Transcript:

So this passage goes like this. A crowd was sitting around him and they said to him, your mother and to your brother and sisters are outside asking for you. And he replied, who are my mother and my brothers? What did Jesus mean by this?

Like all pieces of scripture, it’s important to remember that we read something in a context. And so earlier in this third chapter, we read about the leaders rejecting Jesus. We read about the spreading of the good news and the naming of the 12 apostles. And so there was this power and energy developing in Jesus’ ministry that we’re told even his family was seriously concerned. They thought he’d gone mad.

In chapter three, verse 21, it says, when his family heard it, they went out to restrain him for people were saying he’s gone out of his mind. And so his family here, they consider that whatever he’s doing to attract all this enthusiasm is like a sign of serious derangement. And they try to remove him from his present path and get him back to home where he belongs.

Then a little bit after that, the scribes then come on the scene and they make a charge against Jesus, that he’s possessed by Beelzebub, known as the Prince of Demons, and that even Jesus has expelled demons using Beelzebub’s power.

Now, the passage that we’re considering, which you’ve just read for us, comes about 20 verses after all of this has taken place and Jesus’ family reappears, this time identified as his mother and brothers and sisters. Now, Jesus makes no direct response But instead he looks around. He looks around him and eventually he points to the group, to everyone gathered immediately around him and he says and identifies them as my mother and brothers. Before that then going on to state that whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.

So the social unit was the extended family, and it really encompasses a wider understanding of family than perhaps some of us would be familiar with. The passage that you read for us really pushes us to recognise that everything has to be redefined in the light of the gospel.

Our most intimate relationship cannot be even with family. It must be with God and with those who strive to live God’s will. And it’s for this reason that even the early Christians called each other brother and sister. So this passage is a reminder of the importance of context when we consider all pieces of scripture.

We need to know what’s happened before, what goes on in the passage we’re considering, and what comes after. And so we get a sense of Jesus’ family. They think he’s mad. Something else happens. The scribes come and make further charges the same way.

Then they come on the scene once again and Jesus opens up to a new teaching where all of us are brothers and sisters, part of God’s family.