Mothering Sunday: Celebrating Family and Belonging in Christ

He doesn't refer to us as friends who could be dropped and forgotten about at any moment. But instead, we are called mothers, brothers, sisters, part of an intimate circle bound by familial ties. We are part of Jesus' family. So, what we hear in the words of Jesus is a statement of belonging. Jesus is not abandoning his own family with Mary and his siblings, but rather he is opening it up wider. Jesus is saying that we belong to one another and to him. [00:45:30] (45 seconds)  #JesusFamilyBelonging

The one whose politics baffle you. The one who I dare say irritates you. They they are your family. Not metaphorically, not as a nice idea, but in Christ, they are your brother, your sister, your family. Hispanic theologian, Justo Gonzales, put his finger on something important when he observes that many western congregations come to church hoping to preserve their privacy. But in his Hispanic culture and in his tradition, you come to church precisely to be swept up into something larger than your own household. [00:47:37] (56 seconds)  #FamilyBeyondPrivacy

Here, here are my mother, my brothers. Here is my family. Because Christ speaks those words over us today. Whatever we carry or have carried and brought through the door today. Whatever aches, whatever we are longing for, whatever pain we carry. Christ speaks those words over us because there is a family that we belong to that cannot be taken from us. Not by death, not by distance, not by separation or failure or the long passage of years. [00:53:03] (46 seconds)  #FamilyThatEndures

It is the church that I pray will remind us and has remind us and will continue to remind us that Christ refuses to let go of us. Even when we are difficult. Even when we turn our back, even when we are hard to love. And it's in the church that we have found mothering figures who have prayed for us even when we don't know it. Who have sat with us in our grief and who haven't tried to fix it. Who have believed in us when we stop believing in ourselves. [00:50:41] (49 seconds)  #ChurchThatHolds

A day of longing for those who had hoped to be mothers and yet aunts. A day when the shops filled with bouquets and cards and balloons and gifts are not a celebration, but a constant reminder of the weight of the grief and the pain that so many carry. So today is a celebration. But, we also shouldn't forget that today is a hard day. And, that is precisely why the gospel reading matters so much today. Because Jesus takes his very theme of motherhood, of family, of belonging, and he blows it open. [00:43:58] (50 seconds)  #HonoringJoyAndGrief

So if we are a family, I wonder what that might mean for us as a church, As a community of faith. The truth is we don't get to choose our family. Our family is given and that givenness is part of what makes it precious. A part of what makes it hard as well. The same is true today. For those of us in the building, the person in the pew beside you, in front of you, behind you. The one you find difficult. [00:46:59] (38 seconds)  #FamilyGivenNotChosen

He doesn't narrow it or restrict it. He widens it beyond anything we could ever have expected. Because Jesus says that anyone, anyone who does his will, the will of God is his family. Everyone who does the will of God is included in that family. And so, doesn't push us away, but instead he pulls us close. He doesn't characterize us as followers who are just tagging along after him at some distance. He doesn't call us servants whose status is unequal. [00:44:47] (43 seconds)  #EveryoneCalledFamily

Today, in all its complexity and tenderness and joy, we celebrate that we are part of Christ's family. We celebrate the church that holds us, and we celebrate our risen Lord Jesus Christ. Who could have chosen to walk out the door to his mother and his brothers, to his family. But instead, instead he looked around. Instead, he called us his own. Instead, he welcomed us into his family. Amen. [00:53:50] (50 seconds)  #WelcomedByChrist