Fictive-Kinship

In next Sunday's reading there is interesting wording used by Jesus. I never really stopped to think about it before I read a commentary by John J. Pilch over at The Center for Liturgy (in the historical cultural context area).

Jesus calls an outsider . . . . a non-Jew, "son" or in the NAB, "child". Mark 2:v5
As John J. Pilch says, " By addressing this man as “son,” Jesus publicly announces that the man is now a member of Jesus’ *fictive-kinship group, his own family-like community."

Well, I needed help with that term and this is what I learned and what am still trying to assimilate.

*fictive kinship is a term used a lot by anthropologists.
Fictive kinship is the process of giving someone a kinship title and treating them in many ways as if they had the actual kinship relationship implied by the title. People with this relationship are known as fictive kin.

The M.W. dictionary's second definition of fictive fits most closely: "of, relating to, or capable of imaginative creation"

I am not an anthropologist and this word feels strange to me. It is so close to the word fiction. Most definitions included descriptions like imagined, fictionally created, relatedness.

Maybe John J Pilch uses this term, fictive kinship, very deliberately. By calling this man, son, Jesus changed the paradigm. Was he was communicating that all were in fictive kinship - as long as they came to him in faith? Maybe I have always missed the point of the importance of these events defining gentiles' acceptance into the family of God? I guess St. Paul missed it during Jesus' life. I wonder if I would have missed it had I lived then. I shudder to ponder that.

As a Christian, I identify with the stories of the Bible. I, often see myself (as I am now) in the stories and wonder what I would do or say. But, in reality, since I am not of Jewish nationality I probably would not be in these stories except as an outsider that Jesus gave fictive kinship to (and THAT would be awesome! Don't get me wrong).

But, I would not have been the Jew celebrating passover and learning the scriptures. I would not have understood from birth that a Messiah was coming.
Thank God for allowing me, a gentile, into His plan of Salvation.