Family Values

Family Values

Sermon preached by the Rev. Lowell E. Grisham, Rector

St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Fayetteville, Arkansas

June 22, 2014;  2 Pentecost, Proper 7, Year A

Episcopal Revised Common Lectionary

(Matthew 10:24-39)  Jesus said to the twelve disciples,

"A disciple is not above the teacher, nor a slave above the master; it is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, and the slave like the master. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebul, how much more will they malign those of his household!

"So have no fear of them; for nothing is covered up that will not be uncovered, and nothing secret that will not become known. What I say to you in the dark, tell in the light; and what you hear whispered, proclaim from the housetops. Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. And even the hairs of your head are all counted. So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.

"Everyone therefore who acknowledges me before others, I also will acknowledge before my Father in heaven; but whoever denies me before others, I also will deny before my Father in heaven.

"Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.

"For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one's foes will be members of one's own household.

"Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it."

_______________________________

Family is so central to our lives and to our well being. It was even more so in Jesus’ day. Yet we hear Jesus say in Matthew’s gospel, “I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother…” Let’s explore that a bit.

In Jesus’ day, the family was the focal point of personal identity. Individualism as we think of it was, well unthinkable. You were known by your place in the family. You were the son or daughter of your parent in your particular birth order and gender. That was your identity – you were a part within an extended family system.

Your occupation, your spouse, your place in the community was determined by your family’s occupation, relationships, and place in the community. If you father was a fisherman, you would be a fisherman.

The father was the patriarch and authority for the family.  As long as your father was alive, you were a child under his authority. You were expected to do what your father told you to do – to work and to marry and to live your life as directed by the patriarch. You were expected to uphold the family honor.

Adult children were to obey their father and to respect their mother. Men were not allowed to speak in public to women outside the family. Everyone had a profound responsibility toward the well being and protection of the extended family. There was a significant but slightly less expectation of responsibility toward neighbors in one’s village, not unlike a tribal identity. People from the same village wore clothing of a similar and identifiable weave.

Rabbis debated the definition of “neighbor.” How many houses away marks the boundary of those I must regard as my neighbor? Answers varied. But certainly one did not consider as a neighbor someone living beyond the village or beyond what we today would call a mile or two.

Think of the obligation of family relationships as concentric circles starting with the patriarch in the center. Then the blood relatives in the inner ring. The village neighbors in the next ring. Outside that ring were strangers. You have limited or no responsibility toward strangers except as provided under the desert traditions of hospitality. In a desert world, it is important to be willing to offer shelter, food and water to a stranger who comes asking.

Jesus challenged all of those norms, except hospitality. He did not assume his family’s vocation or leadership as the first born male. Instead he became a traveling rabbi and healer living with his own circle of male and female disciples. We have scenes in the gospel when his family tries to reclaim him, thinking him crazy. “Who is my family?” he asks, and looks around the room. “This is my family. Whoever does the Father’s will.” He called God his father.

When asked his opinion about neighbors, he told a story that made a heretic Samaritan the hero for extending familial compassion to a stranger. When an unclean woman dared to touch his holy tallit, his prayer shawl, he called her “his daughter” and blessed her healing. His family table hospitality was scandalous, welcoming sinners and treating women with the same respect as men disciples. He healed and fed Gentiles with the same generosity as he healed and fed fellow Jews. He talked publicly with a Samaritan woman and made an enduring friendship with her and with her village by sharing living water. He touched lepers.

At the core of Jesus’ unconventional actions was a basic reformulation of the notion of family. For Jesus, all humanity is family under one Father. Every human being is a brother and sister. God’s blessing – God’s sun and rain – falls equally on the good and the bad. My neighbor is anyone in need, and my responsibility is to love my neighbor as myself. We are to regard every other human being with the same seriousness and value with which we regard our blood relatives and ourselves, because we all have the same Father, whether we know it or not.

That’s such an incredible challenge. Most days I’m not up to it. It does seem very hard, doesn’t it?

But let’s flip the picture a bit. There is a profound gift in Jesus’ way. It is the gift of freeing us from the dark side of family.

Family and tribe bequeath expectations upon us. Family and tribe impose limits upon us. Those expectations and limits are often unhealthy.

I’ve shared before how my grandmother motivated my father to succeed by imposing high expectations on him. I inherited all of those norms, translated into my childish brain as expectations of perfection. I believed anything less than a 100 was a failure. There was a lot of score keeping. When I succeeded I was rewarded and praised; I was proud of myself. Success was addictive. But it was also deadly. When my best wasn’t good enough, I rebelled. When I rebelled, I soured my relationship with my father. One of the reasons I was drawn into Christianity was my need to be embraced by unqualified love and to stop keeping score.

Jesus shows us a God who loves us all as we are. God accepts and calls us before we get our act together, as St. Paul so dramatically learned. We don’t have to be anything, earn anything, or become anything, before we are beloved family. We are all adopted and we are accepted before we even know it. I am drawn into that love.

But because of my early conditioning, that kind of world is unnatural to me. It was driven into my consciousness from an early age that I had to earn my place. So, if I’m going to accept the free gift of God’s unqualified love, my old self has to die. I have to give up nearly everything I was taught, everything I believed about my self-image, about my status and place, about what’s important. It’s like a death for me to believe that it really doesn’t matter what I do. It’s a struggle every day to remember that I’m already fully loved and secure without earning it.

Jesus said, “Those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” When I die to that old way and just start the day fully loved and accepted – my status and place not dependent upon my performance – I can relax, just do my best, and leave the results to God. It’s a new life. But I have to die to my family values to live that way.

I find that when I’m easier on myself, I tend to be easier on my neighbor also. If I can love myself, I’m more open to love my neighbor. I’m also better to my family. It’s the story of cross and resurrection – let go of self; accept what is; and love one another.

Ultimately, Jesus invites us to accept absolute, unqualified love for ourselves and to let that absolute unqualified love flow out to every human being on the planet. One love. One God and Father of all. 

_____________________

The Mission of St. Paul's Episcopal Church is to explore and celebrate

God's infinite grace, acceptance and love.

For information about St. Paul's Episcopal Church and its life and mission, please contact us at

P.O. Box 1190, Fayetteville, AR 72702, or call 479/442-7373

More sermons are posted on our web site: www.stpaulsfay.org

Visit our web partners at www.explorefaith.org

Videos of sermons are posted at http://is.gd/tiwuyu