Jesus said “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

A strange statement? Maybe not. Because Jesus constantly talked of a new Kingdom, a new family, a new order on earth.

Our Old Testament reading is a sobering reminder of how transient Kingdoms of this world, and their rulers, can be. It reminds me of Percy B Shelley’s poem, Ozymandias.

“…Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

The Israelites want to be like other nations – they want a human King. They reject the eternal God as their King. So Samuel gives them a litany of how the Kings would oppress them. One phrase recurs – “he will take.”

The reading also resonates with governments and leaders today. We saw recently that our taxes enriched and benefited the associates of those in power, while care workers are desperately underpaid.

Christ our King stands in stark contrast.

Mark’s gospel opens with Jesus beginning his ministry, proclaiming Good News that the Kingdom of God was near. But Jesus never declared himself a King – He described himself as a servant. He was a King who gave to the people, instead of taking. An upside down Kingdom, where the King is a servant, a Good Shepherd, who not only serves and gives of himself, but lays down his life for his sheep. God so loved the World… that He gave.

A unique King of a Unique and eternal kingdom.

Jesus’ Kingdom came into conflict with the values of the Kingdoms of the world. As it should. As it always will. It also came into conflict with the religious institutions. As it still does. Jesus really got up the nose of the noses of the religious leaders. They were angry that Jesus healed on the Sabbath when work was forbidden; they were appalled when he did what only God could do – forgive sins; While they avoided sinners and tax collectors, Jesus ate with them; in a male world, he welcomed women; While they lorded it over the people, Jesus treated people as friends.

Tempers frayed and religious sensibilities were offended. By the time of our reading today, the atmosphere is febrile. The Scribes make a searing attack on Jesus, condemning his good deeds as acts of Satan. Jesus gives an equally searing response: it was an unforgivable sin to impute evil to the good He did, to the work of God’s Spirit.

In this furore, Jesus’ family appear. Perhaps they are worried by the ferment.

Then Jesus makes a startling statement: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”

Jesus was not denigrating family. He was declaring two things.

Firstly, the existence of a new household – the household and family of God. We are subjects of God’s eternal Kingdom and called to do His will. (To live by the principles of his Kingdom – starting with the Kingdom manifesto in the Sermon on the Mount!) But we are not mere subjects to command or exploit. We are loved and cared for by the King. A truly upside down Kingdom.

Secondly, Jesus announcement that we are his family redraws boundaries. It fractures ancient, sacrosanct relationships of tribe and household and breaks norms of social exclusion. The Old Testament talks of Houses – of Judah, of David. Even Jesus’ lineage is recorded. You belonged, as a Jew, to a house and tribe – that was your identity. But Jesus establishes a new norm – of inclusion in God’s family and household. The early Church understood this. Jews and Gentiles fellowshipped together; the Epistles refer to them as brothers and sisters. The new priorities? Love one another as Christ has loved us. Loyalties of tribe or household ended. As St Paul puts it: “there is no Jew or Gentile, Male or Female, Slave or Free.”

The church has often forgotten these words. Sadly, the institution of the Church, made up of fallen humans, is often disfigured. It beggars belief that Jesus had such love for people, and His Church so often does not. The stains on the history of the church are many: crusades, religious executions, collusion with slavery, colonialism, apartheid, fascism, segregation, exclusion, religious and ethnic violence, inequalities, prejudice. We worship a holy God. But we are often a sinful church.

Closer to home, we have the shame of sectarian divisions and paranoid distrust between denominations. Doctrinal purity often trumps love, as we judge and brand one another. Instead of “Christian” we have a prefix: evangelical, charismatic, liberal, fundamentalist. We search for specks of error in the eyes of fellow believers, and miss the planks of judgement and pride in our own. We invest energy in disputing theological dust and forget the incredible Kingdom and the family of God we are part of. I am reminded of Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels. He finds the Academy of Projectors in the town of Lagoda trying to make sunbeams out of cucumbers, or teach mathematics by feeding students wafers inscribed with equations. Pointless endeavours. 

We have tamed Jesus – as I mentioned in my last sermon. We have also lost sight of the King, forgotten the reality of God’s family, and tamed the radical nature of His Gospel and His Kingdom.

I was reminded of the nature of the family of God when I reconnected with friends from the Christian fellowship of my university in Sri Lanka. They epitomised for me the reality of the family of God in his Kingdom. Before the Internet, many of us had lost touch after we graduated. Technology reunited us.

Many Sri Lankan churches (like here) are mono-cultural. Different social classes and ethnic groups go to different churches or have separate services. I had not experienced diversity in the church. But the University fellowship was different. We were from different ethnic groups, cultures and social classes, spoke different languages, studied different subjects, and went to very different churches. It was tough to overcome the differences. Yet bonds were forged that contrasted starkly with the divisions in society. We became family. We ate together, prayed together, visited each other. Sometimes we had to translate to understand each other. The girls even did a clothes swap because we couldn’t afford new clothes. While Sri Lanka was torn apart by ethnic violence and war, the Christian group surprised and baffled people. The family of God demolished ethnic divisions. It was the first time (hopefully not the last) I powerfully experienced the biblical truth that “in Christ there is no Jew or Greek, male or female, slave or free.” As one of those friends, a Hindu convert, put it: “this family of God feels like a foretaste of heaven –we are so different but we are one.”

The Acts of Apostles describes a church that was revolutionary. Believers sold all they had to share with those in need. Imagine that! There was family. There was love. They followed their King and His Kingdom.

Perhaps we need to rediscover our revolutionary King, His Upside down Kingdom and His eternal family.