Choosing Relationships
by Jared Johnson
“Make sure they know that their entire life is defined by the relationships they choose.”
My mom’s younger brother has made his entire career helping brain-injured people as a psychologist. Years ago, I got to be on staff at a faith-based college and I was assigned to teach a certain class. I don’t remember much else about that class, but I remember asking Uncle Ed what he’d tell our students if he were teaching and he replied with that opening line.
What relationships did Jesus choose?
In one sense, Jesus chooses everyone. “The King isn’t really being slow about his promise, as some think; no, He’s patient for your sake – He doesn’t want anyone destroyed but wants everyone to repent” (2 Pet 3.9). “Aren’t we all children of the same Father; aren’t we all created by the same God? ...” (Malachi 2.10). We’re all God’s children. Tragically, many of His kids are estranged from Him, though you and I can do something about that.
Jesus knew what it was like to have family who were sideways with Him, but He chose to be patient with them day after day – and for years. “One time Jesus entered a house, and the crowds began to gather again. Soon he and his disciples couldn’t even find time to eat. When his family heard what was happening, they tried to take him away. ‘He’s out of his mind, they said’” (Mark 3.20-21; parallels in Luke 8 & Matt 12). Jesus grew up in a large family; Matthew 13 and Mark 6 both name four brothers: James, Joseph, Judas and Simon, and tag on that “his sisters live right here among us” (Matt 13.55-56, Mark 6.3). He had at least 2 sisters because it’s pluralized and He had 4 brothers, so Joe and Mary had at least 7 kids. Being that Joe wasn’t Jesus’s physical dad, our Savior and King also knows what it’s like to live in a blended family. During Jesus’s ministry, none of His siblings seemed to have given much credence to His divinity. Maybe He was even quieter about it with them than He was with crowds? Did Joe and Mary not share Jesus’s birth story with their younger kids much, or ever? In any case, they didn’t appreciate His ministry pre-cross, but two of His four ½-brothers contributed letters to our New Testament that we still read to this day. Evidently, big bro rising from death to live eternally changes the equation a bit! Maybe Joe Jr and Simon never came around. Maybe they did but lived brother-honoring lives in relative anonymity in the early church. Maybe His sisters believed Him but they lived with unbelieving husbands. We’ll only find out in eternity.
Jesus also chose friends. He specifically and directly referred to both Lazarus and His 12 as “friend(s).” (He did so in John 11.11 and 15.15, respectively.) Trust is part of Jesus’s friend equation as He trusted Lazarus, Mary and Martha to house them during Passion Week, when so many were looking for an opportunity to arrest and/or murder Him (a very strong inference from John 12.1 + Mark 11.11-12). He also said to the 12 during their Last Supper together that they were His trusted friends because “a master doesn’t confide in his slaves, [but] you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me.”
In a way, every decision is a decision to move either closer to, or further from, other people.
Whether you’re more inclined to say to someone else “Wanna get lunch?,” or to yourself “I just can’t even today,” we’re constantly ebbing and flowing in relationship throughout each day.
For those who are taxed by relationships, it could be appropriate to appropriate Luke 17.5 as a prayer regarding relationships. After Jesus told His followers that “If that person wrongs you seven times a day and each time asks forgiveness, you must forgive,” (Luke 17.4), they replied “Show us how to increase our faith” (v 5).
Jesus said something hard to hear, process and internalize and their immediate response was “please increase our faith!” Despite how often it’s easy to critique His 12’s reactions or responses, this was a solid win for them.
For those who find relationships taxing, “Master, please increase my capacity” is a great, good, right, healthy response, and a responsible restatement of their actual request.
For those to whom relationships come easier, maybe letting the moment go and just doing whatever it is alone is the faith-stretching route.
God exists as the very essence of “relationship.” Having His image in us somehow, well-chosen relationships can and should define our lives too, just like my uncle reminded me years ago.
Paul warned that “bad company corrupts good character” (1 Cor 15.33). While Jesus’s relational reality included run-ins with Pharisaical, Sadducean, scribal and Herodian scoundrels (nevermind Judas), and we’ll no doubt bump into characters with whom we probably shouldn’t have close associations, the vast bulk of our time can be in God-honoring, holiness-building relationships, relationships in which we re-invest and continue to engage, even when it’s tough.
We often hear this phrase only in a sense of individual belief, action and formation. But it can and should fit just as well regarding the relationships we choose:
