Mom and I - circa mid 1970’s It’s about as important of a question as they come. Who is my family? It seems synonymous to another question: Where do I belong? Apparently Jesus instinctively paired them together as recorded in the twelfth chapter of Mathew, verses forty-six through fifty. While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” damn, jesus, that’s cold!I’ve written elsewhere about my close connection with my mother. While it is not universally true, there does seem to be a special connection between mothers and their sons just as there often is between fathers and their daughters. I can certainly attest to both. When it comes to the former, that is what makes these supposed words of Jesus all the more shocking. Certainly by all biblical accounts, Mary and Jesus did not have a cold and distant relationship. Mary is portrayed as having both a warm affection and subtle reverence for her son as a young child (Luke 2:19). And Jesus, even while in the deepest of agony while he hung on the cross, was so committed to his mother that he took time to appoint a disciple to care for her in view of his immanent death (John 19:25-27). And yet on another occasion when informed that his mom, along with his brothers, were waiting outside and wanted to speak to him, Jesus basically told the crowd that his gang of often clueless disciples were more family than the woman who gave birth to him and raised him! I mean, damn, Jesus, that’s cold! He goes on to clarify that what qualifies someone as a member of his family is if they do “the will of the Father”. But wasn’t the very fact that she was his mother based on an angelic declaration of God’s favor on her life (Luke 1:30)? Isn’t it fair to assume that said favor is based, at least in part, on a fair amount of effort on Mary’s part to follow a righteous path? But none of that mattered now in this moment for Jesus and Mary. On that day, Mary and her other children wouldn’t receive from Jesus even the attention commonly provided to distant relatives. the loss of familyWhat caused Jesus to be so harsh? Well we get a hint in another passage in the book of Mark (3:21), where we learn that apparently the fever pitch of Jesus’ self-ascribing Messianic talk had gotten too extreme for the family, even though Mary was given plenty of advance warning about Jesus’ unique, God-ordained mission (Luke 1:32-33). According to Mark, Mary and Jesus’ brothers thought he was “out of his mind”. Well I am NO Jesus, believe you me! But in this story I find some sense of a shared experience and therefore some fellowship with this man from nearly 2,000 years ago. The last few years have been very hard because I have grieved the loss of so many loved ones, not from physical deat