…And they all lived happily ever after… Most good
fairy tales end with a marriage, a long awaited union of two souls who have
found each other after many trials and tribulations. The prince finds his
princess, and they stroll off into the sunset together into a life which we are
left to assume will be coated with magic dust forever after, a model of peace
and harmony. Life, however, is not a fairy tale, and the Bible, thank goodness,
recognises that from the outset. Our readings today are perfect examples of its
realistic view of the trials and tribulations of family life.
In our first reading, the gloss of true love has worn off
pretty quickly for Adam and Eve. She may be the only girl in the world and he may
be the only boy, but that doesn’t stop them falling out almost as soon as they
have got together, amid bitter recrimination. The Bible tells us that Adam was with
her when the serpent tempted her to eat the forbidden fruit, but did we hear
him trying to argue her out of it? Not a bit of it – he was quite happy to join
in, munching away with enthusiasm, and was just as responsible as she was. Now
that God is confronting them, though, it is a different story. He doesn’t just
blame her, he blames God as well. “The woman that YOU gave to be with me, she
gave me the fruit from the tree…” Eve’s reaction to this is not recorded, though
God’s, of course, is. This couple have no sooner found paradise than they have
lost it.
And then in our Gospel reading we see another family having
one of those little moments most families would rather the world didn’t
witness. A son gives his family the brush off in a way which makes me wince, as
a mother myself. “Who are my mother and
brothers?” he says, ignoring them in favour of the friends he has gathered
around himself. The problem for us is that this particular son is Jesus
himself. If you are looking for a poster-boy for traditional family values,
Jesus is not the obvious choice, and his treatment of his anxious family here
underlines that. He doesn’t seem ever to have married. He doesn’t appear to
care about what would have been considered his sacred duty to continue the
family line, and his message throughout the Gospels is consistent with what we
see here; nothing should come before your commitment to God, not even your
family.
The early church seems to have been equally sceptical of
conventional family relationships. What was the point of getting married if
Jesus would return any day, as they believed?
Live faithfully and lovingly with your spouse if you have one, St Paul
told them, but think carefully about taking on such responsibilities if you
don’t need to. For many of them, too, choosing to follow Jesus had cut them off
from their families and communities – they had to create new networks of
support among their fellow Christians. Family, in the traditional sense, just
wasn’t as high on their agenda as many Christians like to think.
So what are we to make of all this? Should we be throwing
away all our family ties? I earnestly hope not, because I am rather fond of
mine, but this story is a reminder to us that the Bible doesn’t put family or
marriage on a pedestal. What matters in the Bible isn’t what form a household takes
– Biblical households were as varied as modern ones – but what happens within
that household, the quality of relationships, the love that is shown by its
members, or the lack of it
That was something, of course, which Jesus was passionately
concerned about. His central message was about love – whether within or outside
family life – valuing others as the precious children of God which they really
are. He treats those who are weak and vulnerable in his society’s eyes with
particular care and honour, welcoming children, healing the sick and disabled,
making it clear that they are not burdens but equals. He calls his followers to
take seriously their responsibilities to those who depend on them – supporting
elderly parents, not casually divorcing unwanted wives who will have no way of
providing for themselves.
His attitude to women was especially unusual in his time. In
a culture where they were largely confined to the home, Jesus encourages them
to take a full place as his followers. His male disciples, John tells us, were
shocked to find him sitting by a well in Samaria, talking theology to a
Samaritan woman. It was the fact that she was female, not that she was
Samaritan, which scandalised them. No respectable Rabbi would talk to a woman
on her own like this. But Jesus sees no problem at all. And when Martha of Bethany complains that her sister Mary is sitting at his feet listening to him
instead of helping her with the domestic chores, it isn’t just that she wants
some help in the kitchen; she is affronted that Mary is taking the position of
a disciple, sitting at the feet of the teacher, questioning and learning. Who
does she think she is? This is a role reserved for men. But Jesus praises her –
“There is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part and it shall
not be taken away from her.”
So Jesus is deeply concerned for families in the Gospels. After
all, families are the context in which most people live most of their lives,
whether they are under one roof or scattered far and wide. But the focus of Jesus’
concern isn’t on the outward appearance of the family – what shape it takes, whether
it conforms to the patterns his culture expected it to. It is the inner, real
experience of the people in it that he cares about. Families, then as now,
could be wonderfully supportive and liberating, or they could be prisons in
which the God-given gifts of their members withered and died.
That’s why Jesus reacts as he does to this visit from his
own family which we heard about in today’s Gospel reading. Opposition to his message is starting to
mount. He is challenging the religious leaders, and they don’t like it. They
accuse him of being inspired by Satan, not by God, and the rumour on the
streets is that he has gone mad. His notoriety is bringing shame on his whole family
and in an honour-based culture where conformity was highly valued, that was a
serious matter. They come, says the Bible, intent on restraining him – the word
that is used implies force. They want to drag him away, and put a stop to his preaching.
Perhaps we can sympathise – they are bound to be anxious. But just because they
are his family, even if they are motivated by care as well as shame, that doesn’t
mean they are right. Children aren’t the possessions of their families. They
are God’s gifts to the world, with callings and tasks of their own, and Jesus
is the prime example of this. He needs to resist the temptation to fit in with
the wish of his family that he should come home, keep quiet and do his duty as
a good son, because if he does that he will have to abandon his message and his
ministry. Of course, there are times when we should listen to those nearest and
dearest to us – they may be telling us things we need to hear – but we also
have to learn to trust ourselves and our own perception of God’s calling.
St Paul knew these tensions too. He’d given up a respected
position in the Jewish religious elite in order to follow the way of Christ,
joining those he had once persecuted. No doubt old friends and family thought
he was crazy, or wicked. But Paul couldn’t ignore the call of God even if it meant
rejecting attitudes he had been brought up to consider right and proper and
finding himself at odds with his old religious allies. It’s clearly a painful
business. He writes about his “outer nature” wasting away. But while that is
happening, his “inner nature” is being renewed. He was being created anew, from
the inside out. Tthe “earthly tent” of the life he has known – a flimsy and
temporary shelter - was being replaced by God’s own building, something authentic,
that went right to the heart of him.
Paul knew what it felt like to be pulled in two directions,
and my guess is that most us do too. We like to fit in, to be accepted by
family, friends, neighbours and colleagues. We don’t want to find ourselves out
on a limb, regarded as odd or awkward or different . The pressure to conform
can be a strong one. For Jesus it was
the pressure to fit in with family expectations. For Paul it was pressure to
fit in with the religious circle he was part of. We are all sensitive to the
voices which call to us to be the person others want us to be, the person they
are used to, especially if those voices come from people we care about.
But there is another call, beneath and beyond those voices,
which is often hard for us to hear amid their clamour. It is the voice of God,
calling out to us “Where are you?” calling us back to himself, back to ourselves
too, to become the people he created us to be, each with unique gifts to give
to the world, and a job to do. Perhaps we are called to challenge prejudices
which those around us simply aren’t aware of. Perhaps we are called to stand up
for someone our friends have written off – “not one of us”. Perhaps we are
called to make some radical changes to the way we spend our time, talents,
money and energy, to refocus our lives in some way. All these things can be
hard for those around us to accept or understand, but that doesn’t mean we
shouldn’t do them. In the end, the
families, neighbourhoods and societies that are founded on lives lived with
integrity, where each person heeds the call of God, will be ones where everyone
is more richly blessed with his blessings and can thrive together.
Amen
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