Of All People
Ephesians 3:14-21, Mark 3:31-35
Preached Sunday, June 1, 2003, by the Rev. Steven J. Lashbrook, Pastor
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Manistee, MI
Jesus takes the hard way because our lives take the hard way. It is a hard way we often do not want to see or choose to see. But Jesus knows it is there, even though we do not, even though others may not see it, either. For example, I have noticed that when they seem to need the church most, some people absent themselves from worship. They no longer participate in activities, but stay away from contact and involvement with friends. They feel they are no longer good enough. They believe the imperfections of their lives do not fit in with the perceived perfections of the church. They feel left out of relationships. They think everybody here has life all figured out and their own lives in order. They do not see what you and I know to be true. You and I know we all live the hard way. Of all people, we know our lives are not in perfect order. Of all people, we know our families are far from being perfect. And in Mark’s gospel, that is what Jesus is asking us to see.
Jesus helps us see the truth of our lives, the truth of our family’s lives, when we see and hear him with his family. We hear and see that his family is not always in order: they are looking for each other, they are asking for each other. We see that Jesus is not always in touch with them. Your mother and brothers are outside, asking for you. And we see that Jesus needs more. He needs others, another family to be with him: Here are my mothers and my brothers.
Families always need more. Every one. There is not only family in this church that is not in some need. Look long enough. Probe deeply enough and it turns up. And in some of us, too, you do not need to look very long and you do not need to probe too deeply. The problems are very quickly evident, the wounds exist on the surface and the needs are everywhere.
I enjoy the children’s book, Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Here is a bit of it:
I went to sleep with gum in my mouth and now there’s gum in my hair and when I got out of bed this morning I tripped on the skateboard and by mistake I dropped my sweater in the sink while the water was running and I could tell it was going to be a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. At breakfast Anthony found a Corvette Stingray car in his breakfast cereal box and Nick found an undercover code ring in his breakfast cereal box, but in my breakfast cereal box all I found was breakfast cereal. I think I’ll move to Australia.
After school my mom took us all to the dentist and Dr. Fields found a cavity just in me. "Come back next week and I’ll fix it," said Dr. Fields. "Next week," I said, "I’m going to Australia." On the way downstairs, the elevator door closed on my foot and while we were waiting for my mom to get the car, Anthony made me fall where it was muddy and then when I started crying because of the mud Nick said I was a crybaby and while I was punching Nick for saying crybaby, my mom came back with the car and scolded me for being muddy and for fighting. I am having a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, I told everybody. No one even answered… There were lima beans for dinner and I hate lima beans. There was kissing on TV and I hate kissing. When I went to bed Nick took back the pillow and he said I could keep and the Mickey Mouse night light burned out and I bit my tongue. The cat went to sleep with Anthony, not with me. It has been a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. My mom says some days are like that. Even in Australia.
I like that book because that is the way life, our life is. It is hard and sometimes no good at all. It is hard in families. It is hard for children. It is hard for parents. It is hard for grandparents and sisters and brothers and wives and husbands and stepparents and in-laws and aunts and uncles. It is hard to be a family. In our family life there are mistakes and tragedies. There is competition for who gets what. In families there are many chances to listen, but few of them are taken. There are hurts received and hurts returned.
The high school I attended was not much different from Manistee High School. Everybody knew everybody else, not only in their own class, but in the whole school. When I went home and spoke of someone in school, my parents usually knew them already and often knew their parents and not infrequently, my grandparents knew their grandparents. A large extended family lived around us: cousins, aunts, uncles and grandparents all were near. But our children do not grow up with those same circumstances today. The community of Manistee has been that kind of place, where the same people were born and raised and lived, generation after generation, and where movement in and out was more unusual than common. But it isn’t that way for us today. Families are scattered. Children live in other parts of the country. Parents and grandparents are hundreds of miles away. At retirement, more and more people are beginning new lives in new communities or other parts of the country, farther away from any family at all. The frequency of movement in and out is staggering. We need a family. We need a family in which to be grounded and to which we can return.
Some of us are alone. Our families are gone. They left to make their own lives, professions and homes in new places, or they have gone off to a life that is beyond our seeing, beyond touching, beyond knowing now. We, too, need a family. We need a family that gives us a welcome and offers something and someone beyond ourselves and our lives to whom we can give ourselves. We need a family.
One summer afternoon Herman and Frances McMillan were arrested in the hallway outside their Bronx apartment. They were accused of using and abusing and beating one of their children in a trash-hewn, unlighted apartment where they kept them virtually imprisoned for three years. The children, who ranged in age from four months to sixteen years, never went to school or left the gloomy apartment which was covered with trash and piles of dirty clothes. It was reported that the husband would come and go occasionally. The wife and children always remained in the apartment. These people were living in a darkened closet with little access to the outside world. They only knew this way of life.
It is not enough for a person – it is not enough for a family – to exist for itself. It does not work. It is not enough for a family to turn in on itself and depend only on itself. It is too hard and there are too many difficulties. Families need something more. Families need to be bound by more than blood. They need to be joined by something stronger. They need to feel they are a part of something more secure that can bring stability and hope in hard times. They need to know that even though there is movement in their lives, even though there is change, even though there is struggle and pain, there is also unconditional support and strength. They need to be connected. It comes down to this: everyone – every single person, every single family – needs a family around them.
Jesus said, Here are my mother and my brothers. Whoever does the will of God are my brother and sister and mother. The church is called to be the family that holds us all. The church is destined by Christ to be the people and the place in which all people can find a new way to be found to one another, a way that transcends all other relationships, a way that includes all families, a way that creates a family for each human being. The church is God’s way of bringing our lives together to transform all relationships. We are enriched because we receive a power to love. We are transformed because we are loved: by God and by all who follow and seek God’s will.
Sometimes, we find only here, only with these people, the family we need. Sometimes we find here the support and courage we cannot find with our own families. Sometimes we find the ability to restore the brokenness or to break out of the pain. Sometimes we find the same old envies and hurts, competitions and disappointments that we find at home with our own families, while learning to keep some perspective about it all. Sometimes, too, we find with these people a way to find God.
I believe that is what Jesus wants us to find. I believe that is what he was saying we could find. When we seek God together, we are brothers and sisters and mothers and fathers to each other. And when we treat each other as family, as the family we want and need, as brothers and sisters, when we care for each other like mothers and fathers, we know God is with us all.
Of all people, it should be true for us.
Amen.