The Downtown Presbyterian Church

Sermons

Who Are Your Brothers And Sisters?

Mark 3:31-35

Rev. Kenneth M. Locke

30^th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Nashville, TN

One of the things we human beings are very good at is taking something good and wanting it more than we want to love God, wanting it more than we want to serve God, wanting it so much we turn it into an idol. Money, power, fame; drugs, alcohol, you fill in the blank: wanting them more than wanting God makes them idols and makes us idol worshippers.

Worshipping our manicured lawns more than worshiping God, putting more thought into home decorations than into loving God: harder to see and not as obviously destructive they are no less dangerous and no less sinful than worshipping our wallets or another human being.

I think one of the most prevalent idols in our society today is the family. We see advertisements for family vacations and family movies. We have family leave policies and “good, clean family fun.” Families are privileged in everything from public opinion to tax-laws to public housing. Our society, and I day say many of us, worship the Norman Rockwell Mom, Dad and 2.5 children much more than we worship God.

In so doing we are actively committing idolatry by placing families ahead of God. And all those churches advertising “family centered worship” and “family life centers” are right there in it. They are sending a message to couples without children, and single parents, and widows and the divorced and the never married, “you’re not good enough. To be normal you must be married with children and have a big turkey at Christmas and Thanksgiving.” When churches “Focus on the Family,” to borrow from Charles Dobson, they disenfranchise everyone who does not fit their notion of a model family. I recently heard a 25-year-old woman, who does not attend our church, saying her biggest problem finding a church is finding one that is happy with her being single, finding one that does not subtly pressure her to marry and have children.

Now depending on your point of view I’m either very brave or grossly insensitive. There are families all over this sanctuary, and Amy and Herb have invited their families to join us for Clay’s baptism. How can I stand here and be against families?

First of all, I’m not against families. Certainly many families are evil, dangerous places. But on the whole families raise us and nurture us, supporting us when times are hard, holding us up when we stumble. These basic building blocks of society can do tremendous good.

What I’m against is idolatry in any form. And I’m as guilty of this particular idolatry as anyone. I find myself much more interested in attracting young families to our worship than single people in their 50s. The stones I cast at others I also cast at myself.

Fortunately, our scriptures help us find a healthy approach to families, an approach that honors human relations without making them into idols. Our scripture passage this morning doesn’t seem very significant at first. Sure, everyone who does the will of Jesus is his brother or sister. We’ve heard that 100 times. But what we might not notice is that Jesus is presenting a radical restructuring of both Jewish and Greco-Roman society. Jesus is saying family is not a matter of bloodlines, family is a matter of behavior. And doing so he includes in his family single people, and childless people, and parents whose children have turned against them and children whose parents have died or who are estranged from their parents.

Inclusion in that family is part of what we celebrate in baptism. Baptizing Clay is not just about Clay. Baptizing Clay is a reminder to all of us in our baptisms we are no longer alone, estranged, odd, out of place. Baptism is about belonging to the family of God, a family that does not usurp God but is enabled and nurtured by God.

And it is through being a member of this divine family we can begin having a healthy human family. Only by experiencing God’s love in our lives do we have a clue what it means to love our parents, our brothers and sisters, our spouses and children and cousins and nieces and nephews. Until we have felt God’s forgiveness for betraying God, until we have known God’s peace in being still with God, until we have experienced God’s joy in doing the will of God, we don’t know a thing about offering forgiveness, peace and joy to one another.

Jesus is telling us families are important. And I hope your family, whatever form it takes, is a source of joy for you. But Jesus is also telling us what matters most is not the people to whom we are related by birth. They are human, and no matter our good intentions we must not love them more than God. What matters most, and will help us love our human families with the love God shows to us, is being one of the brothers and sisters of Christ who love and minister and care in his name.

Thank God we have such a family. Amen.