Tuesday, June 5, 2018

Proper 5 B - Mother Mary's response


Ever wonder what Jesus' mother might have felt like when Jesus asked "Who are my mother and my brothers?"

Proper 5 B
Sermon given on June 7, 2015
At St Michael’s, Gainesville FL
The Rev. Valerie Ann Hart
Mark 3:20-35

(Put a shawl over my head to represent playing the role of Mother Mary)

You, out there, who are parents - you will understand. We worry about our children. We want them to be safe and happy. You can understand why when people were saying that my son Jesus had gone out of his mind I felt I had to do something. He was always so gentle and kind. He loved to study and learn. Sure, he hadn’t found a wife and wasn’t interested in being a carpenter like his father, but I didn’t really start to worry about him until after he went to see his cousin John by the Jordan River. After he was baptized he disappeared for 40 days! Forty days and no one knew where he was! I was beside myself with worry. Then suddenly he shows up in a nearby town with followers and crowds of people surrounding him, begging for healing. People told me he couldn’t find time to eat! I also heard about how he was criticizing the scribes. I was afraid he would get into trouble. It can be dangerous to speak against the authorities when your country is occupied. So the family talked it over and we decided to go and bring him home. To keep him safe.
When we got there we couldn’t get close to him. We had to wait outside. We told someone in the crowd to let him know we were there and then we heard his reply - even above all the noise of the crowd. It cut like a knife! He said, “ Who are my mother and my brothers?” As if we didn’t exist! As if we didn’t matter! Then he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother.” I was so deeply hurt - we turned around to head home.
I kept thinking about that moment, those words, for days. After the initial shock and anger subsided I realized that he wasn’t saying that I was no longer his mother. It was not about excluding his family, but rather it was about including everybody. He was saying to everyone gather there that he loved them like he loved his family. He was not excluding but including. As time passed I saw how he loved everyone. It didn’t matter where they came from, or how much money they made. He ate with Pharisees and tax collectors, with the rich and the poor. He healed Samaritans and Roman’s and Greeks as well as those from Galilee and Judea. You could see it. No matter who he was talking to there was love and attention in his eyes. And he hadn’t stopped loving me. In fact later we were very close and I sometimes traveled with him.
I also thought a lot about what he said about those who do the will go God. What did he mean by saying that the people around him were doing the will of God? Wasn’t I, as a mother, doing the will of God in trying to protect and take care of my son? How were those people gathered around doing the will of God? They were just listening to him. And then I realized that listening to him was doing the will of God.  They were listening, really listening. I hadn’t taken the time to listen to him. I listened to what other people were saying about him. I hadn’t taken the time to listen to him myself. Before coming to take him home, I should have listened to understand who he was and what he wanted. 
So I started to listen, really listen. I listened to his words not just with my ears, but also with my heart. I heard in them the call to love - to love God and to love your family. And that everyone - every human being - is a part of your family. It is hard to explain this using English, because your word love means so many different things. The kind of love that he was talking about was a love that wants what is best for the other person. That yearns for that other person to be all that God intended for him or her to be. And it is about being willing to give up some of your own comfort and convenience to the sake of the other. 
For Jesus it meant being willing to speak the truth to authority even though they wanted to kill him. For Jesus, loving all his family, all people, meant being willing to die a horrible death.
As a mother I wanted to protect him. I wanted to keep him safe. Yes, I loved him, but I was also a little selfish. I knew what I wanted for my son, but hadn’t listened to what he wanted, to what God wanted. To love and to sacrifice for another, listening carefully with ears and heart for what is truly right for that other person - that I have come to believe, is what he meant when he said that his family is made up of those who do the will of God.
He wants us, all of us, to listen and to love each other the way he loves us.

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