DISCIPLESHIP AND COST - by Revd Gilbert Wong

Texts: Psalm 40:1-12; Mark 3:31-35

20 January 2008

Introduction

This text is particularly challenging as we gather together this morning for a family service - a service where children and adults are supposed to listen to some encouraging messages to foster and strengthen family life.   And yet here in the Gospel, we seem to hearing the opposite.  This seems to be a message which teaches us to ignore our biological family for another one.  Is Jesus ignoring his own family?  If so, is he also encouraging us to do the same?  How family life, which is already under threat, expects to benefit from such a text?

Prepositional Sentence: A Family Redefined

Transitional Sentence: We need to understand this redefined family in two ways.

I believe we can understand this redefined family by firstly examining the context of this passage and secondly, by applying that understanding to discipleship.

Firstly, let us examine the context of this passage.

Jesus’ family seemed to be anxious for Jesus’ safety.  In Mark 3:20-21, we read that Jesus’ family was forcibly going to take Jesus away from the crowd as they feared for his safety.  “Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat.  When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” 

It was obvious that Jesus’ family was concerned about his health and safety.  He had not been eating or resting as he and his disciples continued to serve the crowd.  As parents and siblings, it seemed a natural affection that they wanted Jesus to be safe and not to be sorry for neglecting his health and safety.

So when they appeared at the scene in verse 31, they were really there to snatch him out from the crowd.  They really wanted to help Jesus.  They perceived that not only Jesus would be tired out by the continuous strain and stress of ministry but there was also a smearing campaign going on by the religious leaders (see 3:22-30) who concluded that Jesus was indeed demon-possessed.

And so with so many people pressing on him for ministry and a smearing campaign by the religious leaders, it was only natural for parents to be anxious for their children’s safety. 

But what seemed natural in this case of parental love could not determine that it was necessarily the will of God.  In other words, no matter how well-intentioned parents might be, it could amount to sinful interference with the will of God.

Jesus was telling his own family that “his comings and goings cannot be determined by physical ties but only by the will of God”. 

You may recall a few other incidents where natural affections amount to sinful interference.  John 2:3-4 tells us of one such incident: “When the wine was gone, Jesus’ mother said to him, ‘They have no more wine.’ ‘Dear woman, why do you involve me?’  Jesus replied, ‘My time has not yet come.’  Peter was another when he tried to stop Jesus from going to Jerusalem only to be harshly rebuked by Jesus, “Get behind me Satan” (Mark 8:33)

So when Mary and his other sons appeared again in Mark 3:31, they were really there to save Jesus from the crowd and the smear campaign.  But they did not stop there as they allowed natural physical ties to determine their course of action without very little reference to the will of God.

So it is clear that natural and human ways cannot determine God’s will.  A familiar OT verse which echoes the same is Isaiah 55:9, “As heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

Transitional Sentence: But how is this to be applied to discipleship.

Secondly, let us understand how we can apply to discipleship.

As disciples of Christ, there is no other way except to recognise submissively and lovingly the supremacy of God’s will over all our physical ties and possessions.  God remains the grander vision of our earthly life.  All that we have and all that we are are to be used for his glory. 

However, we need also to know that Jesus was not expecting parents to therefore not show natural and parental care and concern for our children, and likewise children must honour and respect your parents and not use this text as a means to escape your filial obligations to your parents.

You find that elsewhere in the Mark’s Gospel, Jesus teaches exactly that.  In fact, Jesus condemned fiercely those who neglect their responsibilities to their parents through legal casuistry (see Mark 7:6-13), his returning of a healed man back to his family (5:18-19) and his condemnation of divorce (10:1-12).

Let me take one such teaching to illustrate which is that of Mark 7:6-13.  The erroneous teaching of the religious teachers was to ask their followers to honour their parents (the fifth commandment) and yet at the same time setting aside those very support to the use of God. It is like saying that my monthly salary is meant for God and so even though I need to support my parents I simply do not have the money.  At the heart of it is our negligence in looking after our parents.  Or God says that when I married I am to leave my parents so that I could cleave with my wife and therefore it meant that I have no more responsibility for the well being of my parents.  Or I have committed my funds to my children’s education or to housing loan so I am not able to support my parents.

There are hundred and one reasons to neglect our responsibility to our parents.  Using the Word of God erroneously to support personal interpretation. 

And that should alert parents today not to allow natural and social (which is really human generated) expectations to override what God may want to do in the lives of our children.  We should teach our children not only in Sunday schools but as part of our family life where devotion and prayer should characterise the spiritual training of the heart and ear of our children to the things of God.

The only way to break that contaminating way of understanding God’s word is to have a systematic reading of God’s word.  The problem with most Christians is that we do not read our bible book by book but topically or thematically.  But the Bible has full of different topics and themes.  But if we read the Bible book by book, it will help us understand the full range of concerns in the Bible and that would help us have a wider understanding of the entire Bible.   Perhaps we should preach book by book as a way forward to increase our understanding of the Bible.

Our family life in Singapore is not improving based on the increase in divorce rates and single parent family.  It is imperative that as fellow Christians we are the parents, brothers and sisters to all those who have poor family ties.  We need to take this very seriously.  Paul used that same understanding in his application to hospitality among church members in 1 Timothy 5:1-2 where he urged Timothy’s congregation, “Do not rebuke an older man harshly, but exhort him as if he were your father.  Treat younger men as brothers, older women as mothers, and younger women as sisters, with absolute purity.”

Some are forced to make a decision between parents and God.  God in this case must come first otherwise you would have to renounce your faith for the sake of your parents. 

Let end with a true story of girl who had to choose between her parents and God.  She came to faith while in Singapore but her family came to hear of it and had threatened to travel to Singapore or sent someone to kill her. She was very frightened and our path happened to cross that night and we shared and prayed together.  She also had a Christian friend with whom she received much encouragement.  Several months later I met her again and found out that her parents had finally accepted the fact that she had become a Christian even though the real danger is there that should she returned home she might be killed.  And for that she put her trust in God and the Christians here in Singapore have become her new brothers and sisters.

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