Redefining Family

(Posted June 6, 2024)

“Family isn't always blood. It's the people in your life who want you in theirs; the ones who accept you for who you are. The ones that would do anything to see you smile and who love you no matter what.” – unknown

It’s always a surprise. Just when you think your family are the people that know you best, something happens to reveal that they really don’t know you, or at the very least, don’t understand who you’ve become over the years since you left home.

How Jesus Redefined His Family

The same thing happens to Jesus in the Gospel this Sunday. He’s returned to Nazareth as a “hometown boy,” but this time Jesus isn’t just the late Joseph the Carpenter’s son. Now  he is renowned for healing people, for teaching a covenant of compassion for others, for prophesying and welcoming the most downtrodden and outcast people in the land.

 Jesus’ own family feared that he had been seized by some kind of dark spirit. The scribes of the Temple, true to form, couldn’t wrap their heads around the growth of this young Rabbi into the one who would lead the people closer to God. So they labeled him as possessed by Beelzebub – Satan.

Who Is Your New Family?

But Jesus is the one who clarifies for them all that their new family isn’t simply their blood relatives, but all those who hear the new message of God’s covenant, and do the will of God. These, Jesus tells us, are our “brothers and sisters” - and that includes the outcast and the humble.

As followers of Jesus, we really do understand what a lonely, solitary road this is for God’s son, who brings the light of his truth to people who may not fully appreciate its holiness, and healing. Let us, whenever we cannot see eye to eye, remember our status as part of the same family of God, and seek reconciliation.