Advent:: Family Shame

I have played on a Portland City basketball team. 

I am a graduate of George Fox Evangelical Seminary.

I am the husband and father of the Kroon family. 

I'm a pastor of Cascade Church Portland. 

What do these distinctions all have in common? They are groups that I have chosen to be part of. 

Most all of the groups that we associate ourselves with are groups of our choosing. Where we work, where we worship, where we recreate are all reflections of choice. 

One of the most fundamental groups that we are associated with is always outside of our choice. We don't get a choice in the families we were born into. It's easily the most influential group we will ever associate with and it is something that happens to us. 

A formational aspects of growing up that we will likely face in our journey into adulthood is feelings of shame or pride regarding our family.  What parts of our lives we are proud or ashamed of are often based off of messages we received from our family. We also think about our families through lenses of pride or shame based of our how we believe other people view our families. 

What's so interesting about families is that we can feel a sense of pride or shame about things we haven't personally done in a group of people that we never chose to be part of. So how does Jesus invite us to negotiate this completely unique situation? Do we accept only the good things about our family and reject the bad? Do we need to accept it all? What does Jesus mean when he asks, "Who is my mothers and who are my brothers?" in Matthew 12?