Tad Lincoln was the fourth and youngest son of Abraham Lincoln. It is told that a union soldier wanted leave from his duty and that only the president could exempt him. When the soldier reached the White House, he realized that there was no way he could see Lincoln. Young Tad, seeing the soldier weeping and hearing his story, led him through the back door of the White House, down the hallway, to a conference room where Lincoln was having a meeting. The president interrupted his meeting, listened to his son, and gave the soldier an exemption from his duties.
Today we see a similar situation. Jesus was busy teaching a group of potential disciples and his mother showed up. We would assume that Jesus stopped what he was doing and turned his attention to his mother. It didn’t happen that way (Mark 3:31-35).
“The mother of Jesus and his brothers arrived at the house. Standing outside, they sent word to Jesus and called him. A crowd seated around him told him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and your sisters are outside asking for you.’
We still wonder about “the house” where Jesus was staying. Apparently, the main room was large enough to hold a significant crowd. Mary and Jesus’ brothers and sisters could not get through the door, so they sent word through the crowd to let Jesus know they were there. When the word reached Jesus, what did he do?
“But he said to them in reply, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking around at those seated in the circle he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers…”
This must have shocked the people. No one is more important in a person’s life than his mother and the close members of his family. And yet Jesus said that in the Kingdom of God there is a bond between members that goes deeper than family ties. This ragtag group of people sitting around him were raised to the highest level of dignity. They were more important to Jesus than his family. They were so important that unlike Abraham Lincoln with Tad, he did not interrupt what he was doing at the announcement of their arrival.
How is it that anyone could be more important to Jesus than his family members?
“For whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
Jesus was setting up a new kind of family on earth, God’s family. Membership in God’s family had only one criterion—to do the Father’s will. If one of his relatives was doing God’s will, then that person was related to Jesus in a new and deeper way. On the other hand, the least disciple of Jesus was more important to him than his closest blood relatives. Mary, of course, beyond being Jesus’ mother, was the greatest example of someone whose entire life was centered in doing God’s will. At the outset she said “yes” to the angel’s message— “Be it done unto me according to they will.”
In our Church system we tend to judge people by the importance of their position or by their prominence in the organization. We assume the priest is closest to God, then the deacon, and then the highest contributors. This is not Jesus’ standard. The least person in the eyes of the Church may be first in the eyes of God. What the Church thinks about us may not match what God thinks about us. And in the end, it is only God’s evaluation that counts.
When we were baptized, the Kingdom of God was born in us. When we make this new life our priority and try to line ourselves up with the will of God in all we do, we become closer to Jesus than his own family members. Let us not be misguided by the world’s standards; rather let us keep our eyes fixed on Jesus so we can qualify as those who are truly his mother, sisters, and brothers.
