The Family of Christ
Pentecost and Mother’s Day
Mark 3:31-35; Romans 12:4-8; I John 3:16
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Harry G. Winsheimer
May 11, 2008

Tell me about your family.  I am new here.  I don’t know who is related to whom.  Mothers, when I ask you who is in your family, whom would you name?  That question often is asked of Charlotte and me as you get to know us.

When Charlotte and I began dating, we asked her to tell me about her family.  Both of our families were presbyterian and shared the same values.  In every other way our families were poles apart.  I grew up in a farm family in Indiana County, Pennsylvania.  Charlotte grew up in Flushing, Queens County, New York City.  Two very different backgrounds!  Charlotte’s mother came from a family that traced its ancestry to the days when New York was New Amsterdam.  Charlotte told me that her mother did not believe there was anyone or anything worthwhile west of the Hudson River.  Believe me.  That was true!  Charlotte beamed when she described her father -- loving, gallant, fun.  Also, true.  And, she told me about her crazy great aunts.  Charlotte described the four sisters by their hair at a funeral.  Great Aunt Dorothea’s was red, Florence’s was white, Gertrude’s was blue and Frances’ was black.  (It is fun talking about Charlotte’s family.)  

Tell us about your family? Who is your family?  Some of you must have some very interesting relatives.

Mary and her children heard about the member of their family who was creating the biggest clamor that the area had heard.  Today, he would be the lead story in The Gettysburg Times and on Channel 8, maybe the national news.  He had healed a man of a withered hand—fantastic!  But, he did it in an unorthodox way that was not approved by the Food and Drug Administration of the day.  He did it on the Sabbath.  Deliberate violation of protocol.    Then he healed others.  Sick people stumbled over themselves to get to him.  Well, this was too much.  Even his friends thought that he had gone too far.  They went to seize him, for they said, “He is beside himself.”  He has flipped out.  Mark 3:21  Officials were offended.  Probably they sensed that they were loosing control.  Jesus was too popular.  Crowds can turn rowdy.  They announced sanctimoniously, “He is possessed by Beelzebul, and by the prince of demons he casts out the demons.”  Their condemnation was designed to deflate his notoriety!  Did not. 

Jesus went into a house.  People packed in around him.  His mother and brothers came to rescue him from the demanding crowds and scheming city hall, from himself.  They intended to take him home where they could get him back to normal.  They could not get in, so they sent word through the crowd that they wanted to see him.  Ah, a teaching moment!   Jesus asked those packed around him, “Who are my mother and my brothers?”  I imagine Jesus making a sweep of his arms over the jammed room as he explained himself, “Here are my mother and my brothers!”

We don’t know if Mary and the brothers felt spurned.  We don’t know if Jesus went out to talk with them.  We do know that he continued to have contact with Mary.  When he was hanging on the cross, Mary was there, along with her sister.  Looking down from the cross at her, and seeing the disciple John nearby, Jesus said to his mother, “He is your son.”  Then he said to John, “She is your mother.”  From that time on, John took Mary to live in his home.  It was Jesus’ way to taking care of her. John 19:25-27 No, this was not rejection of his biological family. 

It was his way of saying that he had another family.

Who is in his other family?  Those who center on Jesus.  Those who gather around him.  Those who listen to him.  Those who take him into their hearts. 

We have gathered around Jesus the Christ.  His arms come over us!  That makes me feel great!  It makes me humbly proud.  Does it lift your spirit?  I am about to do an un-presbyterian thing: I am going to ask you a question to which you may answer aloud.  Yes or no, are you members of Christ’s family? 

Then, Jesus kept talking.  I wish that Jesus had just stopped when we felt so good.  But, he added a condition.  He added an “if”.

“Whoever does the will of God is my brother, my sister, and my mother.”  What is the verb?  Does.  What is the requirement for adoption into the family? To do God’s will.

Who is in the family?  Those who do God’s will.

Sounds like our biological families, doesn’t it?  There is a parent, a head, who has values that are expected of the family, and the attitudes and behaviors that reflect those values.

I saw a family cleaning their garage.  (It is that time of year.)  I can imagine how the conversation may have gone.  Two weeks ago, the parents announced that the garage needed to be cleaned. The mess from the winter needed to be washed out.  Plus, there had accumulated piles of toys and junk that needed to be sorted, thrown away or properly stored.  Yesterday morning, father and mother got up.  Father inquired, as if he did not suspect, “Where is John, still in bed?”  Father knocked on John’s door.  Pounded.  Then yelled.  Finally John muttered, “What do you want?”  Father reminded him.  “Can’t you and Mom do it?  I don’t have anything in the garage.”  Father sternly said, “You drive the car, don’t you?  Well, the car is in the garage.  The family uses the garage.  The family will clean the garage.  Son, you are in the family!  Let’s get to it!”  Minutes later, vehicles were being moved, bikes wheeled out, the old street hockey net carried to the garbage.  The family was at work doing the parent’s will, for the blessing of all.  John wanted to belong to the family without participating in the family, and obeying the head of the family.

A pervasive belief today is that you may be Christian without participating in the family’s life and work.  Being a Christian is an individual thing, it is said.   The religious individualists proclaim, “Church is a bunch of bickering, political, status-conscious, judgmental hypocrites.“ [That is true!  Absolutely true.]  They continue, “Therefore, I don’t want to have any part of church.  I can be Christian on my own.”  The biblical assumption is that when one follows Jesus, one becomes a member of Jesus’ family, in mutual support.   The assumption in the New Testament is that following Jesus and obeying God will make a believer a member of the Christ’s family.  The New Testament does not know of today’s isolated individualism.  In the New Testament, to follow Jesus is to be a member of his visible family, the church.   A key passage is I John 3:16.  In The Message, the verse is translated in a clear way:  “This is how we have come to understand and experience love: Christ sacrificed his life for us.  This is why we ought to live sacrificially for our fellow believers.”  Another is Romans 12:5: “…so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.”  We are many, yet one family of Christ.  Together we have the goal of doing the will of God.

Doing God’s means cleaning the garage.  Family work is to be done.  There is fun and there is warm-feeling stuff, and there is the care-giving labor and the missions of compassion, there is the telling of the story of Jesus to the young and to the neighbor, all that is family work.  We laugh together, and cry together.  We argue with each other.  We worship together.  That is family life.  We share and mutually support each other, consciously in the presence of Christ.

Listen to a story by Andrea Nannette Mejia in “Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul.”  Count the examples of Christ’s family doing God’s will.  You will need all the fingers on a hand.

It was the day before Thanksgiving—the first one my three children and I would be spending without their father, who had left several months before.  Now the two older children were very sick with the flu, and the eldest had just been prescribed bed rest for a week.
It was a cold, gray day outside, and a light rain was falling.  I grew wearier as I scurried around, trying to care for each child: thermometers, juice, diapers.  And I was fast running out of liquids for the children.  But when I checked my purse, all I found [were a few dollars]—and this was supposed to last me until the end of the month.  That’s when I heard the phone ring.
It was the secretary from our former church, and she told me that they had been thinking about us and had something to give us from the congregation.  I told her that I was going out to pick up some more juice and soup for the children, and I would drop by the church on my way to the market.
I arrived at the church just before lunch.  The church secretary met me at the door and handed me a special gift envelope.  “We think of you and the kids often,” she said, “and you are in our hearts and prayers.  We love you.”  When I opened the envelope, I found two grocery certificates inside… .  I was so touched and moved, I broke down and cried.
“Thank you very much,” I said, as we hugged each other.  “Please give our love and thanks to the church.”  Then I drove to a store near our home and purchased some much-needed items for the children.
At the check-out counter I  …   handed the cashier one of the gift certificates.  She took it, then turned her back for what seemed like a very long time.  I thought something might be wrong.  Finally I said, “This gift certificate is a real blessing.  Our former church gave it to our family, knowing I’m a single parent trying to make ends meet.”
The cashier then turned around, with tears in her loving eyes, and replied, “Honey, that’s wonderful!  Do you have a turkey?”
“No.  It’s okay because my children are sick anyway.”
She then asked, “Do you have anything else for Thanksgiving dinner?”
            Again I replied, “No.”
            After handing me the change from the certificate, she looked at my face and said, “Honey, I can’t tell you exactly why right now, but I want you to go back into the store and buy a turkey, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie or anything else you need for  a Thanksgiving dinner.”
            I was shocked, and humbled to tears. “Are you sure?” I asked.
            “Yes! Get whatever you want.  And get some Gatorade for the kids.”
            I felt awkward as I went back to do more shopping, but I selected a fresh turkey, a few yams and potatoes, and some juices for the children.  Then I wheeled the shopping cart up to the same cashier as before.  As I placed my groceries on the counter, she looked at me once more with giant tears in her kind eyes and began to speak.
            “Now I can tell you.  This morning, I prayed that I could help someone today, and you walked through my line.”  She reached under the counter for her purse and took out a $20 bill.  She paid for my groceries and then handed me the change.  Once more I was moved to tears.
            The sweet cashier then said, “I am a Christian.  Here is my phone number if you ever need anything.”  She then took my head in her hands, kissed my cheek and said, “God bless you, honey.”
            As I walked to my car, I was overwhelmed by this stranger’s love and by the realization that God loves my family, too, and shows us his love through this stranger’s and my church’s kind deeds.

How many examples did you count of Christ’s family doing God’s will?  The sacrificial commitment of the mother, the church giving gift certificates, the secretary’s verbalization of Christian love, the clerk giving money, the mother’s expressions of gratitude, the clerk praying the mature spiritual prayer (She did not pray to feel good, to be happy, to get anything for herself, but to be able to bless someone that day.).

This being Mother’s Day, we think about family.  Many of us will be on the phone with mother, or visiting family.  This is a family day in the life of the church, too.  Pentecost.  Years ago on the first Pentecost, over 3000 people became members of the family of Christ—visibly the church.  That is why we refer to today as the birthday of the church. 
It is a day for joining the family.

If you have not joined, I invite you to invest time with Jesus.  Study him, pray, reflect upon his invitation to follow him, consider committing and submitting yourself to him.  Then, we pray, you will become a member of his family, the church.

I am so thankful to be a member of Christ’s family.  Again, I am about to ask a question for you to answer aloud.  Answer aloud with a Yes or No.  Do you belong to Christ’s family?

Canfield, Hansen, Aubery and Mitchell, "Chicken Soup for the Christian Soul, " (Deerfield Beach, FL, Health Communications, Inc., 1997), chapter titled, "A Thanksgiving Story " by Andrea Nannette Mejia, pp. 97-99.

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