In these Wednesday night
services, we’ve been talking about all the things Jesus sacrificed during his
time on earth. We’ve talked about how Jesus gave up his life in heaven
and gave up his home town. Tonight we
talk about something else Jesus gave up: his family.
Now of course, we know that Jesus was
truly the Son of God. But still, he had an earthly family, too. There was his mother, Mary, and his earthly
father, Joseph. He also had four brothers, who we heard about last
week: James,
Joseph, Judas, and Simon. He also had some sisters, although we’re not
told their names. As far as we can tell, they were all living Nazareth,
as Jesus did for most of his life. And as we said last week, just like in
our South Dakota small towns, a lot of the people who lived in Nazareth were
related to each other somehow. So Jesus probably had various cousins,
aunts, uncles, and so forth there in Nazareth, too.
Jesus knew that he was the Son of God and that his true
Father was in heaven. But still, his earthly family must have meant
something to him. After all, he’d known
them for all of his life on earth. Mary and Joseph had taken care of him
since he was born. You’d think he must
have felt close to them. And his
brothers and sisters, too--you’d think Jesus would’ve felt some sort of
affection for them. Not everybody feels close to their family, of course,
but most people do. And with Jesus being
fully human as well as fully divine, it seems reasonable to think Jesus
would’ve had the same feelings toward his family that most of us humans have.
I wonder, did Jesus’ family know who Jesus really was?
Did they know that he was the Messiah, the Savior, the divine Son of God?
It seems like Mary should’ve known, at least. After all, before Jesus was even born, the
angel Gabriel came to Mary and told her who Jesus was going to be. We
read that story during Advent every year.
Did she tell any of the rest of Jesus’ family about that? Did she tell his brothers and sisters? For that matter, did Jesus ever tell them who
he was? I mean, it’s hard to imagine that Jesus would just walk away and
leave Nazareth without giving them some sort of explanation. But if he did explain it to them, the Bible
does not tell us about it.
Maybe Mary or Jesus did tell them, and they simply did not
understand. It would be a pretty hard thing to accept, don’t you
think? I mean, if you have brothers or
sisters, think about how that would be. This person you’re related to,
this person you’ve known all your life, all of a sudden tells you that they’re
the divine Son of God? How would you
react to that? There were people in my family who were not too sure I
knew what I was doing when I told them I was going to go to seminary and become
a pastor. I don’t know what they’d have
done if I’d claimed to be the divine Son of God. They’d probably have
thought I’d gone nuts.
Which, it appears, is exactly what some of Jesus’ family
thought. In our first reading for tonight, we’re told that when they
heard about what Jesus was doing “they went to take charge of him, for they
said, “He is out of his mind.”
That had to be hard on Jesus. He probably understood
it, but it still had to be hard. Here he was, doing what he was supposed
to do, doing what God wanted him to do. He was trying to save people from
the consequences of their sins. And his
own family did not believe in him. In fact, they thought he’d gone
crazy. I would think that must have
really hurt Jesus.
You know, in our society--in most societies, really--we
elevate the idea of the family to a really high place. Sometimes we
elevate it to the highest place. You’ll
hear people say “My family is the most important thing in the world to me.”
“I would do anything for my family.”
Now, there are families and there are families, and we don’t always
honor that high place for family in the way we live our lives. But even
if not, we at least honor the idea of the importance of family. If our family is not that way, a lot of times
we wish it was.
Now, it’s obviously not wrong to care about your family.
But it’s interesting, I think, that Jesus never said that our earthly
family should be the most important thing to us. What Jesus said, pretty
consistently, is that the most important thing to us should be doing God’s will. And he also said that you and I need to be
willing to do what Jesus did. We need to be willing to give up anything,
even our family, in order to follow God.
When Jesus’ family came to get him, thinking he was nuts,
they could not get through the crowd. So they sent word for someone to
tell Jesus they were there. When Jesus
hears his mother and brothers are there, he says “Who are my mother and my
brothers?...Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”
And in our reading from Matthew, Jesus goes even farther.
He says, “Everyone who has left...brothers or sisters or father or mother
or wife or children...for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will
inherit eternal life.”
There’s a time in Luke where Jesus says something similar,
too. In fact, he says it twice.
Jesus is trying to get people to follow him. And we read, “He said
to another man, ‘Follow me.’
But he replied, ‘Lord, first
let me go and bury my father.’ Jesus said to him, ‘Let the dead bury their
own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.’ Still another
said, ‘I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my
family.’ Jesus replied, ‘No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks
back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.’
Now, I don’t think Jesus was telling us that we all need to
hate our families. But at the same time, he does not mince words about
it, either. No matter how much we may
love our families, we need to love God more. No matter how important our
families are to us, God needs to be more important. This is not one of those times where Jesus is
vague. This is not one of those times where
people heard what Jesus said and were not sure what he meant. Maybe it’s
partly because of the experience Jesus had with his own family, I don’t
know. But Jesus was totally and
completely clear about this. Nothing,
not even our families, should be as important as God.
How many of us can say that’s true for us? To be
honest, I don’t know if I can. I don’t
know that I’ve ever been asked to choose between my family and God. I
said that some of them wondered if I knew what I was doing when I went to
seminary, but none of them opposed me.
In fact, once they saw I was committed to doing it they were very
supportive. And all of you have been very supportive of me going to see
my parents every few weeks, and you’ve done a lot to support Wanda when I have
to be gone sometimes. I hope that, if I
was put to the test, I would choose God, but I don’t think I can say for sure
that I would, because I’ve never been tested.
You see, this is where claiming to be a follower of Jesus
gets tricky. Because if we mean it, if we truly say we’re going to follow
Jesus, then we need to be willing to do what Jesus did. Jesus was willing
to leave his earthly family in order to follow God’s will. And you and I, if we truly are followers of
Jesus, need to be willing to do the same if that’s what God wants us to do.
And as I said, I cannot say for sure that I can. I’ve
never been tested. But it is something I
need to be aware of. It’s something that all of us need to be aware
of. Again, the point is not that we should
all hate our families. The point is that they should not come before
God. Nothing, not even our families,
should be as important as God. That was
true for Jesus. It needs to be true for you and me, too.
Jesus says, “Follow me.” Jesus says, be willing to
leave everything behind to follow me. Jesus says don’t even take time to
say good-bye to your family. Follow me.
Jesus says if you want to be my brother or my sister, then you need to do
God’s will. Whoever does God’s will is my brother or sister.
That’s what Jesus said. I have no reason to think he
did not mean it or that he was not serious about it. To be honest, I hope
I’m never put to the test on this one. I
hope you’re never put to the test, either. But we need to be ready. Because if we ever are put to the test, we
need to pass it.
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