A member of the family

Mark 3:31-35 (NIV)Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.”“Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked.Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

All of us are part of a family, the people with whom we grew up. We don’t choose them, and they certainly don’t choose us. If we are fortunate, our families work as they should with members supporting and loving one another. Some are less fortunate with families torn by strife and dysfunction. No matter how we feel about them, however, those people are our family. As the saying goes, we can’t deny them.

Some have read this passage in Mark as Jesus rejecting his physical family and preferring those who are seated around him. But I don’t think that’s what’s going on here at all. Jesus can’t deny his earthly family, just as we can’t deny ours.

What he is doing instead is identifying those who are around him and those who “do God’s will” as part of his family. Can you imagine the connection you would have if you could say Jesus was your nephew, your cousin, or your brother? What if you could think of Jesus as a family member, a person who would be loyal, a person on whom you could always depend, no matter what.

And beyond Jesus himself, we become part of a spiritual family that loves and supports us and to whom we can give love and support. Our family becomes anyone who does God’s will. Jesus in these verses is offering us a powerful and inclusive invitation.

Our Father, help us to recognize the opportunity to be part of your family, and help us every day to be always worthy of membership in that family. Amen.

This devotion was written and read by Jim Stovall.

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