For Sunday
Second Sunday after Pentecost
Proper 5B

Collect

O God, from whom all good proceeds: Grant that by your inspiration we may think those things that are right, and by your merciful guiding may do them; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Reading

From Mark 3:20-35

“Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Reflection

Jesus is in physical danger. I don’t think we usually pay much attention to that part of his ministry. We’re too busy listening to the Son of God! But in the first part of this chapter, Jesus is getting so crowded by people, he needs to find protection. People’s needs are too much!

This is when he calls the twelve together and names them apostles. So they can be Christ to the world, too.

Now here, he is being threatened by the scribes. And this is no idle threat. If they convince enough people that Jesus really is doing the work of the devil, they would have to kill him.

It is in the midst of these threats that his Mom shows up. To protect him, save him, from harm. His very life is on the line. She is coming to rescue him.

And Jesus rejects this proposal by seemingly rejecting his own mother in favor of some students he picked up along the way! As a parent, I can’t imagine dealing with this level of rejection.

Jesus says that the people who are in on the kin-dom project with him are the real family. Not that his Mom can’t be family. But that she already showed rejection of the kin-dom project by seeking to protect him.

This isn’t an abstraction. Jesus isn’t saying protection = bad. This is very, very particular. In the midst of this life-threatening moment, Jesus is not choosing fight or flight. He’s choosing to do the kin-dom work outside of the binary. He is living out the kin-dom way in a kingdom world.

Here are a few questions for reflection: When are you tempted to fight or flight? How do you make an alternative way? What are some specific times in which you have lived out the kin-dom way in the midst of great personal difficulty? And who might be there to help protect you in this kin-dom way—in other words, who are the other apostles in your life?