family: the Jesus family. Nothing less than a royal proclamation of the king of the universe has called you God’s child and made you brothers and sisters to one another. You can fight it, run away from it, ignore it, or even despise and hate it, but you cannot undo it. You are a part of the Jesus family.
The question, then, is what does this mean for us? What difference does it make that we are in Jesus’ family? The answer, of course, is that it is supposed to make all of the difference in our lives. We don’t just say, “Well, it’s nice you’re a member of our church” the same way it’s nice that you joined the same gym as us or “it’s nice to have you in our club.” I wish I could tell you that being Christian is something that can be a passing interest or confined to just a select hour or two of the week. But it’s not. When we say we’re family, we mean it in the deepest sense of the word. It carries with it all of the obligations of family. It’s a job that you cannot quit or retire from. There are no days off and no vacation days. It is a lifelong, everyday, all-encompassing claim on you.
And just as our human families come with expectations, so does the Jesus family.
A nearly universal experience of childhood, I think, is hearing your mother or father say something like, “I don’t care what they do at so and so’s house, in this family, we…” That’s what Jesus means when he says, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Again, we must be clear: it is God’s claim on us that forms us as family. Failing to follow the family rules does not mean you are not family. The claim God has placed on you cannot be undone. As the Jesus family, however, we have been given a calling. There are family rules to follow. If we are, as Paul wrote to the Ephesians, “to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,” then we must understand what it means to be a part of this family.
So, throughout the course of Lent, we’re going to explore what it means to live as the Jesus family through the foundational practices of the Christian life. We will use a variation of that simple phrase “We don’t care what the world says, in the Jesus family, we…” Each week, we’ll also be giving you a mission. We’re calling this Mission: Jesus Family. It will include a simple task for you to do either with your family or with a close friend. Your first mission is simply to remember that you are a part of God’s family. We do this by blessing one another. You can remember this on your own, of course, but there is power I think in hearing it spoken to you by another person. It reinforces the idea that this is not something that you claim for yourself. The words of the one blessing you stand in for God’s own word of promise: “Remember, you are a beloved child of God.” It’s exploring the truth of this claim that lies at the heart of this series of Lenten reflections and at the heart of our faith. Let them sink into your ears, your minds, your hearts, seeking to grow ever deeper in your understanding of the love that God has for the world and for you. Remember, you are a part of the Jesus family, now and forever. Amen.
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