Widespread Agreement
“In defense of family…” is a saying associated with many contemporary renditions of the Christian faith. On one hand, from the more liberal leaning visions of Christianity, we have same-sex relationships justified in the name of family unity—as the sticker puts it, “Let gays suffer through marriage like the rest of us!” On the other hand, and even more loud and aggressive in their promotion of the family unit, are the conservative faith based organizations. James Dobson’s Focus on the Family is but one very prominent example of this vision.
This widespread sense of agreement among contemporary Christians makes me a bit wary. Widespread agreement about a particular faith-issue does not necessarily signal a fundamental truth—and the presumption that it does is not something I‘m willing to make. Rather, I would suggest, widespread agreement often signals an entrenched system of values that have developed efficient methods of sustaining itself against challenges. I think that the present-day media hoopla surrounding Christians and their family values is just one such method of maintaining an entrenched system.
Lets get to the point: What did Jesus say about the family unit? How did he act toward the family unit?
Three Scriptural Examples
After Jesus’ returned home, his family attempted to “restrain him, for people were saying, ‘He has gone out of his mind.’” As Jesus debated the scribes in front of a crowd, someone said to Jesus: “Your mother and your bothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.’ Jesus responded: “‘Who are my mother and my brothers?’ And looking at those who sat around him, he said, ’Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mark 3:21, 31-34).
In another instance, Jesus was speaking and “a woman in the crowd raised her voice and said to him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ But he said, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’” (Luke 11:27-28).
Finally, in another sharp passage, Jesus says “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…” (Matthew 10:34-37).
An Interpretation of Those Passages
Some Biblical scholars, like John Dominic Crossan, interpret these passages to be “an almost savage attack on family values, and it happens very, very often.” Crossan continues on the next page: “His [Jesus] ideal group is, contrary to Mediterranean and indeed most human familial reality, an open one equally accessible to all under God.” (58-60).
So, we have a Biblical ground on which to argue that Jesus acted toward the family in ways that broke it apart. Jesus did not act to hold the family unit together, as many contemporary evangelicals argue (usually without explicit Biblical warrant).
Perhaps I’ve missed some utterance Jesus made in favor of the traditional family unit. There are certainly many positive references to the family unit in the Hebrew Bible. But insofar as Jesus is the decisive figure (God-man) in the Christian faith, then the further question of trust emerges: whose words do we trust and value more, Jesus’ words or the stories in the Hebrew Bible? Can the two be woven together in a productive new way beyond the present-day liberal-conservative stranglehold on the family unit?
A Concluding Personal Note
I’m married and am a father to a seventeen month old child. I love my family. To be clear, I’m not arguing for the dissolution of the family unit.
My point here is to note that these are some difficult sayings of Jesus that smack down deeply held values for many folks—particularly regarding the family unit and their understanding of Jesus. But there they are. Like it or not. Do we ignore them? Do we fit them into our big, theological system and sort of make them disappear into the general storyline? Or do we face up to the particularity of these difficult sayings and explore there implications for our lives here today?
*John Dominic Crossan, Jesus: A Revolutionary Biography (New York: Harper Collins, 1994).
** The New Revised Standard Version of the Holy Bible.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Jacob, in response to the comments about Jesus’ views on family, I would say that this is another good example of why we have to take the narrative-historical context into account in reading the Gospels. To take Matthew 10:34-37:
When Jesus says that he has not come to bring peace to the land (not the ‘earth’ as in most translations) but a sword, he is speaking with the voice of the prophets. For example, Jeremiah 12:12:
It is false prophets who declare peace to Israel, but the Lord says that the false prophets and the people of Jerusalem will meet not with peace but with the sword of the Chaldeans:
Jesus brings the same message: first century Israel should not expect to enjoy a complacent peace and prosperity; what they face is war and destruction. Hagner in his commentary suggests that ‘sword’ is a metaphor for hostility between family members (Hagner, Matthew, 291). This is ridiculous. The prophets did not mean it metaphorically, and undoubtedly many of those who listened to Jesus were to fall to either a zealot or a Roman sword.
Similarly, when he says, ‘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’, he has in mind another prophetic message of judgment on a corrupt nation. When God smites the land and makes it desolate because of their sins, when the day of punishment and confusion comes, they should put no trust in neighbours and friends: ‘for the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man’s enemies are the men of his own house’ (Mic. 6:13; 7:4-6). This confusion is a sign of God’s judgment on Israel.
So, yes, Jesus in a certain sense opposed the family, but I would agree that his ideal group was ‘an open one equally accessible to all under God’ only with qualification. It was an ideal group within Israel, emerging out of the covenant people, open to the inclusion of those within Israel who were marginalized and excluded, offering equal access to God through the relationship with Jesus himself, under conditions of eschatological crisis. That crisis would result in social and familial disruption and only a radically different form of community would survive
But that is what happens under certain narrative-historical conditions. We can’t simply extrapolate from that for the life of the post-eschatological community - any more than we can blithely assume that authentic Christian community today is no more than an agglomeration of happy families.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Andrew,
Thanks for the comments. They get at the weaving of the Hebrew Bible and the NT together, but what about these difficult saying’s implications for us today in our present context?
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Do these passages need to have any implications “for us today in our present context?” I’m not so sure they do. We are not facing an eschatological crisis as first century Israel (and Rome of the first and later centuries) was. The “sword” Jesus specifically referred to came and went.
I’m sure even today there are people who face similar problems of family division (e.g.. one raised in an Islamic home turns to Christianity and is shunned), and in those cases, I think it is appropriate to reuse Jesus’ language and retell his stories. However, I think there is a big difference between saying A is like B, and A=B; it is appropriate to retell narratives or create our own when they fit our circumstances, but inappropriate, in my opinion, to assume those narratives fit all circumstances or refer only to our circumstances. Does that make any sense at all?
Re: Jesus and Family Values
enarchay,
I’m trying to point to a seeming conflict between what contemporary Christian organizations preach and practice about the family unit and what Jesus actually says about the family relations.
There are multiple contexts that one can put those words into. You can root them in the story of ancient Israel, as Andrew does, or you can locate them in our present context and see what they mean for us today. I don’t think there is One Right Context.
When I wrote this piece, I was thinking of the essay as a little effort aimed at teasing out some possibilities other than the rather limited understanding we practice and preach today about the family. The matter isn’t summed up as neatly as many would like: pro-family, anti-family policies. Jesus didn’t Focus on the Family, as James Dobson, he focused on the Kingdom of God.
And one last point, it is more than a person being raised in a Muslim family, converting to Christianity and then being shunned. There are some righteous believers in Christ that shun their on sons and daughters and other family members because those family members don’t believe as fervently or they don’t believe at all. The sword that Jesus spoke of, it seems to me, is still cutting families apart.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
I don’t disagree. For some reason, Islam just popped into my head. I didn’t mean to imply, however, that all Muslim families would act that way.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Your post raises a very interesting question that I think may be at the heart of the emerging church movement. Do the ancient writings have any meaning for us today? Let me state this as: Is the Bible a "living" document or is it "dead letter?" Is the question what did "it is finished" mean to those at the base of the cross, or the apostles (who weren’t there) or … , or is the question what ought "it is finished" mean to Christians in the here and now?
I would not encourage anyone to respond to these questions here. But, the answer to these questions very definitely is determinative of "how you come out" on various questions relating to the Christian faith. I argue, in anticipation of certain possible positions that could be taken on these questions, that the paraclete/Holy Spirit has not been suficiently explored/written about and may hold some answers.
Yours was a good observation.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Why is this only a question for the emerging church movement?
~jhimm — nothing lasts. nothing is finished. nothing is perfect.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Because it is the one area of examination that I think can only be treated with without institutional baggage. It is a question for all Christians, but in most traditions the question has been answered. The emerging church has the opportunity and should take up these questions anew. It is in this process, I think, that maybe some new answers will emerge. That is the point of this, isn’t it. If not, let’s just go to Mass.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
What’s wrong with going to Mass?
~jhimm — nothing lasts. nothing is finished. nothing is perfect.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Not one thing, and I go often. But good luck having an engaging conversation on emerging theology themes with the priests and servers at Mass.
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Nothing lasts is for sure, i haven’t seen to many marriages last lately everyone runs into some kind of marriage problem and both couples start thinking divorce rather then how to stop divorce
Re: Jesus and Family Values
I think it is a combination of both. Many of these texts are written by members of specific communities for members of specific communities. Many parts of these texts have specific relevance for specific times. The contexts in which these texts were written are different than the context we live in. On the other hand, these narratives can be retold. The problems the early Christians faced, we sometimes face today, and so will it be throughout history until the final judgment.
Why can’t the same be at least partially true for us today?
Re: Jesus and Family Values
Good post and thanks for citing to authority.
The phrase or term “family values” is a banner for right-wing conservatism in the United States, maybe elsewhere. It has come to connote far more than norms within and without the family unit.
I won’t go there, but may I suggest that the family unit is something of this earth and one very clear message I get from the Jesus narrative is “not to love things of this earth too much.” I realize that by using the word thing, I am objectifying what ought not be objectified, but such is the limitation of language, at least my capability to use it.
It is the relationship of the individual in her aspect as spirit to Jesus Christ as spirit that was for Jesus and I think should be for us the primary concern. All persons are members, in the spirit, of the family of Jesus Christ,in the spirit, first and foremost and to the exclusion of all other earthly, temporal relationships.
Nice, but what does it mean? If I love all persons as I love my wife, as I love my son and daughter, as I love my mother and father, does the status associated with the words son, daughter, mother, father, family retain any religious meaning, per se?
In my opinion,the value of “mere” blood relationship is greatly inflated. But, one might state and ask, a wife or husband is not a blood relationship, what about that? The relationship between a man and a woman in a vowed relationship is perhaps the holiest relationship that we mortals can undertake, one with the other. Man intimately uniting with woman in the spirit approaches closely, but does not reach, humans in the spirit uniting with God.