⁴⁶ As Jesus was speaking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. ⁴⁷ Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to speak to you.”

⁴⁸ Jesus asked, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ Then he pointed to his disciples and said, “Look, these are my mother and brothers. ⁵⁰ Anyone who does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother!”

13 Later that same day Jesus left the house and sat beside the lake. ² A large crowd soon gathered around him, so he got into a boat. Then he sat there and taught as the people stood on the shore. 

Matthew 12:46-13:2

Dear God, this is one of those synoptic gospel stories that Matthew, Mark, and Luke give us, but I wish each of them gave us more. I want to know more about the behind the scenes conversations between Jesus, Mary, and his siblings. I want to know more about what the conversations were like between Mary and Jesus’s brothers and sisters. How much did she wish she had Joseph, Elizabeth, or Zechariah (the others who knew of the angel visits and messages all those years ago) to talk through all of this with? But that’s obviously not the point of Matthew, Mark, and Luke telling us these stories. So what is the point?

I don’t think they wanted to make a point of Jesus dismissing his family and relegating them to a lesser position. After all, that wouldn’t be honoring his mother. No, I think he was elevating in importance everyone else. He was admonishing the crowd to look on each other as family. That’s a totally different thing. In fact, Luke boils this story down to three verses in Luke 8:19-21: ¹⁹ Then Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they couldn’t get to him because of the crowd. ²⁰ Someone told Jesus, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, and they want to see you.” ²¹ Jesus replied, “My mother and my brothers are all those who hear God’s word and obey it.” He doesn’t dismiss his family here. He elevates everyone else.

Father, there’s no one more important to me in this world than my wife, followed closely by our two children. All three of them live rent-free in my head, and I welcome it. My children would be shocked to know how much I think about them and love them. And I get that it’s different for them and how they see me. For Mary, this must have been so hard. There was no one on earth for her like Jesus. And maybe she was feeling pressure from the other children to rein him in. I guess what I’m saying is that I want to really care about the people around me. I want to love them more. I don’t want to be codependent with them, but I want to see each person with love and mercy. And not only other Christians. I want to love everyone richly. Help me to know how to do that in any given moment.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen