Is Blood Thicker Than Water?

My latest venture has been to fill out mobility papers for preparing to take a first call as a pastor this next fall at the earliest. Basically it's like filling out a profile and resume all in one. Make yourself look attractive to church hierarchy and congregations while stating the truth about where you sense God's call to ministry. I had planned to spend the last 2 weeks working on it (I've been thinking about it long before that), but Thanksgiving Break intruded and like most of you know, when you go home the parental units wrap their tendrils around your time, energy and daily activities. At least mine do. So when did the paperwork get done? 4am today/last night. Needless to say, it probably wasn't my best picture of myself and I'm very tired with only 5 hours of sleep. Thank God for slow Mondays at work.

All these reflective questions on the profiles, missing the northwest lately and reflecting on the diversity inventory (which btw, culture doesn't exclusively = ethnicity!) has gotten me to thinking: Who are my people? Do I have a people? Where are they--especially when I need them to support me? Who is my family? In short, is blood thicker than water? It's the typical comment people will make to justify sticking closer to your family (bloodline) than friends/coworkers/non-blood related people.

That's when it occurred to me that as a child of God I am in a new family by the blood of Christ. So who's family? What does family really mean??? Is blood really thicker than water? Does the blood of Christ really matter to Christians? Are we really family or do we insist on coveting our nuclear family and biologically related relationships? Who are the ones who support us when we fail and fall? Perhaps that is a better definition of family.

And better yet, we begin our life in God's family through baptism--water. So how does that affect our aphorism that blood is thicker than water? Is it still true? Does the blood of Christ trump the water of baptism? What say you theologians out there?