Choosing Sides                            

                                              Mark 3: 13-15, 20-25, 31-35

 

           A hundred years ago when I was in grade school, we used to meet on the playground every day after school. We played softball. If you were in seventh grade, you got the big field. If not, you went to the smaller one. We played pickup games. There were two captains. They were either the best players or the best leaders. They would flip a coin or run hands up the bat for first pick. Then they would choose. The best players went first and on down the line. Then there were the rules. No umpires, so we called ourselves safe or out. If you hit the church wall in right field on the fly, it was a homer.  We had no shirts, no uniforms. Some of us had ball gloves and loaned ours to others. A bat was stowed out of sight for use each day. As you got older and better, you got picked sooner. Choosing players was an exercise in fairness and diplomacy.

          Choosing sides in pickup softball was a lot easier than choosing sides in other contests. As I journeyed down the road of life, choosing sides or friends or faiths became more and more difficult. Choosing sides can be a huge decision, and the ramifications of our choices can have long term impacts on our lives. Choosing sides comes with a cost.

         In the third chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus makes some choices. Mark tells us that “he went up on the mountain and called to himself those whom he desired.” Remember that phrase because it may become even more important in understanding what follows. At any rate, then Jesus appointed the twelve disciples, the circle that would become his intimate friends for his entire ministry. They were, in many ways, his new family.  Then, Jesus went home, but the crowd gathered again. Apparently they were in his home and there were so many that Mark tells us that there was no room to eat.

          Now, Jesus had been busy. He had come from his baptism at the hand of his cousin John to forty days of temptation in the desert to a walking ministry throughout the region of Galilee where he had healed a man with an unclean spirit, cleansed a leper, healed a paralytic and, according to Mark, healed many more as he began to capture the attention of the people. The demons were calling him the Son of God. Many people were doing the same. The scribes coming down from Jerusalem to see him were calling him possessed by Satan. It was to this dangerous mix of worship and hate that Jesus’ family responded. At this point, no one in Jesus’ family other than his mother accepted him as the Son of God. They set out to rescue him. Mark says they thought he was out of his mind.

          At first blush, it seems unusually harsh to read that Jesus’ family thought him crazy. We must keep in mind what Mark is driving at. Mark’s gospel is all about the identity of Jesus. He pushes that concept over and over. Mark wants his readers to know that Jesus is nothing less than the Son of God. Mark’s gospel doesn’t even cover the birth of Jesus. He starts it with the baptism of Jesus and the beginning of his ministry, for that is Mark’s prime concern. The question Mark asks us throughout his gospel is: Who is Jesus? Here in this passage, we see people who are trying to answer that question, from the crowd to the disciples to Jesus’ family to the religious leaders of the day.

          Jesus laughs off the accusations of the scribes. He points out their flawed logic. His response in today’s terms might go something like this: Tell me again why, if I were possessed by Satan, I would cast out demons of Satan. Isn’t that just a little bit counter -productive? Why would I divide myself that way?

          So now Jesus’ mother and brothers arrive. There is no room to get in the house, so they send in word to him. The message is passed along until word reaches him that his mother and brothers are outside, seeking him. What happens next is one of those life changing decisions. Jesus is going to choose sides.

          No one is exempt from choosing sides. Sometimes it comes easily. Sometimes it is agonizing.  Should you go to college? If so, what college?  Should you pursue this relationship? Should you take that job? Should you get up and go to church? What church? Why that church? Should you talk about God with this person whom you like? It could change your relationship, maybe even end it. The list is endless. Each time you choose sides, other choices disappear, some to never come again.

          Jesus answers them. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” In typical style for Jesus, he answers with a question. The words hang there in the air unanswered, perhaps for an extra moment before Jesus continues. Who are my mother and my brothers? Jesus has turned a simple comment into a crossroads. His hand is on the end of that proverbial bat handle and he is about to choose sides.

          Jesus says to those sitting around him: “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.” Stop for a moment and let that sink in. Jesus looked out upon that “Jesus circle” he had established on the mountain and he said to them: You are my family. Jesus was in a rural environment much like the one in which we worship here, one in which family and extended family were the core of their value system, and in this environment he choose to go another way.

          One might properly ask: Doesn’t this fly in the face of the Fifth Commandment? Aren’t we supposed to honor our father and our mother all the days of our lives? Of course we are. Remember, the Bible never contradicts itself. If it appears to, then we must search for the higher meaning that explains the apparent contradiction. In this case, it is the difference between physical family and spiritual family.

          Theologian Manford Gutzke explains it simply. He says that in one sentence, Jesus set social relationships lower than spiritual relationships.  Are family relationships important? Absolutely! They are so important that they are included in the Ten Commandments. Are they of the highest importance? No. The first two commandments make it clear that God shall be served above all other relationships. In most cases, our loyalty to family will only serve as a heightening of God’s call in our lives. But there are those times when we must choose sides.

          We know how much Jesus loved his family. His dying words were uttered to John to take care of his mother. After his resurrection, Jesus’ half-brothers came to believe in the gospel and to play significant roles in the development of the early church. Jesus’ love of his family is not the issue. Mark’s interest is not in the social network, but rather in spiritual priorities. In this story, Jesus family was an innocent pawn in a bigger story. Mark uses it to illustrate for us that our highest allegiance must be reserved for our adopted family, those who are the true people of God. 

          In the twenty fourth chapter of Joshua, he has gathered all the tribes at Shechem to renew the covenant. Joshua has come to the end of his service and will soon be called home to God. He challenges the people to put away their false gods and serve the Lord. He witnesses to them, saying “choose this day whom you will serve…But as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”    Some thirteen hundred years later, the Son of God sits in a little room and tells those he has chosen as disciples that he has chosen them to become part of his spiritual family. It is a remarkable statement, even moreso considering that the whole thrust of Mark’s gospel is about the identity of Jesus as the Son of God, and yet here Jesus has identified true believers as family, and in that family he includes both women and men as he refers to sister and brother.

          Choosing sides. It can change your life. Take a moment and try to imagine what might happen if you don’t choose Jesus.  What if, just imagine what if, Jesus had gotten up and gone outside and gone home with his family that day? Where would we be now? What if he asks you to choose? He will, you know, and not just once, but many times. Will you choose the right side? It will change your life. There will be a price to pay, but it is a price worth paying! Each time you choose Jesus will make the next time that much easier.

          “For whoever does the will of God, he is my brother and my sister and my mother.”