Luke 8:19-21 :
His mother and brothers came to him, and they could not come near him for the crowd. It was told him by some saying, “Your mother and your brothers stand outside, desiring to see you.”
But he answered them, “My mother and my brothers are these who hear the word of God, and do it.”
The teachings of Jesus were intended to touch and revise our deepest affections and beliefs. These verses express this depth by comparing the relationships in the Kingdom of God with deep relationships we have here on earth. It is fairly easy to understand what was happening when we read this story. Jesus had the usual crowds around Him and His mother and brothers assumed that He would be willing stop what He was doing to visit with them because He was related to them. This seems very natural and innocent to me when reading it from a normal human perspective and because I read it that way, Jesus’ words stand out in a way that make them seem rude. I think that this is how Jesus meant it to sound to those who were still not believing what He was saying.
In the Kingdom of God, old relationships take a lower place and new relationships become more important. For some of you who have had bad childhoods or dysfunctional families, this should be very encouraging because you have a new family now. God isn’t expecting you to treat your earthly family as more important than your heavenly one. Don’t think that I am saying that we are not to deeply love our earthly families. God will hold us responsible for how we behave to those who He has placed in our care and within our influence. What I am saying is that the Heavenly family takes priority. Hopefully, our earthly families and heavenly ones are the same but we read here that we are able to judge each other by our actions. Those who are not acting like they belong to the family of God by obeying His Word may not actually be a part of it because it is not apparent that they really believe. We also cannot be sure that they are not in the family of God because we don’t know their hearts. We will have to treat them as their actions deserve, however, in the hope that the truth about their belief in Jesus will come out in their actions.
Notice that Mary is not a divine being in this story. She is just a mother in an earthly sense and acts like you and I would. Notice that she also had other children. Although she was admirable in her faith, she was human like everyone else.