| May 10, 2009
You are Welcome to Reflect on this Message
We hear a lot about "family values" these days and most of us are in favor of them, although nobody can say exactly what it means. “Family values” has been co-opted by the religious as part of a political agenda: to put an end to abortion, birth control and stem cell research; to oppose gay marriage, encourage the teaching of creationism and prayer in the public schools; and allow the 10 commandments in the courthouse.
I find it interesting though that there is no definitive “biblical” view of marriage or family values. Whose marriage? Whose values? One thing’s for sure, it’s not the “one man, one woman” thing we hear about all the time. Abraham’s family? Who tried to foist his wife Sarah off on some guests for sex? Or Sarah who got so tired of Abraham hounding her about having a son in her old age, she sent him to sleep with her servant Hagar. And that left us with the Mid-East quarrel between the Arabs and Israelis ever since. King David was a mighty warrior but a lousy father and even worse husband. Solomon, whose famous wisdom I’d question, was the product of David’s Bathsheba affair. He was also loaded with 700 wives and 300 porcupines! It’s all I can do to handle live with one wife, much less 700!
Jesus was a single adult, who was specific about his family values. To put it briefly, they will blow your mind! He was kinder to Roman centurions, Samaritan lepers, a Syro-Phoenician woman, and hostile Judeans than he was his disciples. He came down especially hard on his own family. On the one hand, Jesus elevated the home and contributed to the stability and integrity of it as much as any person who ever lived. On the other hand, nobody has shattered the human family circle with such devastating ideas. "Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division" (Luke 12:51). Are we hearing him right? Where’s the Jesus who taught us to "turn the other cheek," and to "love our enemies?" What are we to make of it? Let Jesus divide us from our enemies, terrorists who would hurt us, but from our families? Our parents and kids and grands? Preposterous! I told ya’ll he’d blow your mind!
It’s apparent that most of what's wrong in the world is that too many kids grew up in homes with no values, family or otherwise. Some with incest, like that guy in Austria imprisoning his daughter in the basement. Or the Octomom, popping out fourteen kids for You-Tube video, but no husband to support them. These learn the hard way that blood relation is no guarantee of love. Sometimes “family values” are non-existent, and the only way to save your life is to lose your family. All that’s left is to close the door on them and put as much distance between you as you can -- like Jenny, in Forest Gump.
The “division” Jesus is talking about is what occurs between family members when he becomes a priority. And what happens to family loyalty when he expects us to put God first, even above family members. Jesus is without peer in assaulting our most vital family relationships because he refused to base religious faith on family ties. Once a lady was so impressed with him that she tried to link his faith with his mamma's uterus: "Blessed is the womb that bore you!" And he rebuffed her: "On the contrary. Blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it." Motherhood, for Jesus is relational not just biological. That means even men can be motherly.
Jesus warned that following him would shatter the solidarity of the home. He never shrank from drawing the inevitable conclusion: when conflicts arose between the claims of the home and the call of God, loyalty to God took precedence over every other human commitment. "The one who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me," he said. Jesus knew that those who cling to family ties and couldn’t cut the apron strings would vacillate between home and calling. Just like the rich young ruler couldn’t let go of his possessions, a lot of folks are possessive with their families.
So Jesus pulled no punches. The gospel he preached was inherently divisive. And he had no sympathy for people who tried to squirm out of their commitment, even if they used family responsibilities as excuses. "Let me first go bury my father." "Let the dead bury the dead." Well, "Let me say farewell to those at home," and the answer’s no. "But I've bought a field." "I have a wife..." Sorry about that. In his mind, loyalty to God is not an allegiance to be juggled, along with all the other pressures bearing down upon us. Commitment to God is primary. It is not negotiable; a matter of life and death.
Jesus was always ambivalent about his own family. When he was just eight days old, Simeon took him from his mamma's arms on infant dedication day at the temple and prophesied: "This child is destined for the falling and rising of many." What could that mean? Then he added, "And a sword shall pierce your own soul too." Twelve years later, again at the temple, Jesus stayed behind when his family left for home. After three days of frantic searching, they discovered him confounding scholars, "Why have you treated us like this?" Mary scolded. But he placidly responds, "Why were ya’ll searching for me? Didn’t you know I must be about my Father's business?"
The first time he preached in his hometown synagogue, his neighbors recognized his charisma: "Where’d this boy get such wisdom?" Predictably they measured Jesus by his family, "Is not this the carpenter? Mary and Joseph's boy and doesn’t his family live here among us?" Thus bound by his ancestry, Jesus resorted to that proverbial lament: "A prophet is not without honor - except in his own country and among his own kin, and in his own house." When he turned the water to wine at a wedding in Cana, Jesus was forced to assert his independence from Mary with the baffling question, "Woman, what do you and I have in common? My hour is not yet come." Don't you think that's unusual for a son to say to his mother?
From the beginning, Mary and Jesus were deadlocked in a conflict between his mother's love and his father's business--that common human predicament between the claims of the home that birthed us and the call of God who re-births us. Only a street person can gauge the heartache in these homesick words: "Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests; but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head?"
But the most telling encounter came when his mother and brothers came to take him home, because they thought he was crazy. Somebody said to Jesus, "Your mother and brothers are outside, asking for you." "And who are my mother and brothers?" Jesus said. And he answered his own question, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it." Jesus didn't despise the family, but he did redefine it. For Jesus, family was not a matter of whose chromasomes you inherit but whose image you’re created in. It's not a matter of who has the same last name but who serves the same God. Which means that his family is huge, beyond counting--with lepers and tax collectors and Roman centurions in it and scruffy looking men who smelled like fish along with various and sundry women and kids.
There was no family tree in his Holy Bible. As much as his ancestors may have mattered to him, it was more like a family forest, with all kinds of relatives associated from all over the place. The family of God is where we learn what’s right and wrong, what’s worth living for and what’s not. Whatever they had or had not learned at the own parent's knees, that family gave them another chance to discover the love and forgiveness they needed to live. And they squabbled, and still squabble. But with Jesus as Lord, they remained his family, dysfunctional like all other families. This is the family he lived with and died for, even though it ran a sword right through his own mother's soul! Jesus’ family values, like unto no other, are so radical they send a shiver up our spines.
41 years ago, my wife and I announced to both of our families that I was quitting my good paying job at the paper mill and going back to college to study for the ministry. I was 24 and needless to say it met with mixed reactions from our parents. Libby’s Mom and my Dad took it OK. Seemed kind of proud even. But my Mom just said, “Are you crazy?” And I could tell Libby’s Dad wasn’t too happy about it. He never said it in so many words. He just looked at me cockeyed and said: “You ain’t taking my daughter over to Africa some place are you?” “Nah I reckon I’ll stay in this country. People here are mean enough, they could stand another preacher.” At the time we had no idea where the call of God would take us. And we never made it to Africa. But it might has well have been “foreign missions,” it was so far from home. We ended up in the four corners of this country, with most of our time in the nation’s capital.
For Jesus the claims of earthly ties were to be subordinated to heavenly ones. If the family of flesh stands in the way, then we must turn to the family of faith for the spiritual support denied us under our own roof. God knows how our homes can become a hotbox of blind sentimentality or open hostility. One leads to a crippling dependence it smothers self-reliance. And the other is so full of put-downs and disapproval that it smashes self-esteem. Then the only remedy is to break out and get free of those kinds of illicit family ties.
The gospel is not a flashlight but a fire. It can warm or it can burn. It’s not a butter knife but a sword. It can liberate and it can separate. The gospel’s not pablum. It’s dynamite! Explosive enough to challenge the most intimate human ties. Or any other form of idolatry. “Who is my mother?” Jesus asked plaintively. “The one who does the will of my Father.” No matter where we make our perch along the political spectrum, that's one family value we should all be able to embrace.
Providence Prayers: (5/10/09)
Let this church be a sign of hope for an age that seems to kill the things it loves. We thank Thee for its leaders who think and feel; for members who balance faith and reason and whose loyalty to Christ is a 7-day a week affair. We remember all for whom life is hard‑‑trying to come to terms with their losses, some see their health declining. Let the sick know that Thou art the Great Physician. Bless all these Lord, with your promise and our presence.
We pray for our own people, with many different outlooks, capable of mischief and mercy; a people who on a clear day can see forever; and in our darker moments struggle to see at all. While we need each other to lift us out of ourselves, remind us that what holds us together keeps others away. For all of our false starts and broken promises grant us the faith to see Thee as Thou art, so that we may praise Thee as we ought. Amen. Back |
