Jesus liberated the notion of family. In the Jewish and Roman world of Jesus’ time, the primary loyalty was to blood kin, and then to your ethnic or religious group. The tradition of clans, tribes, and social casts were firmly fixed, as were the roles of men and women.  Jesus overturned the idea of what was seen as the traditional bonds of family by saying in effect that one’s family is not limited to those bound by blood or marriage, but include everyone, even those one may have contempt for. Jesus was always associating with people who were considered taboo, or unclean, or worthless, which was shocking to his followers. He hung out with women, children, tax collectors, prostitutes, criminals, mentally ill, Samaritans, and Romans. This was shown over and over in the Gospels in describing events in his life and in the stories (or parables) he told. Jesus broke the established religious taboos by sitting down to eat with and healing those who were “unclean” or marginalized by society. To Jesus, family meant those bounded by love, care and compassion, not race, religion, or kinship. This was a revolutionary, radical principle.