Mark 3:31-35

Jesus' Mother and Brothers

31Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. 32A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you."

33"Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked.

34Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! 35Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."



BACKGROUND READING:


Matthew 12:46-49


Psalm 69



Dig Deeper

The goal for most American families is to raise up their children so that they are happy, responsible adults, capable of leaving home and starting their own family. For most of us it is a common thing to create a new circle of friends and support that are quite separate from the family that we grew up with. These are the people that become our new inner circle and know us far better than the parents and siblings that we knew as young people. We keep in touch with our families, no doubt, but usually only a few times a year. In fact, most young people even look forward to the time when they can separate from their parents and go off in life to make their own way, to find their own job, and find their own friends.


For a society that lives like that, Jesus’ words and actions here don’t seem like that big of a deal. We pass over them with little more than a passing thought that perhaps he was letting the people of his time know that his followers were very important to him. For us, what Jesus is doing here really loses most of its original sting. The fact is, this wasn’t a mildly interesting statement from Jesus. In his first century setting, this was absolutely scandalous.


We must remember that Jesus lived in a culture where loyalty to family was part of the very fabric of life. Children grew up and remained very close to their parents their whole lives, sometimes still living in their house until their parents died. In fact a typical first-century Jewish home might have 20-30 rooms for the 50-60 family members that would all live together in one house.


The family unit was also often the family business. Male children took up the family business and continued it on for generations, while the women married off into their husband’s family. For the Jews, though, the concept of family ran much deeper than that. It was tied up in the way that they interpreted the fifth commandment to honor father and mother. Solidarity to family was right up there with Sabbath observance as a marker of being a true and loyal Jew. The family unit was a special part of the way that God had organized his people and if that was broken, then an important part of being God’s people was shattered. Being loyal to family meant being loyal to God and his people. Not being loyal to family meant not being loyal to God and betraying your people.


It is in this culture that Jesus makes these statements. Mark has already told us that Jesus’ family considered the possibility that he had gone mad. Now we learn that they actually came to see him. We can assume that they were coming to get him and take him back with them. Mary clearly didn’t have a clue as to what Jesus was doing in his ministry, at least not at this point.


When Jesus says here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother, we must not miss the shock of these words. Jesus was cutting right into the heart of what it meant to be God’s people. Just as would challenge other symbols of being Jewish like Sabbath observance and the food laws, he was now challenging another integral part of being the people of God.


Jesus is sending a very clear signal. He has a new vocation in which he is announcing the new thing that God is doing. He is redefining in a spectacular way what it means to be a family. God, Jesus is letting people know, is starting a new family, a new holy people. There is to be no regard for the traditional family ties in relation to being the people of God. The followers of Jesus are your new family, the new holy people of God. Although Jesus didn’t begin the Church, his followers did, Jesus clearly lays the foundation for the way that Christians should view one another. We are not just fellow members of a religious movement. We are members of the same family; a family that has been radically redefined by Jesus.


Mark sets up a clear distinction between who is on the inside of this new movement and who is on the outside. He will continue to expound on that concept: the true gospel will divide families not bring them closer together in the old way.



Devotional Thought

Many people struggle with this concept, even in our society, that God’s people are to be our new family without regard to the family in which we were born (this does not mean we disrespect or disassociate with our biological families, it speaks to our primary loyalty). For others, moving loyalties from old friendships to new one’s in God’s kingdom are the challenge. Where do your loyalties lie? Who are your best friends? Do you have the same view that Jesus did of who your mother and brothers are?