The Communities We Choose | Monday Invocation
“Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, ‘Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ And he replied, ‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.’”
Our current series celebrates the diverse ways that families are represented and embodied within the LGBTQ+ community. Over the coming weeks, you will hear from a handful of LGBTQ+ Christians as they share their experiences and reflections on LGBTQ+ parenthood, family, and chosen family with the wider community. Although we cannot share stories from every perspective, identity, or family experience in just a few short weeks, we are excited to share these stories now and hope to share more for years to come! Today, QCF’s Program Manager, Samantha Hasty, reflects on Mark 3:31-35 and what we can learn about who is our family based on Jesus’ response.
A group photo of the Communies - Samantha’s chosen family.
When my daughter, Micaiah, was a toddler, I was recently divorced and trying to figure it all out on my own. I did not have any affirming family to turn to, and the people I'm related to lived a day or more drive away. So my community became my friends in Indiana — Genese, Megan, Bryn, Adam, and Jack. They rallied around me and helped me find balance and stability in a season when chaos reigned supreme. I got to live with Genese and Megan when Micaiah was really small. Now my daughter is ten, and we are bonded for life. They're raising their own child now, and I get to be an auntie to him. This is family. We were not born into the same family, or even the same city or state. Yet we are family nonetheless.
Jesus knew what it was like to have people question whether his family showed up the way it was supposed to. And when his mother and brothers stood outside asking for him, he looked at the crowd sitting around him — the ones who had gathered close, who did the will of God alongside him — and said, here are my mother and my brothers. He did not diminish blood family. He expanded the definition of family to include everyone in the room who chose to show up.
As LGBTQ+ people, we often find family formed in the hard seasons, in the moments when someone rallies around us who never had to. And when we get the chance to rally around them in return, we jump at it, because loving them back is a gift. Sometimes the families we're born into don't appreciate the gift God gave them in adding a little queer spice to the blend. So we go and find community instead. My friends and I call ourselves the Communies — not because it's a fancy word, but because it's ours. It names something blood never gave us the language for.
This is not a consolation prize for the family we lost. It is the same kin-dom Jesus pointed to when he looked around that room. It is family, full stop — chosen, built, and just as durable as anything bound by blood. I am blessed, and so are the many queer people who get to lean into creating family for themselves.
May you have the courage to open your circle wide enough to let someone in when they have nowhere else to go. May you have the humility to let someone else's circle hold you when your own has failed you. And may you know, in your bones, that whoever does the will of God and shows up in love for you — that is your mother, your brother, your sister, your village. That is family.
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