Family Is Everything: Daily Thoughts from Mark (Mark 3:31-35)

Family is everything.  We hear that all the time.  But what if your family doesn’t believe what you believe about the biggest issues of life?  What if your family is actually against you?  What if your family is toxic?

Mark is showing us the push back Jesus was getting from the religious leaders in Israel.  He was making his mark with the people but he was attracting the ire of the leadership.  They saw him as dangerous.  What did his family think?  Because that would have been a big deal to the people of that day.  Did they support him?

And his mother and his brothers came and were standing outside and they sent someone in to call him to come out.  There was a crowd sitting around him and they said, “Look, your mother and your brothers are outside and are seeking you.”  And Jesus responded to them, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers?”  And looking at those sitting all around him he said, “I’m looking at my mother and my brothers.  Whoever does the will of God, this one is my brother and my sister and my mother.” (Mark 3:31-35) 

Jesus’ family is standing outside.  They don’t come in and listen to him, smile proudly, and interact with his followers, receiving his followers’ accolades.  They are signaling that they are not a part of this.  And this becomes an opportunity for Jesus to face and speak to the greater realities.  The crowd wonders how he will react to family.  Because family is everything, right?  You yield to the direction of your parents and siblings in such circumstances.  They are not obviously for him.

But Jesus says that there is a family that supersedes our biological family.  Those who have submitted to God’s kingdom are a family on another level and in some cases, like this one with Jesus, are closer to him and more in line with the truth.

This is not permission to neglect our family but rather a priority to observe and a responsibility to keep with another family, the family of God.  Some of us will have families like Jesus did who do not see clearly, as we do, just how important a relationship to God is, and we will need the faith-family’s help and encouragement to continue in the way.

Some of us have toxic families.  We have had fathers and mothers who abused us, or who were absentees when we needed loving engagement, or who live in such dysfunctional ways that it calls into question our own value and worth.  The family of faith is God’s gift to show us how real family can work.  His family can give us the father who lovingly encourages us, the mother who warmly embraces us, and the siblings who love us unconditionally and long to be with us.

Family is everything.  It’s just that the family of faith fits in that equation as well and sometimes is the only family that makes sense of that equation.