ELOGOS for Monday

​Mark 3: 32-35
A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.”
* * * * * * * *
There was a woman I knew who was the matriarch of a large family. I was often invited to be at their dinner table and learned it was a typical practice of this woman to invite random people - some lonely, some poor, some with disabilities - to the family dinner table. This woman's practice reflected Jesus' own understanding of family. Christ pushed the definition of what it means to be brothers and sisters. He took a sledgehammer to walls that had become definitions of family so rigid that more would be walled out than ever allowed in. Let's expand our definition and do it this week. Sometime this week in your home or at a restaurant for a meal, invite someone who is not related by blood or marriage or already long-known, close friend. 
* * * * * * * *
Open our hearts, Lord, to value family in the way that you do. Amen.