Sunday, June 09, 2024
Sunday Reflection: The Family We Choose
In the book of Mark, Chapter 3, we read this:
Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
It's kind of a confounding teaching, especially for people who view Christianity and the nuclear family as intrinsically tied together. In fact, I often used this passage in prosecuting Jesus back when we were doing The Trial, knowing that what he said is threatening to the view we have of the family.
But the truth is the family is only family if we make it that way, and not all families do.
So, in this picture we see my Dad in France. He was painting outside, and a dog from the village trotted over and.... just lay down there to hang out.
If you look at the picture, you would think it shows a guy and his beloved dog. That's just not true; my dad had no idea who that dog was!
But there are a couple of truths there. One is that, for that moment, that dog WAS my dad's beloved pooch. And maybe that moment counts.
A second is that perhaps this is the kind of family picture we often see-- where what we see on the surface, what we assume from the image, is not really the truth. Families are complicated.
Often, people will talk about "chosen family," referring to those close to them that they aren't really related to. But the reality is that all families, functional ones, are chosen, even the biological ones. That's because if we don't keep choosing them, making them important in the moment, they stop being real in an important way. We all know families that aren't really families anymore, because people didn't choose to make them work.
Jesus chose his followers--- but he chose his brothers and mother, too, as became clear later in his life, even at his death (where his mother saw him return to life).
It's all on us, and we need to choose well.
