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Our Families and Ministry

            While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to 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.” (Matthew 12:46-50)

Jesus was creating a stir. The authorities weren’t happy with Him, and His family decided to step in to fix things. I wonder what Mary thought of this intervention. Maybe, as with the wedding at Cana, she thought a little push might produce some good results. Maybe she thought He was stepping on too many toes and needed a vacation and some advice to complete His mission. Maybe she was trying to convince His siblings that they needed to back off and came along to put her foot down if they put theirs down too hard. Ministry can seem to change the status quo. Family members who thought they were number one in your life may not be comfortable with the changes a ministry brings to your life. For that matter, you may not be comfortable with the changes a ministry brings to your life.

The response Jesus gives makes me think that His mother was not the one taking the lead here, because I suspect He would have shown more respect if she were. But God’s call to us must come first in our lives, and if that means we gently put our families in their place, then we do so. This must be done with prayer, because it’s easy to get ourselves wound up about our ministry when God hasn’t given it to us.

At the same time, the situation can reach the point where our response must be direct and definite. If God has given us a ministry, then family and friends may have to accept a demotion. Their refusal is irrelevant. They were never meant to be our gods. They were meant to be our family. Our best prayer is that God would work to make the family and the ministry compatible.

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