Why Jesus dissing his mama is good news for the rainbow family of God
A sermon on Eve, Mary, Jesus being rude, and the good news of God in Pride Month
First preached for Pride Eucharist 2024 at Jubilee Episcopal Church; parts of this text draw from my chapter on Eve in my book, God Didn’t Make Us to Hate Us.
So what in the world does the infamous “Fall,” in Genesis, and Jesus being called satanic for healing and preaching – while also possibly dissing his mom? – have to do with Pride?
I promise: we’re going to get there. We have two absolutely wild stories in the Bible today, and to understand what’s happening in the Gospel, we have to first unpack what’s happening in Genesis
Ok so we first have the story of the first two humans, the “earth-creatures,” … andhis is a story we all know.
… Or do we?
Sometimes, stories in the Bible take on a life of their own. This is kind of the point of Scripture: this is why we call it the “LIVING Word.” These stories are not just dried-up old tales. They are alive.
But this also means that, sometimes, the retelling - and retelling, and retelling - of the story starts to overshadow the original story.
For example: most depictions of Eve show her as a TEMPTRESS. That she, with long luscious well-placed Renaissance locks lured Adam into eating the forbidden fruit.
And you know what Genesis 3 actually says?
That Eve and Adam are taking a garden stroll together when Eve starts speaking with the snake, who tells her if she eats the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge she will not die, but be like God.And then she and her husband WHO WAS WITH HER, both eat the fruit.
“Then they both saw clearly and knew that they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made garments for themselves.
… And this is where our reading for today picks up. They have BOTH chosen to eat the fruit because they BOTH thought it would be good to be like God.
And yet what they now see is that they are naked even though they have been naked the WHOLE time, but now? They feel fear. Perhaps because they see just how unlike God their vulnerable bodies are. So when God comes to see them, the man sheepishly confesses: “I heard your sound in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked.”
It’s like he is saying: “I knew you would see me as I now see me. Flaws, bumps, lumps, bruises, scars, stretch marks and all. I knew you would see me, vulnerable. So… I hid.”
And God asks: “how did you know?” God knows that their bodies were just the same in the moments before eating this fruit as after. God knows they are beautiful, but now the humans feel shame and doubt and fear. God grieves that they do not just know, but their knowledge makes them feel like they must hide themselves – deep in a closet, you might say.
And God calls them out of hiding.
And then a lot of things happen all at once but for TODAY I want you to pay attention to this—
God reams out the snake for tricking the people, and in the middle of God’s curse this there’s an oft-overlooked, but CRITICAL detail: God says
“I will put enmity between you and the woman,
and between your offspring and hers.”
Yes. Humans and snakes will not always be the easiest of neighbors. But more so for our Gospel text today, God is claiming that all human offspring are HER offspring. Are the offspring of EVE!
God claims the mother of all humanity is Eve. From Adam, too, but God gives the lionshare of life-creativity to the woman. We see this a chapter later, too, when Eve says “look! With God I have made a human!”
So why does it matter that all of us are daughters and sons and children of Eve?
Because if Eve is all humanity’s mother, when Jesus’ own mother shows up in the Gospel story today, we need to pay attention to whom Jesus gives the title “Mama.
Now we flash forward thousands of years to Jesus, standing in a crowd so thick and so angry he cannot even eat. Violence is teeming in the air, because for every person who has come seeking his healing there is someone standing there, in the sanctuary of a home, accusing Jesus of being demonic.
Even Jesus – even Jesus!! — was told his Good News for outcasts and love and healing was just too threatening to be anything but Satanic, apparently.
I hope this offers some comfort to you in this room who have been told that your love or your life or your healing or your preaching was demonic.
Even Jesus was called a demon for his love. Even JESUS was called demonic for his scandalous love.
And while people are calling the Son of God a traitor against God, Jesus hears that his own mother and siblings have come running to find him but the crowd is so thick they can’t get through the door to see him.
So the crowd tells Jesus his mom and brothers are outside, and Jesus responds: but who is my mother? Who are my siblings?
As a mom reading this story at first I was bristling at Mary’s defense. I mean, come on, Jesus. These people are threatening you and your mama bear and siblings came running to you. Mary probably has her sandal in hand ready to smack the first person who dares to touch you.
And then Jesus seems to spit in her face and say: who is my mother? And he looks around at the gathered crowd, who, remember, have literally just been calling him crazy and demonic, so, not exactly the friendliest bunch – and he says:
You. You are my mothers. You are my siblings.
Jesus is not actually dissing his own mother here.
Jesus is looking into the face of women and men and people who have been saying his love is of the devil, and Jesus says: you are my mothers, you are my siblings.
Jesus is also looking at those who are sick, or seeking healing, who have been abandoned by their own families or who have been called demonic themselves for how they live and love and Jesus says: YOU are my mothers, YOU are my siblings.
Jesus is saying: I see how each of you are bound up in my own life. And I see that you are beloved to me, my own flesh.
Jesus is saying: You are Eve. You are the one who thought you had to hide. You are my mother. And I love you.
This is the ultimate act of God declaring everyone to be a part of God’s own chosen family.
Jesus ingratiates everyone, everyone into his family, the sinners and the saints … and to be clear, being LGBTQIA+ is not a sin. To explore and celebrate your identity of how you connect with people is taking the body God gave you and cherishing its possibilities for connection, for communion, for care.
And, and, the power of following Jesus – whoever you are! – is knowing not only does God love you for all of who you are, but also that God loves you when you are not all you could be.
When we do not live into who God made us to be – when we are cruel to ourselves or cruel to others, when we are selfish but also when we are full of self-loathing, when we lash out in anger or when we turn that anger in on ourselves, when we are greedy or when we think we are not good enough, when we are ashamed – these are the times I think God is closest to us because God knows we can be better, because that is who God made us to be.
Cherished. Beautiful. Thriving. People made of each other and made for each other to frolic in a Garden where there is enough food for everyone.
Jesus looks at every single person in that room, and in this room, And Jesus claims each of us as family. Chosen. Beloved. Wanted. For all of our scars and stretch marks, God looks at us and says:
You are my family. And I love you. No matter what.
Amen.
Love that Bible story. As an autistic working class gay trans woman, I am, like Mary, The Mother of God.