2 Pentecost Yr B

I am reminded of a story we used to read to our children, after the little bird breaks out of the egg, his mother goes to find some food and the baby bird tumbles out of the nest to find his mother. He walks right past his mother and does not recognize her, and then he continues on and asks the kitten, the hen, the dog, the cow, the car, the boat, the plane and the snort, Are you my mother? Of course they were not, luckily the little bird ended up back in the nest, and his mother came home with a big fat worm to eat, and the little bird knew that that was his mother. How did the little bird recognize his mother? in the feeding and in the eating..... This story from Mark is told in the context of a meal.

Mark has Jesus ask this question, who is my mother, who are my brothers, who is my family? In this story that Mark tells us, Jesus redefines the criteria for what constitutes his true family. True family is determined by who does the will of God. What Mark asks us to do with this story is to rethink all relationships a new light, in a kingdom light. Jesus makes a claim about what it might mean to belong to other people, what Jesus does is to make a claim about identity.

People who follow Jesus are people who belong to God and who belong to one another. Our identity is a beloved child of God, we are marked as Christ's own forever, we are in relationship with our creator and the rest of creation. In the time in which Jesus lived and a little later when Mark was writing, this claim made one a crazy person, as evidenced in this story, and it made one guilty of sedition. The scribes who came down from Jerusalem, the religious heavy hitters, decided Jesus must be insane, because surely he would not make claims about kingdom that would make the empire mad, that would just not do. But indeed, Jesus was not crazy, so maybe his claims about kingdom life could be true.

In our contemporary society, which is a post-christian society, to claim identity as a follower of Jesus is tied to being a beloved child of God, this identity is tied to being part of a community of faith, a community of reconciliation, makes one seem crazy. This identity flies in the face of autonomy and individualism and self-determination. Even much of what some call Christianity today is about individual salvation, it's all about me and God. But this passage from Mark is about Jesus' claim of kinship, that we are all related, that we indeed belong to each other, we belong together, and that is like what we experience as family, but it is also bigger, broader and deeper than what we experience as family. The image is much more like an intricate web in which the thread continues infinitely, than a hierarchy in which one person is at the top, or even a wheel in which any one of us may be the hub.

As a follower of Jesus, we find our identity in being a beloved child of God, who has brothers and sisters for whom Love wins. We find our identity in being marked as Christ's own forever in baptism. We are loved, we are precious beyond measure, created for loving relationship with the source of all life and with one another. So what does this mean for us today? What does it mean to be part of this family that Jesus calls together? What does it mean to do the will of God?

Since I have placed this story from Mark clearly in the context of identity, and I have suggested that our identity is formed by being a beloved child of God, and being marked as Christ's own forever in baptism, I will answer those questions about what does this means by looking at the blueprint for following Jesus, our baptismal covenant. According to Dwight Zscheile (Schylie) again, his book People of the Way, Renewing Episcopal Identity is a must read for all of us, "community experiences God's grace and healing in the Eucharist, where the brokenness of our lives and the world is transformed into a foretaste of the heavenly feast. Christian ministry begins in baptism, where our identities are changed and we live no longer for ourselves but for God, for one another, and for our neighbors in the world. We become participating members of the body of Christ through the power of the Spirit."(p.89)

We promise to continue in the apostles' teaching and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in the prayers. Continuing in the apostles teaching is a central challenge for us. For many, the bible is an intimidating book that seems difficult to enter into meaningfully. We don't necessarily like everything it has to say. But we must listen to it, we must be informed by it, and we must teach our children and grandchildren it's stories. We must let it become our story so that we may be part of the story. You have opportunities at St. Andrew's in bible study and in Education for Ministry. And if we don't have what you want or need at the time you want or need it, please get it started yourself. The central activity for us as we gather together is sharing bread and that is good. This space is a depository of all of your prayers, you come here and we share our prayers and praise, and you bring that Spirit back out into the world as agents of reconciliation and peace.

We promise to persevere in resisting evil, and whenever we fall into sin, to repent and return to the Lord. The call to following Jesus is a call to transformation, deep change that encompasses our hearts, minds, and every aspect of our lives. This part of the baptismal covenant acknowledges the persistent reality to sin, to miss the mark. The persistent reality of evil isolates people, fragments people and relationships, breaks relationships, and causes people to do horrible things to one another. We dis-integrate in the face of evil. God is the single most integrating force in this world. We are transformed from disintegration to integration, from individuals to a body of christ.

We promise to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ. It is time to tell Jesus' story, it is time to tell your story, it is time to identify where God is your your life and in our live together. This is the story of wholeness, of reconciliation, of peace. This is the story about God's choice to walk with us, to walk with humanity through the pain and suffering of this life. This is the story of suffering and death, and the reality that our creator walks with us through that, doesn't take it from us, but walks with us in the midst of it. It is the story of resurrection. This is a story you all know well. New life happens, Love wins. We need to tell this story by word and example. We need to give others the gift of walking together and not alone, we need to give others the gift of community, of meaning, of purpose.

We promise to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as ourselves. As followers of Jesus we need to love others as we have first been loved. I have heard people say things like they don't deserve to be treated with respect, or she didn't deserve that painful death, or he doesn't deserve to have that tremendous gift. The reality is that what we deserve and what we get have nothing to do with each other. Jesus walked this journey on earth, suffered humiliation and pain, went to the cross, not because he deserved it but because of love. On the cross Jesus absorbs all that pain and suffering and takes it out of the world with him, and non of us deserve any of that. God loves, love wins, and that's enough. Christ comes to us as the stranger or as the guest. We are called to love others, in whom the image of God is present.

We promise to strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being. We are marked as Christ's own forever, we are called to God's mission of restoring human community, the place in which we live and move and have our being, to right relationships. Living as followers of Jesus means sharing in Christ's compassion for the vulnerable, suffering, hungry, homeless and poor. We do so as participants in God's kingdom, as participants in God's family, not because we can solve the world's problems through our own strength. This is God's work in which we share, this is God's mission in which we participate. As Bono, of the band U2 has said, "Stop asking God to bless what you're doing. Get involved in what God is doing -- because it's already blessed."

We are family, we are followers of Jesus, they may call us crazy, but what a way to go.
Love wins, Amen.