OR FAMILY-BASED KINGDOMS? (like the Cosa Nostra)
Politicians and preachers say a lot about "family values" and how "the family is the basis of everything good in society." True. To a point. But how do we square that with the following account from Mark 3:31-35:
Then Jesus' mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him. The crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, "Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you." "Who are my mother and my brothers?" he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God's will is my brother and sister and mother."
That loud, high-pitched shrieking sound you might be hearing just now, echoing across the centuries, would be a Galilean mother, once someone told her what her son, Jesus, had just said. For more about what Jesus said and why, and what that means for citizens of the Kingdom of God, check out last week's message at Emmanuel Mennonite Church at