June 10, 2018                         Part of the Family                          

This week, I was going around asking people where the best fish restaurants were in the area. I did this because, for a number of years I lived in Smithton, IL. And Smithton, was settled by northern germans who ate fish in Germany, and brought their recipes with them. Fried Catfish, Fried Walleye, Fried Bluegill, but especially fried Cod. Every restaurant and tavern in town, all 4 of them had fish on the menu. And every summer there were three town picnics at the park, where the main dish was fried cod. Fried Cod in a heavily spiced corn meal batter. I never liked fish before I moved to Smithton, but they really knew how to fry fish.

Anyway, my story this morning is about one of the members of the church I served in Smithton, who I had the chance to share a table with at one of these fish fries. Now as I said, he was a member of the church I served in Smithton, and he came to the Sunday morning bible studies and seemed genuinely interested in the gospel of Jesus Christ, about God’s love for us all, and God’s forgiveness of us which calls us to love and forgive one another. But what I didn’t know was that a number of years ago, he had a falling out with his brother, and his brother had stopped coming to church.  

Well, as I said, I met this man at the park and he went on for at least a half hour about his brother, and about all they had done to each other, and how their feud had gone on for some 10 years, and they hadn’t spoken in the last 5. And when he finally took a break to draw another breathe, I said, “Wow, you must really love your brother”.  “Love my brother?” He answered, “Pastor haven’t you been listening to what I have been saying for the last half hour?” “Yes,” I replied, “but you must really love your brother to carry this grudge for him for 10 years.” And then I said, “If this was a member of the congregation that you had an argument with, what would Jesus expect you to do?” And the man replied, “Well that’s church!, this is my family.”

Funny thing isn’t it? How some people think you should treat family different from you church family. Some think you should treat your biological family better than others, and some think you should treat your church family better than others. And I think that is where our gospel lesson comes in this morning. Jesus is off preaching and doing a wonderful ministry of healing and caring for others. But here comes Mary, and his brothers and sisters. They’ve come for an intervention, to call him back to his true family, to stop this craziness, rather than continue on in this ministry. And what is Jesus reply? Who are my mother and brothers? Whoever does the will of God.

Dr. William Willamon, professor of preaching at Duke University tells a story of a woman who grew up with an abusive father, and married an abusive man. One time, after she had been struck by her husband, she had to go to the store. With the bruise still on her cheek, she put on some make-up to hide the bruise and went to the store. There the checker noticed the bruise and told her, “Honey, I know exactly what your going through, I went through it too, you need to go to church!” The checker asked for her phone number and residence and told her she would pick her up for church at 8 am. Sure enough, the woman went to church, and years later, when asked why she loved her church, she said, “Because they have been the family God intended me to have.”

Now I am not saying that all church families are better than our biological families, some are, some aren’t. But what I am saying, is that if we live and love and treat each other as God wills for us to do, then we will find that family of God in which we are mothers and brothers and sisters all of one another.

One final note. A few weeks ago I was talking with my neighbor about his church, and the wonderful church family he had there. And I said, “You know, I don’t think young people realize how important a church family can be. I know they run into hypocrites in the church, and that’s a big turn off for the younger generation, but in churches I have found so many wonderful people who help each other through injury, illness, surgery, divorce, loss of a job or home, family problems and the death of a loved one, I think that a lot of people are missing out on that family that God wills for them to have, and maybe by becoming a part of that family, it can even help them to show their own families, however broken they may be, how to be a part of God’s family as well

Oh, and that man I talked about earlier, called his brother, and they talked, and the man’s brother eventually came to church on Sundays again.

And that’s the good news of Jesus Christ. Amen.