This is a guest post by my sister, the Rev. Susan Joy Huizenga. She preached this sermon on Good Friday (4/14/17) at the Aleda E. Lutz VA Medical Center; Saginaw, MI. Some of you know Susan from an earlier?post about being a living kidney donor.
One day when I was about twelve years old, my sister Beth demanded to know all about a conversation I had with a friend in the neighborhood. She thought I knew some sort of secret, and she demanded to know.
?She made me promise not to tell? I objected.
My sister persisted ?Come on, Susan! Blood is thicker than water!?
To the best of my recollection, I never did cave into Beth’s demand. But I got the point. Blood is thicker than water.
In New Jersey, when I was growing up in the 1970s, the mafia was much in control of certain aspects of life. Also, we lived in an Italian neighborhood. The ideal of family and clan loyalty was strong. Later, while I was working in Trenton NJ, the students were discussing the TV series ?The Sopranos? and one of the students stated emphatically ?I cannot watch that. My friend?s father was killed by the mob. It hits too close to home.?
{Law Enforcement realized they could not keep up with the number of murders and mayhem that this mob crime situation presented to them. Lawmakers and law enforcement got together and passed a law RICO to take out the financing of the operation. It worked. So the mob is still there but much diminished in power and scope.}
Hearing this ancient story about what Jesus went through, reminds us that thinking ?might makes right,” or the rule by those with swords, or the fear of protesters, or the incompetence of those in authority, or inadequate human systems ? none of this is new!
Jesus encountered all of these during his life?s mission of shining light on love, truth and peace. He encountered the misuse of raw power; outright jealousy of his popularity; intellectual arguments ?What is Truth??; misunderstandings of his teachings and his intent; treason; betrayal; human weakness of all kind. It?s all there in this account we just heard.
Nothing is new under the sun. To him or to us! I?m quite confident that Jesus was not surprised by any of this opposition, because he surely knew the system and the culture in which he lived. He also knew the human heart and its fears and weaknesses.
At the end of this account, we hear what Jesus has to say, and he directed his carefully chosen words to his mother and his beloved friend. He said to his mother ?Woman, here is your son.? And to the disciple ?Here is your mother? and in the shortest adoption proceeding on record, he created a family where there was no family a moment before.
Jesus prioritized relationship and defines family but in a different way than we may be expecting. Jesus showed us true Family Values in his actions.
We can only speculate on his motives, but it is clear that he is creating a sort of ?Last Will and Testament? out of human love rather than ink and parchment. He was creating a will written in blood. So the family that Jesus creates, between his mother and his best friend, is held together by an intense form of love which was only possible because of their relationships with him.
So the bond of family becomes re-defined for me by this account. When I think about this brief conversation, I feel a renewed sense of optimism, of purpose, of hope and faith.
We do not get to pick the family we were born into. Some of us have fantastic family experiences, and some of us have horrific family experiences. Most of us likely fall somewhere in the middle.
But the good news today is that Jesus makes family bonds with his blood where there were none before. He did it 2,000 years ago, while hanging from a cross. He does it today when he creates homes for orphans and refugees?when people recognize that being a follower of Jesus means seeing the world as a place full of my siblings.
Sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, aunts and uncles, cousins?and that because of this divine love that Jesus models for us in this last will and testament, that is the love that also fuels our important work here?
- Being Family to those whose families let them down.
- Choosing to see others as if they were our blood relatives.
- Making family where there was none moments before.
- Viewing every person through the lens of close family.
Now if you do this, I warn you, it will make your life more difficult. You will cry more, when you realize that people who are suffering are your siblings. That we are all connected.
When I tell people about my kidney donation, the first question they ask is ?Was the recipient a family member, someone you knew?? And when I reply, I think to myself ?Now she is.? She is my new little sister, Buddi Subba, formerly a resident of refugee camp in Nepal. She almost died and was brought here so she could live.
And when I was presented with the opportunity to give her a life-giving gift, I was hit with his realization: Jesus loves her just as much as he loves me. That she is my sister. So because of the blood of Jesus, she received a kidney and I received another sister. A younger sister. And all her family, too. I?m claiming her grandson, too.
So yes, Beth, Blood is Thicker than Water!
And the blood of Jesus is the thickest blood of all, because it allows us to consider each other as beloved family.