A New Kind of Family given June 7, 2015

            Do you recall the classic novel, To Kill A Mockingbird? Among other things, it is the story of black man, unjustly accused of a crime in the South in the 1930s. The man's defense attorney is Atticus Fitch. Atticus is a man of integrity, who has been reared in that same town, and then moved away to study law. He then practiced caw in the big city of Montgomery. Atticus returns to Maycomb County changed. He's no longer the man they knew. His return, and his defense of that black man upsets the carefully preserved social order of small town life.

As the trial itself unfolds, it is revealed that more than just a crime has been committed. All sorts of unspoken covenants and tacit understandings  of that time and that era have been broken. As the larger story unfolds, Atticus' own behavior begins to break the unspoken conventions and unwritten barriers. He, a white man, defends a black man. He relentlessly pursues justice in the midst of a community founded on the injustice of segregation and Jim Crow laws.

He seeks the truth in a time and place undergirded by secret lies and polite deceits. Atticus' return to Macomb County is disruptive and unsettling. Better that Atticus should never have come back.

And when Jesus came home to Nazareth, after being out in the world preaching and healing for a while, he was different.  You could tell he had changed.  The conventions of behavior were being violated. The pecking order of the town was disrupted.  Everybody was talking about him--and what they were saying was far from complimentary. Jesus had returned to their midst. But he was no longer the man that they knew.

Better that Jesus should never have come back. He defied the social conventions built around discrimination and hypocrisy that undergird his home town. He, a Jew, ministered to Samaritans, Galileans, women, children, people of all ages and genders and races.

He affirmed justice and unity and equity in a climate of nationalism and prejudice and injustice. He relentlessly pursued the righteousness of God in the face of small town fears and hate. He proclaimed the universality of God's salvation. He preached the love of God through the love of neighbor. The social order was upset with these things. The family was embarrassed. The town was in an uproar.

The established religions authorities knew there was only one thing to do. This upstart Jesus must be gotten rid of. So they did what professionally religious people always do. They formed a committee--a study group. They sent a delegation to investigate him.

And the committee reported back that all the rumors were true. He was preaching without a license. He was healing on the Sabbath. He was forgiving sins.  He was overstepping all those unspoken rules and invisible boundaries that every society sets up and then doesn't talk about. In the light of all that, only one conclusion was possible.

"He's possessed. He must be in league with Satan. It is through the ruler of demons that he casts out demons. Such possession is dangerous, it is contagious. This Jesus must be silenced, or locked up. If he won't conform to our prejudices and conventions, we'll have to get rid of him, declare him insane, lock him up."

It was when word of this reached Nazareth that Jesus' family decided to come and get him--for his own protection. And when they finally found hid, it must have indeed seemed as if all those terrible rumors were true, that he really was possessed. They couldn’t even get to see him! He was in the house of someone called Simon, someone they didn't even know. And the house was no crowded that they couldn't even go in the door!

"We're his brothers! We're his sisters! This is his mother! Let us in!" But the crowd was too thick. "We have to see him. We have a right to see him! We're his family!" But no one gave way.

The crowd was pressing around Jesus. People who were hungering for acceptance, for meaning, for wholeness had jammed into Simon's house to be with Jesus. There was good news there, and they heard it gladly. They hung on his words, listened to his teachings, and offered him their sick and outcasts and mad to make whole.

It was a diverse crowd--a crowd of all ages and colors and cultures.

There were Jews and Greeks and Samaritans, men and women, old and young, rich and poor. Except for Jesus' teachings such a crowd would never have gathered together. They were all tor different. There was no natural bond between those people--except for Jesus-- except for their old lives made new by his Presence.

But all that Mary and his brothers and sisters could see was the press of people. And all that they could do was try to pass a message to him, from mouth to mouth.

"Your mother and your family are outside the door, asking for you." Now and then they could hear some of his words, filtering out the windows.

"A house divided against itself cannot stand."  Was he talking about them? "The truth is, all human sins and trespasses, even blasphemies can be forgiven--except for blasphemy against the Holy Spirit. The only "unforgivable sin" is ultimately your own hard- hearted refusal to believe in God's goodness and willingness to forgive you."

Finally their message must have reached Jesus, because they heard him raise his voice and say,

"Who is my mother? Who are me brothers? Who are my sisters? Who is mf family?"

Had he forgotten them in his madness, they must have wondered? Then they heard him add--obviously while looking around himself "All those here are my family. Anyone who seeks to do the will of God is my brother, my sister, my mother."

This, said Jesus, is a totally new kind of community. This is God's new family.

"Who is my family?” This is the family of God's coming reign. Here are those who receive the good news gladly. Here are those who come in faith and in hope, seeking wholeness. Here is the place where the old world has been destroyed and the new world born.

Who is a part of God's family? Those who believe the Gospel and accept God's reign in their hearts and lives.

Who is a part of God's family? Those who do the crazy things. Those who give up their security and place in the community in order to go out and spread the good news of Christ’s love for all peoples and nations. Those who deal fairly and with dignity with all men and women.

Who is a part of God's family? Those who feed the hungry, shelter the homeless, organize the powerless, care for the stranger in need. Those who care for and strive to heal this wounded planet that we all live upon. Those who stand up for justice in the face of prejudice. Those who witness against war, even when the war is popular.

Who is a part of God's family? Those who are willing to step over the invisible lines of bigotry and hypocrisy in order to minister to a sister or brother in need. Those who actually try to take Jesus seriously as a model for their personal lives. Who is God's family?

Jesus broke the old, limiting circle of human relationships based on family and similarity. He formed a new kind of family in the world. It was a family of those who treat one another as brothers and sisters-- because they recognize that we are all children of God--regardless of race or color or tongue or gender or nation. And they recognize that we all have family responsibilities to one another.

After all, if we're all brothers and sisters, we are responsible to one another. If we're all family, we are obliged to lift up the fallen ones, to help one another along the way, to guide the lost and comfort the lonely and support those who risk themselves for the sake of the Gospel.

If we're children together of God's family we have the joy and the opportunity to forgive each other's shortcomings, to celebrate one another's victories, weep with one another in our times of loss, bear one another's burdens and share one another’s joys. After all, that's what family does.

We are now, according to Jesus, all a part of God's family, because we acknowledge by our lives that our God is Father and Mother to all.  That Jesus is Brother and Christ to everyone. That the Holy Spirit is Sister and Sustainer to all of us.

"Who is my family?”  Those who believe in the Gospel and do not oppose God's Reign in their hearts. Welcome sisters and brothers. Welcome to the family of our God. Welcome home. Let us pray,

God of Peace and Justice, we yearn for peace within and without. We long for harmony within our blood families, and in all our relationships within our family of faith. We long for the pay when each family everywhere will live in peace, without fear, enjoying the fruits of this good earth, unites by faith and by love into your larger family of humanity. Look upon us with mercy and with kindness, Eternal Parent.  Come soon, Brother Christ and establish your Reign of Shalom.  Transform us and empower us, Sister Spirit to walk in the paths of righteousness and joy in this life. Amen.