SIBLINGS
Matthew 12:46-50

A sermon given by the Rev. Richard H. Taylor
April 10, 2005 / 3rd Sunday of Easter

"Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." So says Jesus. Anyone who hears Jesus and follows God, gets to be a member of Jesus' family. You are a sister or brother of Jesus. Do you feel like a sister or brother of Jesus?

This is important. This is what church membership is about. We all become a new kind of family. We all become sisters and brothers to each other. What kind of a family is this?

Explaining this family is actually the heart and soul of much of the New Testament.

UCLA professor Scott Bartchy¹ suggests that if one of St. Paul's friends or contemporaries came to visit us in the twenty-first century, they would be very puzzled by our English translations of Paul's letters. In the original Greek Paul writes to the churches calling their members "sisters and brothers." "Sisters and brothers" this, "sisters and brothers that." Yet today the English translations hide the fact that we are supposed to be family. Why, these visitors from the first century would ask, are we hiding what it means to be a Church?

Now our text for today comes from the Gospels. This translation is pretty good. Jesus says those who do God's will are my brother, sister, and mother. But when you get into the translations of Paul's letters this clarity disappears.

Sometimes it disappears in the more liberal translations, like the New Revised Standard Version (NRSV), that we use in the pews, even though it wants to be inclusive, because the phrase "sisters and brothers," is long and cumbersome. So it says things like "when one of you does such and such, then another of you responds." Paul would say "when a sister or brother does such and such, then another sister or brother responds." It takes up more space in the printed book. But it is closer to Paul and Jesus' idea that we are in relationship.

Similarly, in some of the newer conservative translations, like the New International Version, while the translator knows that Paul is being inclusive, they may not want their audience to know that. So they use the word "believer." When one believer does this, another believer responds. But while "believer" is religious it is individualistic. We all choose our belief. It loses the sense that we are supposed to be equal family to each other.

Then, of course, there are the old translations, like the King James. They use just "brother." Lots of people read the King James translation, with all its "brother this" and "brother that," and get the idea that men are supposed to be everything in the Church.

Let me give you a little Greek lesson.

The word that Paul uses again and again for sisters and brothers is adelphoi. This is the plural of both sister - adelphe - and brother - adelphos. The plural is the same for both: sisters and brothers, or as Bartchy suggests "siblings," adelphoi. The root Greek word for these three words is delphys which means "womb." Literally: sisters and brothers means people who come from the same womb, or people who come from the same mother. So adelphoi people means "same womb people."

So what do you think! Here we have these so called conservatives reading the Bible, and saying the Church should be run by the "brothers," the men, and the word for brothers actually means "womb people." Would you please tell me how "womb people" got to be men only?

Paul is trying to say all the sisters and brothers are equal in this new family, and the translators won't allow him to say it! The translators are covering up his message.

For example, in I Corinthians alone, Paul uses adelphoi forty-one times, once for a real biological family, and forty times for the inclusive Christian family. But even the NRSV in thirteen of these instances blocks out the message that we are siblings - related to each other.

Yet the original says, "we are family."

But there is more here. What kind of a family is this new family?

Bartchy quotes a second century enemy of the Christians, Lucian of Samosata who says that after the Christians have denied the Greek gods, that Jesus has persuaded them that they are all brothers and sisters. All these enemies of the system are acting like they are now a family.

In a formal empire system you have a place assigned by birth. Blood family means everything. Are you born a Roman citizen or a slave? Are you upper class royalty or wilderness nomad? Do you own a business or only the clothes on your back? Everything depends on blood family birth.

But if you are a slave who has been educated you are a very lonely person. The slaves consider you too high-falutin', the owners consider you a slave. Where can you find community? Suppose you are a woman who inherits a business. That can be a lonely existence. The women consider you too masculine, the men still consider you a woman. It is precisely these socially divergent people who formed the first urban Christian churches.²

If you reject the Roman or Greek gods or the cult of the Emperor, your blood family disowns you. Where then do you belong? You form a new family - sisters and brothers brought together by the love of God; not by blood, because love makes a family.

But there is more here.

Go back to our text. Jesus says whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Note that the only father in the equation is God. There are no earthly fathers in this new family configuration. Jesus says lets create a community with no one who acts like an earthly father.

What does that mean? Well ancient Roman society fathers are everything. Fathers were kings and princes. Power flowed from fathers. Fathers got to lord it over their wives and their children. Fathers owned the property and got to decide who it went to when they died. But Jesus and Paul are saying "call no man father." They are saying do not create a situation where one of you thinks you are the father over anyone else. Create a world where you are all sisters and brothers.

So Paul does not say, "listen to me, I am your father." He merely says "I am your brother." I am just your equal in this. We are all sisters and brothers.

Now it is great to me as a single man to know that the Church can be my family. I can get pretty lonely, and I am happy to know that the Church can be my family.

But I have to deliver a message here to those of you who are strong parts of your biological families. Jesus and Paul put the spiritual family - love makes a family - ahead of the biological family. The biological family makes property and position and prestige the prominent aspects of your life. It is from the rule of biology that we get dynasties, and kings, and passed-on oppressive capital.

There are those who argue that the basic building block of Christianity if the father-led blood-family. I would argue quite the opposite - it is the chosen community of love and spirit that tries to do God's will.

If your blood brother is a thief, you must still love your blood brother, but you must cleave to your spiritual sisters and brothers. Your life must be lived by those who share with you the desire to do God's will, and not merely some physical inheritance.

So this is what Church membership is about. Choosing a new family. Choosing a family of God. Here is a family without earthly fathers, but instead equal sisters and brothers. It is unlike any other family you have known. Become a sibling. Join the new community.

Amen.

1 - Bartchy, S. Scott, "Secret Siblings," Sojourners (November 2004,
pp.33-36). This article was used for much of the Biblical translation discussions in this sermon.
2 - See Meeks, Wayne A., The First Urban Christians, (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1983)