A Motley Crew
Luke 6:12-26 and Jeremiah 17:5-10
February 28, 2010
On a blistering hot, summer day I was walking down Fourth Avenue in Tucson, Arizona and I saw something that simply blew my mind.
For those of you unfamiliar with Fourth Avenue, any average day there is an intriguing place. Eclectic is perhaps the best word to describe it. Organic food shops, bookstores, bars, ethnic restaurants, coffee shops, cigar stores, and bicycle repair places line the streets. The sidewalks are normally stuffed with people of all classes and kinds, wealthy and poor, housed and homeless, students and the unschooled, skateboarders, doctors, teachers, bikers, street performers, guitarists, and general pedestrians.
For you Harry Potter fans, it feels a bit like Diagon Alley, the place where wizards buy their wands and potions. It’s a place where the imaginative nestles alongside the normal; and after awhile it’s easy to become used to the grand diversity of Fourth Avenue.
But surprises are never completely exhausted there, as proven by my encounter with the impossible. At first I thought perhaps that my eyes were broken, that the blistering summer sun had melted my retinas. For what I saw couldn’t really be possible could it?
When I first saw the three-headed beast, I was across the street on the opposite sidewalk. It was not more than three feet high and was peacefully strutting alongside its owner. It was so remarkable that I immediately crossed the street, dodging cars and a trolley in order to verify its authenticity. Sure enough, my eyes were not malfunctioning. It was real.
On the bottom was a dog. Riding on top of the canine was a cat. On top of the cat, yes you guessed it, was a mouse. As if a mouse, on top of a cat, on top of a dog were not enough to amaze and befuddle, the fact that they were not even tied together made the scene all the more remarkable. And the mouse wasn’t simply sitting down, but was scurrying along the top of the cat as if the feline’s back was no more than a patch of carpet. It was absolutely wonderfully unbelievable.
If three sworn enemies of the animal kingdom can get along this well with just a little bit of training, then peace on earth may indeed be a very real possibility.
This experience of inter-species harmony helps reinforce a belief of mine that perhaps one of the most meaningful threads woven into the fabric of earthly life is the ability for animals to share in mutual relationships despite their grand diversity.
I’m sure every one of us with an email account has received emails which further strengthen this idea. Often our inboxes are filled with unbearably cute pictures of a dog nursing orphaned piglets, of a cat lovingly kneading the chest of a dog, of puppies and kittens cuddling during a nap, of a line of ducklings following a surrogate mother dog. One can’t help but be uplifted by these adorable moments.
Life on this earth is often surprising in the way bonds can be made by the most unlikely of animals; and we human animals are no different. Often times the best of friends come from the most diverse of backgrounds or have disparate beliefs that would seemingly divide them. But relationships among people do not hold firm to set rules and specific structures. Life is much more vibrant and miraculous than that.
This ability of animals and humans to connect beyond the bounds of the expected is captured in a term used by anthropologists called “fictive kin.” “Fictive” here means artificial or not genuine. In a “fictive kin” group humans and other animals find and develop family-like relationships outside of their normal blood-related family members. It is a created family, not a natural one. Often times “fictive kin” groups gather together around a central cause or way of life which becomes more important than traditional family relationships.
A prime example from literature is found in Lord of the Rings. Hopefully by now many of you have seen this trilogy of movies and will remember a part in the first film where a diverse group of people gather in the stunningly beautiful valley of Rivendell. The cast of characters couldn’t be more different: there are four tiny, big-footed hobbits, a bearded, wise wizard, two normal human men, a blonde-haired, stately elf and a quick-tempered, grumpy dwarf. As the group gathers together to fight the imposing power of an evil spirit named Sauron they solidify their loyalty to one another with an oath and ritual, becoming a family of “fictive kin.” While not related by heritage or blood, throughout the book they act in essence like a family. They struggle together like a family. They work together like a family. They sacrifice their lives for one another. They consider themselves brothers in a greater cause. They are a fictive family.
Perhaps knowing that J.R.R. Tolkien was a devout Christian during his life and was a close friend the more well-known writer C.S. Lewis will help you see the parallels between this ragtag group in the Lord of the Rings and our passage from Luke today.
Just as the company in the Lord of the Rings was gathered from across a spectrum of people, so Jesus gathers his disciples without regard to their backgrounds, their histories, their occupations, or their lineages. Among the twelve disciples that Jesus chooses after his time of prayer on the mountain are:
- Four fishermen: Peter, Andrew, James and John
- A tax-collector for the Romans: Matthew
- A rebel against the Roman: Simon the Zealot
While the occupations of the other disciples are unknown, we do know that about ninety percent of the population in ancient Palestine were rural workers, most of whom were farmers. So it wouldn’t be a far stretch to think that one or two the remaining disciples might have been peasant farmers. As for Jesus, he was the son of a carpenter and at the time he was living most men followed the professions of their fathers, so we can assume that Jesus may have been a carpenter like his dad.
What a motley crew of people! A former tax farmer helping the Romans, side-by-side with a former political rebel against the Romans. A carpenter, fishermen, and possibly peasant farmers. All of whom came together to create, in a sense, a new family of “fictive kin.”
This gathering of the faithful seems rather mundane to us today. We live in a society where making and changing friends is commonplace. Ethnicity, background, history, social status frequently make little difference in our friendships. Furthermore, in the professional world people often change jobs at the drop of the hat.
But the world of Palestine in the time of Jesus was dramatically different. Men were expected to perform the same jobs their families practiced. This seen most clearly in the example of the priesthood of ancient Israel, which was hereditary. In order to be a priest, one had to be of the tribe of Levite and the son of a priest.
Social class and social station were strictly maintained and anyone venturing beyond the realms of the expected was often scorned. There was no sense like we have now of “doing what your heart desires.” What was expected was for one to do what their family did. Period. End of story.
With this in mind perhaps we can better understand that while our passage of Jesus selecting apostles may not seem radical today, it would have been in the time it was written. For Jesus to form a “fictive kin” family, a family distinct from the normal family units of his day showed disregard for traditional family values.
For further proof of how radical this notion was we need only to turn over a few chapters, to Luke 14:26, where we hear Jesus say these words: ”Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”
We tend to moderate this statement today by interpreting Jesus’ words lightly. Often this passage is explained as “Jesus is just making a point. He doesn’t really desire for you to leave your family.”
But it is more likely that Jesus uses such strong words because the people he was trying to persuade were living in a society with strict barriers that separated people from one another. Jesus was trying to convince people that what is most important is not simply one’s family, or one’s place in society, but creating a kingdom of God that destroys the aspects of society that keep people apart from one another. What is most important is finding the common humanity in all people, not ostracizing people based on who their family is or how diseased or impoverished society deems them to be.
Jesus lives out this message in the motley crew of disciples he chooses. Remember that the traditional, most respected occupation for a peasant to have was farming. Land was inherited and land was essential to the traditional Israelite way of life. But most prominent of Jesus’ disciples are those without land who most likely lost it at some point in their family histories. A tax-collector, a rebel, four fishermen—these were people outside the traditionally well-respected professions of the day and for Jesus to include them in his “fictive kin” family would have been surprising for many people.
Furthermore, where Luke places this story in his gospel is important. It comes directly before Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain where Jesus establishes the essentials of his vision for the world. The first half of the speech, which we heard this morning, was supremely counter-cultural just as the selection of his disciples was. Blessed are poor. Blessed are the hungry. Blessed are those who weep. Blessed are you when people hate you, when they exclude, revile, and defame you. And woe to the rich, the full, and the joyful.
Perhaps we can better understand this vision of society if we realize that when Jesus was saying these words he was surrounded by the poor, the hungry, the sick, the demon-possessed, the weeping, those at the margins of society. These were people who society had left behind, who were ostracized and victimized, who were often cut off from their normal, blood-related families because of situations beyond their control.
So Jesus invites them into his new family, his motley crew of believers. It doesn’t matter who their mothers and brothers are, who their fathers and sisters are. Here among the new family of Jesus and his odd collection of disciples, all are welcome. But for those who have been the cause of their isolation, those who have ignored them, those who are rich, full, and joyful, those who have inflicted hardships on others, they already have their reward.
One of the most powerful actions we can make in this world is welcoming someone whom society has left out—and not simply giving them a meal, or a hug—but viewing them and acting towards them as one would a family member, bringing them into our lives with the compassion and love one would show a brother, sister, father or mother and making them part of our family of “fictive kin.”
Indeed, this very principle is what the church is based upon and one which we life out every time we gather here on Sunday morning—the creation of a family in which all are welcome, none are ostracized and all receive the love and care essential for the nourishment and growth of their lives.
The hard part is ensuring that we don’t stop here on Sunday mornings, but that we carry with us in our daily lives the same hospitality and welcome that we receive while we are here. For the family of God is not meant to be pure-bred, perfectly aligned, or meticulously well-maintained. The family of God is a motley crew where tax collectors and zealots, homeless and housed, peasants and physicians, teachers and fishermen all are welcome and may find peace. Amen.
