By our love, by our love. Yes they'll know we are Christians...

When my buddy and I were in Everglades City, Florida, with nowhere to stay at 10:00 at night, we saw a sign of someone who gave swamp tours. He had also painted a Jesus fish next to his personal contact information. I, being the most shameless Chinese person I know, called his cell phone and told him that we were two students from a Christian college in Illinois and were wondering if he had a yard for us to pitch a tent and crash for the night. In his southern drawl, he asked, "Ya'll are Brothers right?" "Yessir we are." "Well then set up right near that sign." "Thank you very much sir."

Later that week, not having very much money to spend on food, we went to a church with pews full of people with white hair. We were the youngest there. They gushed hospitality and nearly forced us to stay for lunch afterwards (not that we resisted at all.)

"Someone told him, "Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you."

He [Jesus] replied to him, "Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Pointing to his disciples, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother." -Matt 12:47-50

With those words, Jesus redefined "family." Family was no longer limited to blood, clan, cultural, or national ties. "Family" transcended dividing borders, and in Matthew 10, in highlighting the radically offensive nature of the Gospel, lists allegiance to earthly family as a possible hindrance to taking up our cross.

On one hand, communication and access to travel has brought the world to our front door. But on the other hand, we seem to be trying harder than ever to remain isolated and insulate ourselves from the neighbors that have been brought to our front doors... or, have physically and spiritually inoculated our consciences with the readily available vaccines against our guilt and the Holy Spirit.

I love the story of the Rich Young Man. There is so much beef and umph in those verses. I love it (yet am secretly a little afraid) when Jesus says that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of the needle than for a rich person to enter the Kingdom, and Mark says, "The disciples were even more amazed, and said to each other, 'Who then can be saved?'" In their minds, wealth indicated God's approval and blessing. I can see them in their amazement; John nudging Peter whispering, "Wait, did he just say that?" and Peter responding, "Dude, I'm not sure..." Without missing a beat, Jesus surprises us again and says, "With man this is impossible, but not with God; all things are possible with God." Yes, even a camel through the eye of the needle, says Jesus, is possible with God's grace.

Mark ends it by saying, "'I tell you the truth,' Jesus replied, 'no one who has left home or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields for me and the gospel will fail to receive a hundred times as much in this present age (homes, brothers, sisters, mothers, children and fields—and with them, persecutions) and in the age to come, eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last first.'"

In my selfishness, I wonder what it would look like to really treat others as family, to be truly generous, not just when I have a vested interest. I listened to my brother and his "me first" worldview today, dripping off of every sentence that came out of his mouth. (Granted, it was his birthday.) In my family in which the best has always been reserved for my brother and I, I wonder if I would be hearing a different way with words if we had lived a bigger vision of family.