A Caring Community – Matthew 12: 46-50

‘While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him.  Someone told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’ But to the one who had told him this, Jesus replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’  And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers!  For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’

Reflection

This passage from Matthew does seem rather strange.  Jesus lived and taught love, yet here he is, apparently rejecting the parents who had cared for him and who, in human terms, had taught him what love was.  He must have had a happy childhood home, or he wouldn’t have found love so central to his life, nor talked to God as ‘Abba’?

He seems to turn his back on them, and in a rather hurtful way.  Why would that be?  Some might suggest that family influence tried to hold him back and that it had to be cut free from him for his work, and that’s always possible.

However there could well be another element to consider.  Jesus was Jewish, and Jews were born into a ready-made, easily identifiable community.  They all shared a religion, a culture and a language, they didn’t have to choose it, it was their life.

But Jesus’ teaching made choices necessary.  Those who chose his way would be rejected by their community, because the community thought of them as rejecting the values that everyone else lived by.

They would have to find a new community, new friends, new family.  Not because they wanted to, but because they had no other option.  It is quite possible that when Jesus spoke these words, he wasn’t so much rejecting his natural parents, as warning his followers of the things they would have to face.  Pointing them to a new family of believers of which they would be a part, and from which they would get their strength and support.

It's just a true today whenever people re-orientate their lives in Christ, the old community looks disapproving.  It’s more extreme in some cultures than others but it does happen.  We need to be prepared for it, and believers need the support of others who believe as they do.  Which is why it’s so important for the church to be a caring community, governed not so much by rules as by LOVE.

Prayer

Lord, forgive us. If anyone found it tough, you did.  If anyone was rejected, you were.  What seemed like rejecting your mother and family was just one step in the painful progress to the cross.  One step through which we’re all drawn to you, in LOVE.  A new community in you, open to all, Mothers, Fathers, Children and US.  Amen.

Penny Bonham