The sermon this day (Immanuel, 2 Michigan Street NE, Grand Rapids) was only loosely based on Mark 3:30-35, for to follow it honestly and strictly, one would have had to come to a far different conclusion than that Jesus intended to bless some conception of the traditional family, by which he supposedly encouraged people to marry and have children for an indefinite future as part of God's plan for the human race from the foundation of the world.
On the contrary, Jesus' teaching that his real brother, sister and mother is "whosoever shall do the will of God" is posited over and against the news announced in the pericope that "thy mother and thy brethren without seek for thee."
"They're not my real family," he might have said in so many words.
No wonder people close to him, and perhaps members of his own family, said, "He is beside himself" (Mark 3: 21). That opinion was much debated among "the Jews" according to John 10, some of whom contended that possession by a demon had driven him mad (vs. 20).
Well, why not? Jesus' outrageous message of repentance meant repudiating one's entire life as it existed at the time of the call, to the extent that the most basic societal obligations had to go. "Let the dead bury their own dead." "Say goodbye to everything you have." "Come, follow me." Only a madman would ask you to quit your job, stop supporting your family, not "be there" for your sons and daughters, and follow some cult leader around the country.
It is remarkable that the evidence for this world-renouncing ethic yet remains buried in the stuff of the gospels when you consider how much the eschatological worldview which presupposes it has been scrubbed and re-interpreted in the interests of the Pauline gospel of salvation based on Jesus' crucifixion and resurrection. But its ugly head pops up all over the place, ever to be massaged and explained away in this church and that, or simply avoided, while attempting otherwise to make the Bible relevant to the people in the pew, and to maintain the status quo.
But however that may be, it does seem ever less relevant. The desperation of the circumstances of the denomination of church I visited this day was plain enough. The average age in the denomination is now 67, we were told. 67! This church is not only not making converts among the young, it long ago failed to reproduce itself in sufficient quantities by adhering to the conception of "the traditional family." Such children as they have had have not stayed, or have not been large enough in number to affect this perilous signpost of coming extinction.
It's as if these people have somehow taken Jesus all too seriously after all, even though they have not.
Crazy indeed.
