Readings: 2
Corinthians 4:13-5:1 Mark 3:31-35
We pray: may the
words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your
sight, O God, our rock and our sustainer.
Amen.
Mike and I have
had a good last couple of weeks being family.
We headed up to Christchurch to see our eldest daughter Jessie off to
Melbourne to begin her PhD, we stayed with younger daughter Isobel and with her
expert help sorted out Jessie’s stuff for the move. My sister and I farewelled a cousin who is
heading off for a cycling holiday in the US and Canada – she has just turned 70
and we all pray she stays safe – but there is no stopping her. I went up to Hawea for a night to stay with
my sister and her husband and got totally engaged with digging in to our
ancestry, and then we had the Mike and I time at home which was great. And it struck me that this was all to
do with family – for us a very restorative experience that speaks deeply of
love and roots and commonalities and care for each other. We are incredibly blessed.
Not everyone is
though. Families do not always treat
each other with respect, compassion, or love.
Families can be detrimental to health, when they hold someone back from
realising their potential, when they impose views on others, when they refuse
to compromise and particularly when they withhold sustenance – whether it be
emotional, physical, spiritual.
And family means
different things to different people.
Some of us will have a differing experience to my quite traditional and
positive experience. Some will have
turned away (or be turned away) from biological families and consider that
others fill that unconditionally supportive role. Some will find family in
their clubs and at work, others with their neighbours and some not at all – for
them the word may be surplus to requirements. For some, family is way more than
unsupportive – it is destructive, violent, abusive – a living hell.
So just being
called family doesn’t always define a good experience. In fact it is said that families bust ups can
be the cruellest because the security of belonging is so strong and
expectations of love are so high - and I think that might be true.
As Christians, as
church, we are a family –Jesus asks us to take care of each other, to share
what we have, to love and nourish and build relationships that will withstand
the darkest days that were coming.
However we do get
a hint in the Gospel reading from today that families don’t by definition always
have the right of it. While Mark does
not specifically name it – it seems that some of Jesus family might not have
been that supportive of his ‘outlandishly provocative’ ministry, worried (no
doubt from a good heart) that he was setting himself up for ridicule at the
best – little did they know just how conspicuous that ridicule would appear to be.
Neither was Paul
receiving much in the way of family support in his engagement with the
Christians in Corinth – he was subject to criticism of all sorts – that he was
not to be trusted with money, he was scatterbrained, was not physically a
particularly impressive person, had no high connections or decent miracles to
his name and lastly a particularly damning one - his preaching lacked the
superb oratory of his rivals. Ouch! And from a family that he cared for deeply.
But Paul’s
response is not to convince his detractors that he does not deserve these
labels – rather he sets out to get them to re-examine the qualities that they
consider important for belonging to this family of faith. His biblical understanding is strong - he
quotes the words from the psalm when he says ‘I believed, and so I spoke’ –
faith in God made known in scripture and in Jesus gives him both authority and
voice. And in Jesus Paul finds a new truth, different to what is being preached
by others who measure success by worldly values. As Willian Loader notes, ‘Paul identifies
strongly with Jesus death and resurrection, with his vulnerability and
suffering – and for Paul the evidence of God in him is not to be found in
impressive achievements but in love and caring, especially when it exposes one
to suffering and weakness.’
Paul offers
himself to the community as the vessel of Christ – despite the fact that it
might mean hardship and danger. His love
for them is such that he is willing to be judged wanting by the standards of
the world so that he can live by the standards of his saviour. Powerful oratory that resets the focus of the
people of Corinth – at least for a time.
As Paul challenges
the current day understanding of community, of family, so too does Jesus. Family ties were very strong in the Jewish
culture – yet we don’t see Jesus submitting to them if and when it curtails his
ministry. Instead, he creates a
different definition of family –those who take God’s will seriously and live it
are a new family and a priority for him, especially when his immediate family
contradict the path that God wants him to walk.
Consequently for some that means walking away from family – for others
he encourages the breaking out of the whole family to live radically for
God. Imagine that!
So there are
dangers and dysfunctional aspects of families that might hold us back from
living according to God will – and here we are concentrating on church families
– but it may well be relevant to our natural families too.
There are times we
need to be liberated from well-intentioned but suffocating love. Any of us who have been parents will know the
importance of letting go, of our children needing to find their own path to
fulfil their potential. As a church we
can see that we might often seek to impose our understanding of truth on
others, reluctant to accept that there are other equally valid ways of being a
community of faith. Letting go means trusting
God being present in other ways than ours - and celebrating that. It means that we don’t know it all and that
is ok. It means trust that the way we
have nurtured each other in our family of faith is sufficient for new pathways
to be explored.
Are there
behaviours in our church that have their roots in fear and dysfunctionality or
in a particular response to a moment in history? We talk easily of dysfunctional families –
are we as a church similarly labelled. Do we bind ourselves to bad habits in any
way? We have to be constantly reflecting on how the grooves on our roads have
been worn by past experiences and where we need to regrade the road to be the
path we need of the future. We still
carry elements of historical racism, sexism, theological, cultural and social
exclusivism that we need to deal with –as well as a list of other inappropriate
behaviours that bring God no glory - that demonstrate that we take ourselves
more seriously than we do God.
Good and happy
families by definition develop a culture, a solid foundation that we absolutely
require as we grow, a security that holds us and a love that allows us testing
and forgiveness and healing. That is
what Christ offers us as the people of God gathered in community – but not so
that we can become self indulgent people who live just for ourselves, or become
tacit allies of the rich, the unjust, the powerful. No, we are family so that we can, from a
strong and focused foundation, carry out the will of God along whichever path
we need to travel to care for the vulnerable, bring good news to the poor, love
and respect each other. The family helps
us continually remind ourselves in whose name we gather and why we choose to
live as a people that are downright inflammatory, madly provocative and
sensationally courageous – because we are family of believers who take God
seriously and live it. Thanks be to
God. Amen
Margaret Garland
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