Who is My Family? These are my mother and brothers. Obedience is thicker than blood. The person who obeys my heavenly Father’s will are my brother, my sister, and mother. Matthew 12:46-50

Matthew 12:46-50 New Revised Standard Version

The True Kindred of Jesus

⁴⁶ While he was still speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers were standing outside, wanting to speak to him. ⁴⁷ Someone told him, ‘Look, your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.’^{[a] 48}  But to the one who had told him this, Jesus^[b] replied, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ ⁴⁹ And pointing to his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! ⁵⁰ For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.’

Word of God for the Children of God

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

Can I begin to imagine this scene? Jesus’ beloved family comes by as he is preaching. Here He seizes the chance to widen that fortunate group.

He is not callously denying or ignoring family ties, but is instead, extending them into the Kingdom of God with a gesture that is like an ordination. When he points to the group of disciples, can I imagine that I am standing among them?

What is there to reflect on, to meditate over, pray to the Holy Spirit for clarity?

Reflection:

Belonging to God is basic relationship, prior to all human relations. We came from God before we came from father and mother. (Psalm 139:13-18)

Psalm 139:13-18 Revised Standard Version

¹³ For thou didst form my inward parts,
    thou didst knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise thee, for thou art fearful and wonderful.^[a]
    Wonderful are thy works!
Thou knowest me right well;
¹⁵     my frame was not hidden from thee,
when I was being made in secret,
    intricately wrought in the depths of the earth.
¹⁶ Thy eyes beheld my unformed substance;
    in thy book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
    when as yet there was none of them.
¹⁷ How precious to me are thy thoughts, O God!
    How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ If I would count them, they are more than the sand.
    When I awake, I am still with thee.^[b]

Still there are times during our journey of life when family goes second to God.

How would Mary have taken this statement?

Was she being diminished?

Her faith was deep and was strong enough to know her spiritual relationship to her Son was stronger even that the human mother-son relationship.

Reflection:

The relationship we have with Jesus is founded on something deeper than even the deepest human relationships of family.

We are the family of God and are brother and sister to Jesus when we try to do God’s will and to make God’s kingdom come.

Prayer deepens our appreciation of the values of the kingdom of God: justice, holiness, peace, compassion, faith, and love – all central to the life of Jesus.

Reflection:

I wonder what did his mother and family want to speak to him about?

The evidence is they were coming from home to take him back home. Jesus, with his radical teaching, and challenging religious views, was becoming an embarrassment if not a danger to his family.

Jesus’ way of life would lead him into opposition with those closest to him, his family.

Reflection:

Jesus counts me among his closest, his next-of-kin.

I show that this is my identity as I do the will of God.

When you hear the word family, what usually comes to mind?

Where I grew up, a family was generally made up of a husband and wife and their biological children.

Some families also had adopted children. Some couples did not have children, and some parents were separated or divorced. But the most common family in that time and culture was the nuclear family. In the Bible and in today’s world, though, it’s less common to find families fitting that biblical description.

When Jesus’ family tried to get a message to him as crowds gathered around him, he saw an opportunity for a teaching moment and said, “Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus was helping his followers to describe a new kind of family, a community bound by something more powerful than the blood in our veins.

This is not a rejection of the biological family. It’s an invitation to a bigger, richer family—the family of God, with whom we live in the kingdom of God.

By this narrative text you and I are invited to meet family members in your own community/neighborhoods where you work and live, in my biological family, and in other family groups that are too often a hidden or invisible part of life.

May God’s Holy Spirit work in us all to recognize the beautiful gift of his family in the relationships and communities we are a part of—no matter how different or diverse they might be.

Reflection

I pray that I may do the will of God with joy and courage, perhaps praying the ‘Our Father’ as I now ask that God’s will be done in this world as it is in heaven.

In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,

Praying …

Psalm 103:11-18 Revised Standard Version

¹¹ For as the heavens are high above the earth,
    so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him;
¹² as far as the east is from the west,
    so far does he remove our transgressions from us.
¹³ As a father pities his children,
    so the Lord pities those who fear him.
¹⁴ For he knows our frame;
    he remembers that we are dust.

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass;
    he flourishes like a flower of the field;
¹⁶ for the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
    and its place knows it no more.
¹⁷ But the steadfast love of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting
    upon those who fear him,
    and his righteousness to children’s children,
¹⁸ to those who keep his covenant
    and remember to do his commandments.

Glory be to the Father,
and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost;
as it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end. Amen, amen.

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