June 15, 2013
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Who are family?
Sacred texts:
Luke 2:41-50
41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. 42 When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. 43 After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. 44 Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. 45 When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. 46 After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. 47 Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48 When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
49 “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Parent’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Matthew 12:46-50
46 While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. 47 Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”
48 He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” 49 Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. 50 For whoever does the will of my Parent in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
John 19:25-30
25 Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26 When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” 27 and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.
28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
End of sacred texts.
The readings for today come from the gospels and they provide us with insight into how Jesus understood family. I am quite confident these readings are more easily understood by persons who have been pushed away by their biological families. The dominant culture portrays an idyllic image of biological families as places where we are loved and protected. Today we celebrate Father’s Day with all the sentiment of all we owe our fathers. Unfortunately, these messages are often gender normative suggesting our fathers are the ones who provided for us by earning the household income, or our father’s taught us to be strong, or taught us how to be a man. The reality for many is that their father did none of these things, and they may still have been a very important part of the child’s life. Dads don’t have to earn money, or have to be macho, or even have a strong understanding of what it means to be a man in this culture to be good fathers. There is also the reality that some men who participate in the conception of a child never do anything to father that child. Some men are nothing more than a sperm donor and some women are all the father a child could ever need. It is interesting that in the patriarchal culture of the Christian Testament era, there is no other reference to Joseph after the Holy Family returns from Egypt than the one for today when Jesus stays behind in Jerusalem and even that is pretty much a passing reference. Mary does all the talking for the parental unit. No one felt it important to record stories of Joseph teaching Jesus the carpenter trade or teaching him how to be a man, no record of Jesus’ bar mitzvah, not even a mention of Joseph’s death. Clearly Joseph was not perceived as a major influence in the life of Jesus and Jesus did not live in a traditional family. Those who grew up in homes that do not fit the image culture holds up as the traditional two opposite gender parents lovingly providing for, caring for, and loving their children can much easier relate to Jesus who redefines family relationships.
The story of Jesus redefining who are his mother, brothers, and sisters is seen by some as a harsh rebuke of Mary and siblings but it can also be seen as an expansion of his family rather than a rejection of his biological family. Clearly Jesus still had great love for his mother as demonstrated in his final breath he arranged for her to be taken care of the rest of her life by the disciple he loved. Jesus did not say he was rejecting Mary as his mother or denying his brothers and sisters, he said anyone who did the will of God was brother, sister, and mother to him. Mary and her children could be his mother and siblings as long as they were working in support of what God had for Jesus to do. It is possible Mary had come to Jesus with his siblings to plead with him to stop making powerful people mad at him. They may have been concerned for his safety, maybe they were having a rough time because they were related to Jesus. Perhaps Jesus was saying I will recognize them as my family unless they want me to deny who I am and what I have been called to do. This understanding of this story would certainly resonate with those who have been forced to choose between being true to who they are and how they have been called to live and remaining in their biological families.
Too often, even today, children are seen as property to be controlled by their parents. Rather than experiencing unconditional love in the family unit, the children are taught early their parents’ love for them is very much conditioned on the child’s performance and obedience to parental rules and expectations. Is it any wonder that many of the marginalized that come to our churches react so negatively to the image of God as father, or as parent at all? A great deal of work must be done if we are to salvage that image for those who have been brutalized, humiliated, and rejected by their parental figures. We as spiritual leaders and members of faith communities must redefine what father, mother, parent means as Jesus did when we offer those titles as descriptors of God and when we define our communities as families. One of the greatest push backs I receive as an intentional interim specialist in churches is when I suggest we stop calling our congregation and family and call ourselves a community instead. The concept of family is so often exclusive of those who are different, intolerant of disagreement, difficult to join. Communities are more often diverse, full of different ideas, and allow relative ease of moving in and moving out. If we are going to be God’s family, then it must be on Jesus’ terms, the only deciding factor is whether a person seeks to know and do God’s will. Differences in appearance, ideology, even theology must be tolerated in our church families.
We speak of our family of choice and there is legitimacy in having that circle of people you know you can trust, the people who will always love and accept you without condition. Some of us are blessed to include our biological relatives in our family of choice. In our faith however, the family is not our family of choice, it is God’s family of choice and we are so blessed when we realize God has chosen us. The world is blessed when we realize God has chosen everyone! Amen.
