A family affair.

Remember Star Wars Episode One?  Sure you do, unless you've blocked it from your minds because of its abhorrent dreadfulness.  But if you don't remember it, here's a brief reminder of the absolute worst part of that film.

Yes, the worst part of that film.  It basically undoes the entire Star Wars Mythos, with a fun bit of Jar Jar Binks at the end.  What a dreadful clip.  I have actually upset myself even watching that for the sake of the blog.  But what it does, is it takes the Force, the ancient, mystical power that permeates the universe, and turns it into something you can take a blood test for.  Something that you can, and in the film, that they do take a blood test for.  It's shameful, and really corrupts the rest of the narrative, and it turns the story of the Jedi into a story of genetic inevitability.  You are going to be a Jedi because of good breeding.  That's it.

I bring all this up because of the Gospel reading from Sunday, the one that talks about the mother and brothers of Jesus as though they had that same kind of Midichlorian inevitability towards the divine that Anakin Skywalker does in Star Wars.  That is, the mother and brothers of Jesus come to find him while he is out preaching, with the assumption that they will be able to modify his speech.  They are closer to Jesus than his disciples, so they can inform his dialogue, mainly because they find him to be embarrassing.

And this is essentially the plot to the Davinci Code, that Jesus had a family with Mary Magdalene, that they left the Holy Land and settled in France, and that the family of Jesus, his bloodline, continues today.  That's the plot, and I've happily just ruined it for you now.  But here's the thing,
which is that the family of Jesus, well, like everyone else in the scriptures, they don't come off looking fantastic.  They come off looking like sinful people, which they are.  And the Gospel reading is very much like that.  The family of Jesus come over essentially to stop him from talking.  Jesus is saying a few key things, and people don't want to hear it.  Jesus is drawing a lot of attention.  A lot of undue attention.  He's making a scene, and saying controversial things, and so they, his family, want to stop the conversation.  As any of us do when we have a nice dinner party.  We want to stop the conversation from going to anything too controversial.  Like religion.  Or politics.

But we spent hours, heck the majority of our conversational time dealing with pleasantries.  Small Everbody love Everybody.  We don't let him speak about other things.  We shut him up, ignore those parts of his word, and generally neuter the conversation so that he is only ever represented to the outside world, as well as the inside world, as saying the most tired platitudes on earth.
talk.  Even in couples.  Even in churches.  Even in safe spaces.  And in an effort to reduce Jesus to something we can talk comfortably about, we've declawed him.  We've removed from him all the words that are offensive or biting or difficult or dangerous.  We make sure that Jesus will say only one message,

Essentially what we're doing is binding the strong man.  We're tying Jesus up, to make sure he won't embarrass us in front of other nice people. We who are in his family, who are adopted into his family through Grace, we who are in the inner circle in much the same way as his mother and brothers and sisters, we want to stop things from getting out of control.

The problem there is that Jesus will not be bound.  At this point I need to bring up the classic line from the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, where Lucy is talking to the beavers. She mentions that she would be scared to meet a lion, and hopes that Aslan, the lion, is safe.

“Safe?” said Mr. Beaver; “don’t you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? ‘Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the King, I tell you.” 
― C.S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe

Aslan isn't safe.  But he's good.  And that's what Jesus is too.  Not safe, but good.  Those two things aren't the same.  They often go together, but to be genuinely good, to be capital G Good, it means you can't be safe.  And Jesus is going to say some things that his family will be embarrassed, both his biological family and his spiritual family.  Including us.

You're tempted to hush him up, neuter him, stop him from talking about divorce, sexual ethics, charity, fasting, love for family, love for the people you see around you, all that.  You're tempted to hush him up, tie him up, and get him to stop embarrassing you in front of all your friends.

But hushing him up comes with an unintended consequence.  If you strip Jesus of any ability to speak about the things you don't want to consider, then you declaw not just the law, but the gospel, too.  If you want Jesus to speak about love, about forgiveness, about God's grace, then you're going to have to listen to him talk about sin, and your part in it.  You're going to have to listen to him discuss how far you've gone wrong, and where you have to go right.

It's in every way like a doctor.  If you want the doctor to talk about cures and moving forward, said doctor will also have to talk about your illness, and how it is going to be treated and avoided in the future.  The doctor will have to talk about your sickness, not just tell you to go on your way and be well.  In that same way, if Jesus is to speak of heaven, life, grace and truth, he is going to have to talk about sin, and your sin in particular.

Don't try to shut him up.  Don't slam the Bible.  Don't close the book, plug your ears and ignore Jesus.  And don't assume that he's only speaking to other people, people who aren't you.  Realize that his words are for you, for your sin and for your shame.  His words are for you in your deceit, in your rebellion against God and each other.  His words are for you and your anger at those you know, your own family, at God himself.  The words that he has to say are designed to call you out, designed for you to deal with them and know them for what they are.  And ultimately, the words he has to say are to set the stage for him to lavish his forgiveness on you.  But that only works if you have something to forgive.  So instead of hiding the words of Jesus, or hiding yourself like Adam and Eve, or pretending that Jesus doesn't say what he says, you ought to sin boldly, that the grace of God may be all the more apparent.  Know your sin for what it is, deal with it, confess it, and turn it over to God, that he might forgive it, and blot it out.  Because that's how law and Gospel work.  Yes, the law is embarrassing, but the promise of the Gospel makes it all worthwhile.