Reflection for August 7, 2013

"Here are my mother and my bothers/! Whoever does the will of
God is my brother sister and mother." (Mark 3:34b-35)

All of us have families.  I still have my mother and father who I see periodically throughout the year and certainly talk on the phone to frequently.  I am glad to still have a good relationship with them, and that they are still in good health.  I know not everyone is blessed to still have their parents around and in some cases the relationship is so strained they are in some ways dead.  I also have a sister who again I see from time to time, speak to occasionally. Our relationship is also fine.  We don't live close enough to each other to have family weekends and our children's schedules are also road blocks to seeing each other.  I did just see her and am glad that she is my sister.

I of course have my own family.  A wife and two sons.  They bring me much joy and also stress, but nothing out of the ordinary.  I hope to maintain that level of warmth and affection as we grow older too.

I have  other families, people who I have connections to in different ways. There is my church family, my family of Grinnell alums, my colleagues in ministry.  There is a bond of affection that while again I don't see these folks often, I'm always glad when I do.

I try not to set conditions as to who is my family. At first glance it would seem that Jesus rejects traditional family definitions and puts conditions on who's in his family.  What I see Jesus inviting us to is a place of seeing all folks who we come in contact with as family.  Can we muster the same level of warmth and compassion that we might give to those who we share some real DNA with?

Can we also find in others a sense of family that may be lacking in our own?  We need to be careful of projecting to much family dynamics onto what is really community.  But there are parallels and sometimes much like heredity, being part of the larger human family can be hard to escape.

Blessings,
Ed