"Who Are My Mother And My Brothers?"

Several family members of Jesus arrive outside a home in which he is speaking, say Matthew 12 and Mark 3, trying to find him (12:46-47, 3:31-32).  Upon being told that his mother and brothers are searching for him, Jesus asks, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" (3:33; 12:48).  He then proclaims that everyone who does the will of God (in Biblical context, those who do what is morally obligatory as rooted in God's nature) is his brother or sister or mother (12:49-50, 3:34-35).  With great conciseness, Jesus draws attention to how family connections are not of all-encompassing significance, in spite of the particular obligation to honor one's parents (Exodus 20:12, Matthew 5:17-19), all while being explicitly gender-inclusive with his statements.  The content in the short passage of Mark 3:31-35 is highly important indeed.  In many places elsewhere, Jesus speaks about family.  In this passage, he openly declares all of his followers his mother or siblings.

An absence of references to female family members would crucially not logically require that the philosophy verbalized by Jesus here is misogynist, but there are explicit references to both men and women being included in his meaning.  Neither is excluded or in possession of a lesser status simply by logical extension, which would still be true either way (basic logical consistency and Genesis 1:26-27 refute anything else), but also by the literal wording of Christ.  In fact, he frequently emphasizes gender equality when he speaks about allegiance to biological family and the superior nature of allegiance to God and the morality grounded in his nature (Matthew 10:35-37, Luke 12:52-53, 14:25-27).  No one is closer to God or Christ (or in alignment with logic or morality) by virtue of being male or female (Galatians 3:28 is relevant as well).

At the same time, beyond gender, biological ties of any kind, whether to one's parents, siblings, children, or extended family members are not of supreme centrality anyway; spouses and in-laws are not different in this regard.  In the name of a pseudo-Christianity, some people I have encountered act like family is the greatest aspect of reality, not the necessary truths of reason (on which all else hinges), God, the righteousness rooted in God, and Christ.  Jesus affirms that there are things greater than family (see Deuteronomy 13:6-10, in isolation or also paired with Matthew 5:17-19), and he also identifies everyone who does what is morally required of them in God's name as one of his family members, in a nonliteral yet even more important sense than that of a blood relationship.  Genuine Christians are already family in this life before they enjoy eternal life together (Mark 10:29-30, Matthew 19:29) as they are Christ's figurative family.

As for the intensity of how Jesus presents the relative status of biological ties, one way he directly describes the social impact of his teachings is that he has come to the earth to bring a sword and division, not peace (Matthew 10:34, Luke 12:51).  The examples he immediately provides afterward in both Matthew 10 and Luke 12 are of family relationships engulfed by dissension, with sons and daughters being justified in opposing even their own parents they are to honor--obviously, any important philosophical truth is greater than parents either way, and the Bible agrees.  This is hardly the same level of devotion to family that many eagerly claim for themselves in the name of Christianity!  Peace, including peace with family members, is utterly secondary at best to one's allegiance to God and righteousness, and there is a more important family of true Christians than their biological mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, and all other such relations.