Whitegate, Trinity 12, Proper 15, 18/8/2013
Last week I preached in celebration of the Mothers’ Union, recalling their founder Mary Sumner and her outworking of what we might call Christian Family Values. I said then that if we seek to follow her example, in being guided by scripture in working out our Christian Family Values for our day and time, then we might be surprised by what scripture says, and sometimes challenged by the sideways look which Jesus’ teachings often take. [1] But in today’s gospel passage, Jesus doesn’t take a sideways look at Family Values - he confronts them head on, and uses words which I would call incendiary:
‘I came to bring fire to the earth, and how I wish it were already kindled! [...] Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! From now on, five in one household will be divided, three against two and two against three; [...] father against son and son against father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’ [Luke 12.49, 51-53]
Jesus, who his followers expected to bring peace to the troubled family of Israel, here tells them that he will do the opposite. Jesus, who his friends saw as one who expressed love and care for those closest to him, here throws a grenade into the heart of the family home. In the light of this passage, the concept of Christian Family Values is blown apart.
And it would not be so daunting if it were a one-off, if elsewhere Jesus affirmed the family in conventional terms. But the reality is that he never does. [2]
In Luke 8 [19-21] we read that
His mother and his brothers came to him, but could not reach him because of the crowd. When he was told, ‘Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, wanting to see you,’ he replied, ‘My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.’
In Luke 11 [27-28], when a woman in a crowd tells him, ‘Blessed is the womb that bore you and the breasts that nursed you!’ he replies, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it!’
And in Luke 18 [29] he is quoted as saying, ‘... there is no one who has left house or wife or brothers or parents or children, for the sake of the kingdom of God, who will not get back very much more in this age, and in the age to come eternal life.’
I’ve quoted just three examples - there are many more to choose from - and just from one gospel, Luke, though I could have added similar passages from each of the other gospels. It is clear that when it comes to traditional family values, Jesus will not affirm them. But instead he will assert the dawning of a new way of human relating, which is not a lesser way but a greater way. It is the way of the kingdom of God. The essence of Jesus’ teaching is that in the kingdom of God, loyalty to himself takes precedence over family loyalty. [3]
Why such teaching, and why so assertive?
First of all, a couple of statements about what this teaching is not.
It is not a denial of family values, but a call to ‘sit loose’ to them in giving greater priority to being a citizen of God’s kingdom.
It is not a reversal of family values, but an invitation to apply the best of them in a new way of human relating.
Why such teaching, then, and why so assertive? Because in the ancient world family loyalty was a universally recognised obligation; family loyalty was a major symbol of Jewish identity. Family loyalty was at the cultural and religious heart of the society to which Jesus belonged. His concern was not to undermine or deny the value of the family; but his chief concern was to announce the coming of the kingdom of God.
The reason he did what he did and said what he said was that he read the signs of the times, believed the kingdom was now dawning in and through his own work, and realised that some of the symbols of Israel’s worldview had become (not wicked, or shoddy, but) redundant. [4]
He made his point strongly in order to ensure it was heard - that whilst there will obviously be a place for the family in the future of God’s people, they must not make an idol of it, and they must be prepared to reshape it in the light of the values of God’s kingdom.
And how wonderfully the gospel of Luke portrays the reshaping of the family in the light of the values of God’s kingdom. The Jesus of Luke’s gospel is well known as the Jesus who brought people together around tables, to eat.
In Luke we often see Jesus seated around meal tables sharing fellowship with invited guests. Controversially, he ate with moral outcasts such as the tax-collectors Levi (Lk 5:27-32) and Zaccheus (Lk 19:1-7). Shockingly, for his day, women were included, among them a so-called ‘sinful women’ who, in the house of a leading Pharisee, anointed Jesus with ‘an alabaster jar of perfume’ (Luke 7:36-50). But his meals were also shared with - and often provided by - people who were not outcasts. He ate in the homes of leading Pharisees, and many of his meals were paid for by wealthy supporters such as Joanna. Jesus’ fellowship meals brought together devout Jews and the ‘outcasts and sinners’ and the poor of the land, and so deeply challenged the divisive social and religious conventions of the time. [5]
The values of the kingdom of God, or Christian Family Values if you prefer, rewrite the rules of conventional society to create a new set of relationships altogether.
How does this impact on those who accept the invitation to be citizens of the kingdom of God today?
Clearly it challenges us to consider whether we have made an idol of the family, and if we find we have, then to offer any misplaced loyalties into God’s hands, for his direction and healing.
It challenges our churches to explore the language we use about ourselves - many churches say, ‘we’re one happy family here’, but if that family is only happy because it is exclusive in its difference from other ‘happy family’ churches around, or if its happiness is based solely on its occasional social activities, rather than its members’ day-to-day care for each other and their sacrificial service to the world, then it should ask itself, are we truly reflecting the values of the kingdom of God?
It challenges us to consider whether we may be denying people the opportunity to take their place around Jesus’ fellowship table, because we find their family values to be uncomfortably different to our own. (And yes, I am touching here on the current debate around sexuality and marriage).
Jesus’ incendiary comments in today’s gospel reading make clear that if you take a stance for the kingdom of God then you will meet resistance. But if you embrace the values of God’s kingdom then you will also find fulfilment in the new, enhanced, relationships which you will form.
I’m reminded of a Christian community which gradually formed in Liverpool over the past decade, around one woman, a Methodist minister Barbara Glasson, who invited people who she met on the streets and in the shops and offices, to a rented city centre room to bake - and then break - bread together. It has become, for many, a sign of the family values of the kingdom of God. In her book Barbara describes the 'bread-warming party' they had on the day they opened their kitchens:
We set the room out so that it was possible to make bread as you walked around the table. People arrived, took off their coats, washed their hands and were given a bowl of flour. As their bread progressed so did they, so there was space for the newest arrival by the door. In the end 60 people made bread that night! There was a complete mix. People from Storm [a worship group for gay and lesbian Christians], some Big Issue guys, the president of the Liverpool Association of Chartered Accountants, a pension fund manager, a member of 'Moral Rearmament', some children, an Anglican priest, a policeman [...] It was a random jumble of humanity. [...] I could see miracle upon miracle as the most unlikely people were talking to each other as friends. [6]
This scene repeats every day in a Liverpool upstairs room. I’ve sat at that table myself, on one or two lunchtimes in the past. Locals call it The Bread Church. And we are connected with it, in the fellowship meal we share here week by week. As we strive towards being good citizens of the kingdom of God, our communion is a taste and a foretaste of the now-and-forever family gathering of God’s people.
Notes
[1] Dressed for action - Mary Sumner, preached at Whitegate and Little Budworth on 11/8/2013
[2] Indebted to N.T. Wright for his discussion of Nation and Family in Jesus and the Victory of God, pp.383-407, from which I borrow heavily here.
[3] N.T. Wright, p.402
[4] N.T. Wright, p.400
[5] From my earlier sermon, Placed among the poor, Bratton Clovelly, 17/3/2013
[6] Barbara Glasson, Mixed-Up Blessing
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