Being Renewed (Graduation Sunday) Series

Main: If you’re looking for snapshots of well-adjusted and happy parent-child relationships from the ancient world, the Bible probably shouldn’t be on your short list of sources. Consider even Jesus’ family, for example. The New Testament preserves evidence suggesting that Jesus’ relationship with his mother was rather strained. Similar tensions appear to have existed between him and his siblings, as well.

An important source is Mark 3:21, which says: “When his family heard what was happening, they came to take control of him. They were saying, ‘He’s out of his mind!’” (translation: Common English Bible).

Move 1. When He Went Home!

Jesus went home. He named his inner circle of disciples, and he went home. He called it a day.

Well, he healed a man on the Sabbath, it turns out, and got into a mess of trouble; and then he called the inner circle and went home.

The last time he was home, someone tore a hole in his roof and lowered a paralyzed man into the living room.

Then he called a friend, had a party - got called out for that one too, went on a hike with his new disciples, and they plucked some grain from a field they were wandering through, and got in trouble for that (reaping on the Sabbath - not stealing grain, oddly enough); then he healed a man and called his inner circle and went home.

Before that, he got baptized and spent some time alone in the wilderness, cast out some demons, some of whom seemed to recognize him, but he told them to keep quiet about it; and he healed and walked and found need everywhere he went.

Yet, Christian tradition has had a difficult time reckoning with the perhaps troubling idea of family strife between Jesus and his kin. Consider what translators and even other Gospel authors have done with Mark 3:21:

• The King James Version totally removes Jesus’ family from this part of the scene, saying: “And when his friends heard of it, they went out to lay hold on him: for they said, ‘He is beside himself.’”

• The New Revised Standard Version puts the disparagement of Jesus in the mouths of others, saying: “When his family heard it, they went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’”

• The authors of the Gospels according to Matthew and Luke, whose books were produced after the Gospel according to Mark and who included scenes similar to Mark 3:20-35, omitted from their narratives any suggestion that Jesus’ family thought he was crazy.

Maybe Jesus’ relatives were dismayed that the first-born son wasn’t supporting his family but was gallivanting around Galilee as a self-appointed prophet. Or maybe they wanted him, as Messiah, to have bigger and better ambitions, such as promising a revolution instead of preaching and healing the sick. The Gospel of Mark does not explain; it merely sets up a showdown of sorts when the family arrives to seize Jesus.

When the crowd says that his family is summoning him from outside the crowded building, Jesus answers with a shocking statement: “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers? ... Look, here [these people seated around me] are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does God’s will is my brother, sister and mother.”

It’s good news for those inside the house, who seek to identify with Jesus and his message. It’s also good news for Mark’s earliest readers who found themselves estranged from their biological families (compare Mark 10:28-30). Bad news, however, for his relatives on the outside, and for others with high regard for customary notions of honor and social stability.

Move 2 New Family:

Jesus redefines the criteria for who constitutes his true family.

I also think that the encounter between Jesus and his family may have also pointed to a need for Jesus to minister to the people he was closest to. I reflect on that old poem "Bring Dat College Home", a favorite of Dr. Miller W. Boyd. Dr. Boyd who was the president of Morristown College. BRING DAT COLLEGE HOME

I’s been sending you to college for six or seven years

Since the mornin’ dat you let’ me I’s been sheddin bitter tears

But I thought of dat ole sayin’ “Sunshine come behin’ de storm”,

So my young man, when you finish, you yes bring dat college home.

I’s been scrubbin’ by the washtub, I’s been sewatin’ in de feil,

Many time I had to borry an’ I almost had to steal,

But I held on to my patience, beat def soap suds into foam,

All de time my heart was sayin’ he’s wine bring dat college home.

Folks here say you gwine be nothin’, you jus foolin’ time away,

But I shake my finger and tell dem “wait until some future day”.