Sermon Reflections and More!
(scroll down and check out all the links in the left column!)

The Second Sunday after Pentecost                                       June 7, 2015


This Weekend's Readings (click each reading to view the passage)

Genesis 3:8-15Psalm 1302 Corinthians 4:13 - 5:1Mark 3:20-35
 
Pr. Christine's Sermon - Biblical Family Values
Pr. Christine's Sermon - Biblical Family Values

Children's Sermon - Extraordinarily Ordinary
Children's Sermon - Extraordinarily Ordinary

Choir Anthem - This Little Light of Mine
Choir Anthem - This Little Light of Mine




Like us on Facebook


View our videos on YouTube


Follow us on Twitter



Sermon Notes from Pastor Christine ... 

 

I grew up in a traditional family: one Caucasian mom, one Caucasian dad, and a biological brother 18 months younger than I.  My parents are to this day still married.  My mom stayed home for many of our formative years, volunteering for things like: Girl Scout cookie mom, room parent, and chief cheerleader for all the activities my brother and I participated in.  Dad worked.  He was a pilot, which as a young girl I always thought was cool, especially when he'd come home from some place exotic, like Mexico, and bring us marionette puppets.  

 

I have many of those idyllic American family memories: running through sprinklers in the backyard, lying on the top of the air conditioning unit in the sunshine, cookies waiting for me and my brother when we got off the school bus in the afternoon, long road trips to Grandma's house in the back of the Chevrolet Monza station wagon. 

 

This was my family.  

Not only that - this is how, at least from the vantage point of the carefully manicured lawns, ALL families looked.  

 

1 Mom + 1 Dad (typically white) = 2.5 kids (typically 1 boy, 1 girl, and the .5 child...who knows, that kid is 'up for grabs,' but that's how it statistically plays out).

This was the mathematical family equation.    

As far as I understood, my family was the norm; the real American model.

 

Family is a powerful force.  It defines us from our earliest moments.  At its best, family shapes our aspirations, giving us what we need to pursue dreams and teaching us how to live with and love others.  

 

Family is also a foundational concept in the Bible, beginning in Genesis with Adam and Eve, not with talk of nations and tribes...but families.

 

Big families. Real families. With moments of dysfunction so great it will make your head spin-and gives new meaning to "biblical family values."

 

Take for instance Isaac.  His dad (HIS DAD!) - Abraham - lays him on a stone altar, binds him up, and is ready to sacrifice him (meaning kill him!) in the name of God.  Not quite stellar parenting skills.  

 

There's Esau and Jacob - not the picture of an ideal sibling relationship. Jacob tricks Esau out of his birthright and is rewarded for his cunning behavior.  

 

Or King David.  He seduces a married woman and then has her husband placed on the front lines of the army so he's sure to die... just so David can have what he wants.  Cunning, deceitful man of God.    

 

And let's not forget Jesus' family.  The old adage of 'with friends/family like this who needs enemies' seems to be apropos.  His mother and brothers are ready to restrain his body with shackles to keep him quiet, because people about town are making outlandish charges that he's actually in league with demonic powers.  He's a complete embarrassment to the family name.   

 

Honestly, if you're looking for snapshots of well-adjusted, happy familial relationships, the Bible is most certainly NOT the place to look.  The 'proper' vision of what secularized Christianity has purported as Biblical family values isn't upheld in the Bible, nor is it upheld by Jesus.  

 

As a mother, I can't help but feel Jesus seems almost heartless as he gives no notice or care when his mother comes looking for him.  For goodness sake, she is his mother, after all.  

 

But in classic Jesus fashion, he riddles them with a question, "Who are my mother and my brothers?"

 

This seems pretty obvious to me...

But according to Jesus the answer isn't what we expect or assume.

 

So, what of Jesus' riddle?  Who are my mother and my brothers?  Who is my family?

 

I think the answer we often offer of, "We are all God's children, therefore we are all brothers and sisters" is too easy.  Jesus' widening and redefining of family is much more unsettling than easy platitudes. He's not just talking about niceties here.  

 

His views on acceptance, on love, and on families, utterly disrupted to status quo. Compassion and love are not synonymous with being nice and keeping the peace.  Jesus wasn't called to be nice but to serve God. And it gets Him in quite a bit of trouble.  

 

But nowadays Jesus is so benign He hardly creates a stir at all.  

 

Or maybe that's not quite true.  Maybe we just don't realize the holy ruckus that's wreaking havoc on our systems and so called family values today is Jesus' doing.

 

See, the reasons the religious and political leaders from 2000 years ago wanted to commit Him to the nearest sanitarium and the reason He ended up nailed to a cross was because He was too disruptive and dangerous to religion, politics, and society. Basically - He was messing with the order of how things are supposed to be.  

 

Jesus' ancient riddle is strikingly relevant and timely today.  Many states are struggling to define what constitutes a 'valid' family.  Many churches face this same difficulty.

 

Families systems don't look how they are 'supposed' to look. Nowadays American families are layered with divorce, issues of sexuality, varying ethnicities and socioeconomic impacts, and questions of fertility and offspring.  Hardly resembling those Norman Rockwell paintings.   

 

So, what is a "family" supposed to consist of today?  Can only certain kinds of families reflect God?  Can only certain families love well, enact mercy, and provide safe havens of belonging and wholeness?

 

I remember doing mental gymnastics for years after my divorce as I tried figure out how a single mom and three kids fit into the American ideal. Because we didn't.  It wasn't the original dream and it certain didn't reflect what I had grown up with...  But we had a lot of love, a heaping share of grace, and my children have grown to be some of the most accepting people I know.  

Now, years later I frequently say that I hope my family - with all that has been blended into it - can be a model of a new way of being family.

 

And when it comes to variations on family, I can't tell you how many married couples have told me they aren't viewed as a real family because they don't have children.  Heck. Even the tax laws unintentionally reinforce this notion.  It is as if their love and commitment to one another and God are inferior because they either choose not to have children or are unable to.  Are they somehow less than a family?

 

And then there's the controversial question of same-sex marriage.  It has brought the issue of 'family' front and center with a whole new vengeance.  

Same-sex couples know that their relationships and families are often slandered by statements which accuse them of being unable to remain monogamous, if they have children their children will 'miss out' on either a mom or a dad, and they are going 'against' nature.

 

For some, the institute of family has never felt more unstable and under attack than now.  

 

Hmmm....  I bet those religious zealots that tried to bind Jesus up and get him to stop talking felt the exact same way.  

 

There are states which have voted on or are debating constitutional amendments to limit what counts as a "valid" marriage, saying things like,

 

"This is our time to stand up and defend marriage as a unique institution that, from the beginning of human history and in every culture, is the union of one man and one woman for the propagation of the human family and the upbringing of children.

 

This statement - which was made in Minnesota as they struggle to define family - isn't ONLY a statement about same-sex couples, but also shames singles and couples without children.  

 

With statements such as these we have sought to define family by law, rather than by Gospel.  

 

However the Gospel clearly states that the nature of family is:

Whoever does the will of God are my mother and my brother and my sister.

Whoever does the will of God is family. 

 

Why put limits on what a family can look like?  Jesus didn't and isn't.  Do we need less love in the world?  Less people doing the will of God? 

 

Of course there are a multitude of variations on the family today, I've only mentioned a few:

Interracial families, adopted families, unmarried committed couples, Grandparents being parents, blended families, foster families, the widowed, and please don't forget singles.

All valid families according to Jesus.  

 

However, beyond the political and social realm, why does even this matter in the church? It matters because according to Jesus, when we put limits on family we miss out on family in all its fullness. And we miss out on experiencing God in His fullness.

 

Jesus wants more for us.

 

See, I'm not preaching this to say old values are flawed or wrong, but rather to ask us to consider how does reconsidering how we view family allow us to see and know God more authentically and deeply....?

 

Because I think that's Jesus' actual point in this convoluted riddle.

 

I wonder what a world would look like, feel like where people are never enslaved and bound by what love and family should be, but rather freed to give love generously and commit to it.  

 

Remember mathematical family equation?  1 Dad + 1 Mom = 2.5 kids? 

 

Jesus has a different equation which utilizes the laws of reflection, which basically states:

 

The closer we are to one another, the closer we become to God.  The closer we are to God, the closer we become to one another.

 

Jesus got into trouble for preaching about inclusively and acceptance and the truth is, if when embrace all people, all families, we may get into trouble too.

 

Eventually Jesus' extended family does bind him up and restrain him - on a cross. And there kneeling and wailing at the foot of it was his mother. She was always part of His life.  

 

The notion that all are accepted by God and loved by God - all are in the family of God - are the words of a madman. And His name is Jesus.

 

The expanse and fluidity of family is made manifest at the cross. On that defining day, His mother gains another son, as Jesus gives the disciple whom he loved to his mother saying, "Mother, here is your son."  And to the disciple, "Here is your mother." 

 

And looking to those who sat around him (which is 'code' for us), he said, "Here are my mothers and my brothers; here are my fathers and my sisters; here are my spouses and partners."

 

Here

is family.  Amen.