We asked yesterday if you could list of what comes to mind when you hear the word “church”. Our lists probably included buildings, events and services. It may have included organ and choir music, stained glass windows, dusty books, bake sales and more. It may evoke good experiences, or bad ones.
But not how the Bible usually sees “church”. Church is described in several cases as a family. This is why our vision is to become a church made up of many groups who are “like family” with one another.
But you might immediately think this means something strange and cultish, usually because our ideas of family today is pretty narrow. We think of family as the nuclear, immediate family in isolation.
But in Jesus’ culture, in some cultures today, and not so long ago in Western culture, the family was the word used more naturally to describe an extended network of relations, often living in the same area.
That was the context for family in Jesus’ day, and Jesus had plans to develop a new kind of extended family. Here’s a striking moment when he described his plans to create an alternate family:
Matthew 12:46-50 While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
On the one hand, it seems Jesus just put down his mother. I just saw “Guilt Trip” where Barbra Streisand plays Seth Rogen’s overbearing mother. She calls several times a day, tries to get him to drink water constantly, and so on. In the middle of their road trip, he finally snaps, and tells her off.
It seems like that might be what Jesus is doing to his mother here. Is he putting her down, in his plans to join another family? Look at it another way. Jesus is actually elevating his disciples to family status. His followers, fellow practitioners of his kingdom, are his family.
She’s not excluded. Later in the story of Jesus’ life and death, we see Mary his mother appearing as a devoted member of this extended family, and Jesus even assigns one of the disciples to look after her after his death, saying he’s her new son, and vice versa.
Jesus isn’t narrowing his definition of family to exclude blood relatives. He’s broadening it, to include his extended family of followers as if they are blood relatives.
Question: Imagine your immediate family suddenly adopting a dozen new members. How would it change your way of life? What would be the pros and cons?
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Hi, welcome to Redeem the Commute. I'm Ryan your host of the Daily Challenges. Here we are in nature. And that's because this week we're studying how following Jesus resets our views of death, and in fact, Jesus resets death itself.
I have led a number of funeral services, and sometimes hear some troubling things. One of my first was a difficult funeral for a young child. As we planned the funeral, I remember the child’s grandmother trying to comfort her daughter. She said God must have needed another angel in heaven. I remember wondering whether to say anything or not. I could let it slide as a harmless attempt to make someone feel better – but what happens when she learns that humans never become angels? What happens when she gets angry with God for stealing her child for his “personal collection”? I decided the gospel was even better news to share than this sentimental idea about children becoming angels, and told her about the gospel or good news of Jesus instead. Ultimately that is news that will last and will transform her life, not just nice ideas that don’t hold water.
Remember this passage we explored on Tuesday?
13 But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. 14 For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. 1 Thess 4:13-14
Paul said all this stuff to the Thessalonians to encourage appropriate Christian grief, not the wild wailing of pagan funerals. He wants to give them confidence, and assurance that death is not something to fear. The number one reason: they have hope.
One person who follows Redeem the Commute is preparing for the death of a family member. She said to me that her family members are upset, then looked at me and said, “We see it differently, right?” She struggled for words about heaven, resurrection, how it’s not the end yet, all the while still trying to figure out if she was allowed to be sad.
And I simply said, “It’s okay to still be sad. We’re not sad about the death, but about the lost life.”
Followers of Jesus should communicate that hope as they deal with death – it’s sad to lose time with a friend or loved one now, but the death itself isn’t the sad part.
Everything communicates. Christian tradition was long to be buried intact, and in many cases facing eastward (at least in Canada) to be facing Jerusalem. The ideas was to communicate you were ready for the second coming. Was this a law, that you must be buried this way or God can’t raise you? No way. It was simply a way to communicate hope in God. There are many ways to communicate this hope when you die – from the songs people sing, to scriptures read, to how they distribute their estate.
Challenge: Write out some funeral plans. What do you want to be communicated about you? About Jesus? About God?
When our computers get bogged down and unmanageable, we know to hit a reset button to simply start over. Wouldn't a reset button be great in life? We know it would be complicated, with all our responsibilities and routines to consider, but imagine the freedom and refreshment of a new start in life! What would you do differently? What would you pay more attention to, and what would you ignore? How would you avoid getting bogged down and broken again?
The great news is, in coming to earth as Jesus Christ, God has begun to "reset" our universe, our world, and even us. We're invited to start over with him, in what he calls his kingdom. We're invited to start a new life with a clean slate.
What gets wiped clean, and lived differently, when God resets our lives? We'll explore how God resets these key areas of our lives:
Reset: Goals
Reset: Time
Reset: Money
Reset: Work
Reset: Body & Food
Reset: Sex & Marriage
Reset: Family
Reset: Compassion
Reset: Nature
Reset: Society
Reset: Death
Join us for the next several weeks, and invite God to reset your life.
