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.
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.
_____________________
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posted by Lowell @ 6/21/2014 03:03:00 PM
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