Home Is That Place...

Mark 3:20-25

You’ve probably heard it said that home is the place that, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Robert Frost said it first, and we’ve turned it into a truism. 

But it doesn’t seem to be true for Jesus today.

He’s home - in Capernaum, his home base as a teacher, a rabbi - and he’s in trouble.

He’s experiencing a tremendous surge in popularity - so overwhelmed that he and his friends can’t even eat - trouble enough, already - and then his family arrive, conspiring with the religious authorities to shut him down. “Throw him out” not “take him in.”

The religious leaders want him off the public stage because his popularity and success undermine their authority.  They spread rumors that he’s demon-possessed, a servant of Satan. That would make him unclean, possibly dangerously contagious, not to mention just dangerous. You’d think that would thin the crowds, but it doesn’t work.

His family are just responding to the people who have been telling them he’s nuts; “out of his mind.” Perhaps they want to protect him; certainly they want to get him out of that crowd before it turns into a riot, just calm things down before it gets dangerous.

It’s reasonable, given what they know, but it’s conflict, not welcome. Suppression, not sanctuary.

No wonder, then, that Jesus redefines family; redefines home.

It’s easy to read his question “who are my mother and my brothers?” as a rejection of his biological family, replacing the ties of childhood and heritage with a family he likes better.

Fourth-grade emotional responses are not uncommon in the Bible, and not generally considered unGodly, either, but that’s not the point of the story.

Jesus is adding to his family, not rejecting it.

Jesus is adopting all these people: a big, motley crowd, including, no doubt, folks you wouldn’t really want to take home to Mother. 

Jesus is adopting them - us - as children of God, family who live in God’s house, share the food and the sofa and the laundry and the TV remote and all the responsibilities.

It’s as mind-blowing as outright rejecting his birth family would be. For his first hearers, being adopted as Jesus’ parent or sibling isn't a comforting assurance that we’ll always be there for one another - it’s a certainty-wrecking identity change,

a shifting of all of your assumptions about your relationships and obligations to strangers and friends alike.

Among other things, now there’s a whole ravenous crowd around you that you’re obligated to “take in” when they have to go home with you…
On the upside - maybe - now there’s a crowd that has to take you in, too.

And you can’t get away from Jesus, either, when he’s your brother. 

No matter how much he upsets the authorities (and gets you in trouble) or makes you question your faith, now you’re stuck with a life of miracles and transformations and the kind of spiritual fervor that’s probably pretty embarrassing at work or in public.

Adoption into the family of Jesus, into the family of God, is a gift. But it’s complex and challenging much more than it’s meant to be comforting or comfortable.

And Jesus doesn’t make it any easier by reminding us that a house divided against itself cannot stand.

Think about that. How many of you have never (ever) fought with the brothers or sisters your parents gave you? (If you’re an only child and you argued with your parents, put your hand down.)

Now how many of you have never had a disagreement - open or silent - with another one of God’s children, another member of the church, say?

Fortunately, not all tension is a bad thing.

It can be creative, it can even work architecturally to keep a house standing.

But divisions are deadly.

And they’re sadly easy. Because not only are there disagreeable people in God’s house, God’s family. There are people we want to keep ourselves separated from - not always deliberately - often unconsciously.

People it would radically change us to unite with.  

People whose lives we fear, in one way or another.

There are the folks who try to sleep at PADS - and end up falling asleep in the library the next day, or bringing their own fears and disagreements into our public spaces.

Children of God, sisters of Jesus, brothers of you and me, with all the home-coming obligations that implies (not just at church, by the way!).

There are the People who are Ruining Our Country.
Whatever your political flavor, mild or strong, there’s at least one politician and an interest group out there that wants to change something you hold dear about our laws or culture.

“Those People” are family of Jesus, family of ours. Family we can disagree with, but can’t divide ourselves from.

Each of us has other folks we’d love to be divided from.

People it’s easy to either hate or forget because they do nothing but annoy you and you can’t understand them.  People whose actions I want nothing to do with - that I’d rather ignore than engage. People who bore you, people who embarrass you. People who use up the attention and resources I need.

What would it be like to call those people family?

To “take them in,” shelter them from danger, feed them, not once, but until they’re ready to leave.

Doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, but you do have to recognize yourself in them and them in you.

What would it be like to receive shelter from them, to depend on them, have them share your joy and feel your pain?

You don’t have to be friends with your brothers and sisters; don’t have to invite them to all your parties, don’t have to give them the keys after they’ve wrecked your car, or hurt you.

But we do have to be united:

to hurt for one another in tragedy and grief,

rejoice for one another in success and in grace (even when I wanted that success for myself, yes),

and give our hearts to the truth that we share a home.

Call it earth, call it our community, define it how you will,

Jesus reminds us that “home” doesn’t belong to us alone,

but our home is that place where all God’s children find refuge.

Because in that home,

when we have to go there,

those unplanned siblings of ours have to take us in,

into God's home.