When you compare the Gospels of Mark and Matthew and Luke, the fact that Mark does not have a genealogy of Jesus is glaringly apparent. And maybe it’s even a little of a shame, because genealogy is important. A genealogy helps you know and honor a person because of his or her lineage.

Consider Matthews genealogy of Jesus. Matthew helps us see God at work in history, raising up the Messiah that was promised to Israel, and all the world, through David’s line. Or consider Luke’s genealogy of Jesus. Luke takes us all the way back to Adam, and helps us see the universal scope of God’s salvation in Jesus.

But Mark makes up for the lack of a genealogy with something called a genogram. A genogram is a visual mapping of family relationships, both physical and emotional. With squares and circles and lines, you identify parents and birth order, marriages, divorces, remarriages, separations, adoption, and now even cohabitation.

It’s the emotional relationships, however, that give a genogram its color. Green identifies intimate relationships; red identifies hostile relationships; blue identifies relationships of outright abuse. You can look at a genogram and see not only your physical relationships, but also the emotional components of those relationships that have shaped who you are.

Marks genogram for Jesus appears in today’s reading, and looking at that genogram, we will see what it means that God has made you part of His family.

Our text begins with Mark telling us that Jesus is going home. The last time Jesus was home, it was a situation of conflict. Jesus was surrounded by a crowd of people so large that he wasn’t even able to eat. His immediate family came to seize him by force, telling the people there that he was must be out of his mind.

Obviously, one would be drawing red lines on the genogram here: close but hostile relationships fostered by the fear of a brain disorder. Jesus says however, that those gathered around him are his family; everyone who does the will of God is his mother and sister and brother.

This time, when Jesus comes home, he goes to the synagogue and preaches. In response, the people map out his genogram. They identify him in terms of his family relationships. "Isn’t this the son of Mary?" they say, not mentioning Joseph, either because he is dead or because of the rumors surrounding the circumstances of Jesus’ birth. "Don’t we know his brothers and sisters?"

They look at Jesus and see his family, and because they see his family they take offense at him. They do not honor him. Here you can see the differences between genograms and genealogies. A genealogy invites you to honor a person because of their lineage; a genogram is so close and personal that sometimes it’s hard to see God at work. It can lead to dishonor.

This time, it’s not the members of Jesus’ immediate family, but the larger social network of his hometown that takes offense at Jesus. Jesus is amazed at their unbelief. In fact, in the face of their unbelief, Mark tells us that Jesus could do no mighty works there, except laying his hands on a few sick people and healing them.

Some people might argue that these words show that Jesus needs the cooperation of our faith to do a miracle. But Jesus did do some miracles there. We’re giving ourselves way too much credit if we think our faith helps God perform miracles. The fact is, God can perform miracles where and when He pleases. After all, on the Last Day, God will raise the dead, both believer and unbeliever.

So, why in the face of unbelief, does Jesus not do any miracles? Looking at this passage in light of the rest of Scripture, especially Matthew 11:20-24 where Jesus pronounces woe on the cities where he has performed miracles and they have failed to repent, Jesus knows that miracles do not convert unbelievers, and that performing miracles in the face of unbelief will only increase God’s judgment upon those who see them and still do not believe.

Since his mission is to save and not to condemn people to hell, Jesus doesn’t perform miracles so he doesn’t increase God’s judgment upon the people. Instead, and more importantly, he continues to teach and proclaim the Word that works faith, in order that he might accomplish his Father’s mission.

In contrast to this amazing unbelief, Jesus does the most amazing thing. In the face of opposition, Jesus takes his disciples, the people he earlier called family, and sends them out to do the work of His Father. They go on mission trips with virtually nothing but the Word, and yet they do the work of God. The Father sends Jesus, Jesus makes people members of God’s family, and then Jesus sends them out to do his Father’s work.

Our text offers us a stark contrast between the hostility of the people directed against Jesus and the faithfulness of Jesus to God’s saving mission. Even though Jesus is rejected in his hometown, he calls his disciples and sends them out. When the people reject Jesus because of his literal family, Jesus reaches out to the people through the family of God, and does so in order to make all people part of God’s family.

Unlike us, Jesus is not limited by family relationships. Instead, by His work and Word, he creates them. He brings people into the family of God. By His life, death and resurrection, he makes people members of his kingdom, children of his heavenly Father, and he sends them out in the Spirit to do the Father’s work. That’s the good news of this text: Jesus makes people part of God’s family. It was good news back then. It’s still good news today.

Consider for a moment, your family relationships. What does your genogram look like? If you were to map out your family relationships on a large piece of poster board and then bring them to church, imagine how shameful some might be.

People would be able to see things you have tried to keep hidden. Maybe a lifelong conflict between you and your mother, tension with children at home, cohabitation, marriage, divorce, remarriage. Emotional abuse. Alcohol abuse. Physical abuse. Lots of reds and blues.

If we mapped out the physical and emotional relationships that have formed us, and made us who we are, we might be ashamed to come to church. We might imagine that people here would reject us because of where we come from and because of who we are. Yes, unfortunately, we Christians occasionally look down on other people because of their heritage, as if God’s love for someone is based on their work, their lives, or what we bring before him. We think that family connections can somehow save us.

That is why it’s a blessing to have this text before us today. By the power of the Holy Spirit working through the Word, this text reminds us that we are not saved because of who we are or because of our families. Neither are we condemned because of our families. We are saved because of Jesus and what he does for us by the grace of God.

God the Father made Jesus the founder of your salvation, and he did this when Jesus completed his work through his suffering and death. Jesus came into one human family, but he also entered our entire human history and took upon himself the shame of sin that has run in our family since the fall of Adam and Eve.

For us, He went to the cross. There he was stripped naked and died a shameful death. Jesus bore the shame of our sin, the shame of our nakedness, the shame of our families, that he might bring the joy of being a part of God’s family to you.

Now there is nothing that can separate you from God’s family. In Jesus, all your sins have been forgiven. Now you are Jesus’ brothers and sisters and you are members of God’s family. By God’s grace through faith and through our Baptism into the death and resurrection of Jesus, you have become part of the family of God.

Buried deep within our liturgy is a beautiful prayer about the family of God. We only bring it out on Good Friday. It is the Collect, the prayer of the day for Good Friday, and on that day when we remember Jesus hanging there on the cross, we hear these words: "Almighty God, graciously behold this your family for whom our Lord Jesus was willing to be betrayed and delivered into the hands of sinful men to suffer death upon the cross."

"Almighty God, graciously behold this your family." On that day, as we look at Jesus on the cross, this prayer asks us to see God the Father looking at us, God looking at us through Jesus, God graciously beholding us, his family.

Perhaps it would be good to pray that prayer more frequently, because it reminds us that regardless of our families, regardless of what relationships we bring to this place, God is not limited by our family relationships or the colors on our genogram. God the Father sent Jesus, and Jesus has brought each of you into the family of God. God graciously and lovingly beholds you today. You are part of his family. Amen.