​

FAMILIES

Pastor Michael Jarick

​

        There’s an old saying, “You can choose your friends, but you can’t choose your family.” We are stuck with our families, aren’t we, for better or worse? I’m very grateful for the family I was born into. My parents weren’t perfect, but they loved me and did the best they could. And neither was I perfect.

         After a long day at District Synod last week I was driving back to my hotel in Toowoomba. I was disappointed that my brother and my friend Pastor Matt had gone home early after succumbing to COVID. As I drove past the Spotted Cow, a watering hole in the main street, I thought, “A pint of Guiness would hit the spot!”

        As I approached the bar, an interesting looking character sidled up alongside me. He looked like he had just arrived from Nimbin or the Woodford Folk Festival. “What are ya drinkin’, bigfella? he asked. When I said “Guiness” he said, “Let me guess what you do for a living? I thought “This will be interesting. Nobody ever guesses ‘pastor’.

        His first guess that I was a public servant. His second guess was that I was a lawyer. I decided to put him out of his misery and told him that I was a Lutheran pastor. As he drank his pale ale and me my glass of stout he launched into a critique of Christianity over its effect on indigenous cultures and its handling of abusive church leaders. He was polite, but very forceful. I thought. “Hmm! There’s something going on here! And before I could think of a way to formulate my question sensitively, he told me that he had been abused all his childhood. I responded that it is easier for me to look at the world with trust and hope because I had a safe and loving family.

 

        In the Gospel for today one of the key ideas concerns family. What Jesus has been saying and doing is quite unexpected in Jewish life. The religious authorities are so utterly stirred up that Jesus’ family feel compelled to take charge of Jesus. They declare him to be ‘out of his mind’, and to minimize any further embarrassment and shame they try to remove Jesus.

 

        Scribes from Jerusalem try to diagnose what is wrong with Jesus. Their diagnosis is even worse than what the family thought. They are deeply uncomfortable about the stories of Jesus driving out demons and so they attack him with a terrible insult by declaring that Jesus has ‘Beelzebub’ in him. Ba’al zebub was the name the Jewish people gave to the Canaanite fertility god that they encountered when they entered the Promised Land. It meant ‘Lord of the Flies’ or the ‘Lord of the Exalted’. The Canaanites called on Ba’al zebub to protect the people and their crops from insects.

 

        It looks like the Jews were making fun of this fertility god by calling the god ‘Ba’al zeboul’ which means ‘Lord of the dung!’ This terrible name is what they call Jesus. In their eyes Jesus is no better than a heap of cow dung.

 

        How will Jesus respond to this terrible insult? First, Jesus points out the false logic in their accusation. He says that if a kingdom is divided against itself it cannot stand. Then Jesus tells a parable about a strong man being tied up so that the thief can rob his house.

       

       Jesus is saying that he is more powerful than Satan. Jesus has come into the world so that he can tie up Satan and take out of his house everything he has stolen from God.

 

        Then Jesus warns the Scribes about the seriousness of their attitude to him, when he refers to blasphemy against the Holy Spirit as an eternal sin, one that cannot be forgiven. I’ll leave that topic for a more thorough examination another day.

 

        Presumably the Scribes leave, and Jesus goes back to the crowd of supporters who have gathered together in the house. Before long a message is received. ‘Lord, your mother and brothers are outside looking for you’. This is a very interesting and important part of the story. What might we have expected Jesus to say? Something like, “OK. I’ll be out in a minute!”

 

        Rather, he asks, ‘Who are my mother and brothers?’ I can picture him looking around the crowd in the room as he says, ‘Here is my mother and here are my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.’

 

        It seems that Mary – to whom the angel visited to tell her that she would conceive and give birth to the Saviour – had lost sight of what Jesus had come to do. Was she starting to believe the accusations of the religious leaders? Was she embarrassed by her son?

 

        Jesus knows that his family has misunderstood who he is. In questioning Jesus’ sanity, they are in effect rejecting his ministry. So he says to the crowd, the disciples and those gathered in the room to be with him and listen to him, that they are his spiritual family. He now has a new mother and new brothers and sisters.

 

        But he does not forget his family. Remember the scene at the foot of the cross when he charges his friend John with the responsibility of looking after Mary, saying, “Woman, here is your son”, then to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”  From that hour he took her to his home (John 19:26,27).

 

        So, friends in Christ, when there are new people joining the congregation or perhaps people coming back after many years, Jesus does the introducing: ‘Friends, here is your brother, here is your sister!’ But I believe Jesus is saying more to us here. Families are God’s way of surrounding us with care. When Jesus entered the house that day, he was surrounded by people who supported and cared for him.

 

        That’s how it should be with our congregation. We open our doors and we open our hearts to those who want to take refuge in this place that God uses to care for people. Changes can cause us anxiety, and newcomers to church might make us feel anxious about what happens at church. God reminds us like he reminded the Israelites in Deuteronomy 10:19, “For you must show love to strangers for you were once strangers in Egypt’.

 

        Isn’t it wonderful that we were able to celebrate on Pentecost Day, about a month ago, the number of different places that our families have originated from? From all over the world we are one family in Christ.

 

          It’s true that it’s not always easy to welcome the stranger in our midst. How easy we find it can depend on our own experiences. If we felt rejected by a parent or not accepted by the other kids at school, if we feel like an outsider, then we understand what it is like to be a stranger, and maybe we can have a deeper appreciation of what it means to be welcomed into the warm embrace of God’s family. Let us be that family that takes in people whoever they are, who shows them an open-hearted welcome, and who grow together in the love that comes from our brother Jesus.  

 

        We receive God’s hospitality every Sunday. We are washed clean in the confession and absolution. God feeds us with his Word, and then we share in the Lord’s Supper. Then God sends us out to be hospitable with the gospel in our homes, our schools and unis, our places of work and leisure.

 

        Whether we are old or young, in good shape or losing our shape, we can be hospitable and share love. People who are new to our congregation and those who are part of the furniture not only need brothers and sisters, they also need fathers and mothers, grandmothers and grandfathers. For those who have lost their older family members you may indeed be filling a grandparent sized hole in someone’s heart by loving them.

​

        So let us embrace in love and care for those who come to us looking for a place to call home. Pray about your role in that calling. Who amongst those here today can you be family to? When you leave this place, who do you know that needs a sister or brother, a mother or a dad? May God bless our family, grow our family, and equip our family to be a safe, loving, and Godly place.  Amen.