Family

 

Wednesday evening’s study group prayed the following prayer from Bp. Susan Johnson’s devotion book, Praying the Catechism: (pg200)

Reconciling God, too often we hurt or harm others, or they hurt or harm us, and we lack the will to seek reconciliation. Instead, we build up walls, enter into long and painful silences, cut off relationships, or triangulate others into our conflicts. Give us strength and courage to seek reconciliation with those we have wronged and those who have wronged us. Give us sincere words and actions, and hearts full of humility. Help us to gracefully receive either forgiveness or rejection, but do not let us further harden our hearts. Strengthen us to strive for your peace with one another. In your overflowing forgiveness we pray. Amen.

 

Strength and courage to seek reconciliation

Sincere words and actions

Gracefully receive either forgiveness or rejection

Do not let us further harden our hearts.

 

If I wrote today’s Gospel, I would have finished the story with this prayer. In telling stories about Jesus, Mark starts by locating Jesus in his travels; then Jesus went home - meaning his hometown. Then Mark does what Mark does, he introduces a real life situation -in this case introducing a physical and emotional dilemma for Jesus’ family- then immediately turns to Jesus teaching something; Mark then goes back to finish the story of the real life situation at hand. Its as though Mark understands that real life situations -heart dilemmas- need space to breathe. Hearing a story the listener is pulled in by the heartstrings, is then given something for their head to think about, before returning to matters of the heart.

Today’s Gospel focuses both heart and head to the theme of family.

 

Perhaps you have heard the following adages. Family- Can’t live with them, can’t live without them. Honour your father and mother. Family is forever. Blood is thicker than water. And in more recent years the idea of ‘Chosen family.’ Family is a system of complex relationships defined in the interplay of personalities, emotions, differences of opinion, mental health and well-being, history and culture, values and ethics, et cetera.

Today we are given a snapshot of Jesus’ family. Jesus went home and was surrounded by crowds. Home was small town Nazareth, we can assume that everyone knew everyone’s business. Word spread quickly to his family, not of Jesus as a regional hero who had cured the diseased, raised the lame, and cast out demons. No, their family member was being accused of being out-of-his-mind and possessed. The family – Jesus’ mother and brothers, having been judged as ‘that’ family, embarrassed came out to find Jesus. Perhaps they came to protect him, care for him, to save him from the townspeople; to bring him home and deal with him themselves out of the public eye.

 

Honestly as Jesus’ mother, or sibling, I imagine the real potential for hurt feelings and broken (hardening) hearts. If I am honest with myself and who I am, as either mother or sibling of Jesus, I would have needed the prayer I began the sermon with. I know this because my experience of family is as a complex system of relationships that is far from being a synchronized unit. I continually need to focus and pray for:

Strength and courage to seek reconciliation

Sincere words and actions

Gracefully receive either forgiveness or rejection

Do not let us further harden our hearts.

 

Jesus had a family – a mother and brothers who cared enough to come and find him; to unconditionally love him, even if the townspeople’s accusations are true.

Their love is a bold expression when set beside Jesus’ teaching and actions.

Jesus uses his family’s arrival as an opportunity to develop a different understanding and configuration of family relationship: Who are my mother and my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

 

Family – the crowd came together again, so that they could not even eat. In that crowd there were people without family or with strained family relations, without mothers or brothers to come with unconditional love. The sick, the crippled, the possessed, the unclean, the widow, the poor, those who could not work, those who begged for food – for many such life situations meant that they were without the social security of a family system. They did not belong to a household. Jesus’ teaching was liberating to think about, and hopeful for the heart. They could belong to a family – the people who formed community around Jesus.

 

Family – As the Jesus’ movement grew, particularly after his death and resurrection, the concept of family reimagined and reshaped, was an important one. It was not uncommon in the Early Church for people to leave their families, or be kicked out of their families, when becoming Christian. Difference of faith, beliefs, and practices divided families. Christian community and fellowship became one’s family.

 

Family – In Jesus’ time family was a household. A household was its own working unit – birth relations, hired hands, adopted, slaves, boarders (couch surfers); any person in the same living quarters. The household image was used for centuries as a metaphor to think about God’s kindom. God’s kindom was considered a household on a large scale. Jesus’ teaching turns to focus on spiritual households, Satan’s and God’s. Jesus talks of big plans and how God acts to bring God’s whole family under-one-roof, so to speak.  Mark records many exorcisms and the casting out of demons by Jesus hands. The action is Jesus, plundering Satan’s house, taking power and restoring the household to God’s kindom. Jesus’ teaching implies God’s household remains – the family of God.

 

The Sacred Teaching that we have focused on in the liturgy today is honesty, represented by raven or Kitchi-Sabe. The story is told that the giant Kitchi-Sabe walked among humans to remind us to remain true to our nature; to be aware of being ourselves and not someone we are not.

Honesty and family – for me, I am most honest and most myself in the presence of family – blood family, adopted family, chosen family, church family. I struggle most when the complex system of relationships that are family deteriorate or are severed; when it seems that unconditional love has limits when in human hands and hearts.

Mark’s Gospel commiserates with us that real life situations – family -  can be challenging and complex. We are given the insight that it was not Jesus but Jesus’ human family, his mother and brothers, that demonstrate unconditional love in this real life situation. This suggests there is hope for me. For the crowd, Jesus’ redefining and reimagining family, to be chosen family, faith community as family is liberating and full of grace; offering to those who do not belong unconditional love. This suggests there is place for me. The interaction with Jesus’ family and the conversation about family with the crowd turns to kindom talk. God’s household – this grand vision of one family, God’s family. This suggests there is grace for me.

 

Let us pause, to think of this faith family and give thanks; to call to mind our chosen family and give thanks; to remember our family and give thanks; to think of our households and give thanks. In an effort to live the Sacred Teaching of honesty, I pray for my family – all families- all creation:

Reconciling God, too often we hurt or harm others, or they hurt or harm us, and we lack the will to seek reconciliation. Instead, we build up walls, enter into long and painful silences, cut off relationships, or triangulate others into our conflicts. Give us strength and courage to seek reconciliation with those we have wronged and those who have wronged us. Give us sincere words and actions, and hearts full of humility. Help us to gracefully receive either forgiveness or rejection, but do not let us further harden our hearts. Strengthen us to strive for your peace with one another. In your overflowing forgiveness we pray. Amen.