Matthew 12:46-50
“Experimental Families,” After Jesus: Before Christianity (Westar)
When we think of family, we often picture two people who have chosen to connect because they love each other and their biological or adopted children. In the nifty fifties when I was growing up, that was almost always a married man and woman (mom and dad) and their children (statistically 2 ½ of them). Families don’t often look like that anymore. Grandson Colin and I were having a conversation the other day in which I was trying to explain to him what it means to be “related” to him. His parents and siblings are “related” to him because they are his family. And so are his three grandmas and his grandpa. Then he wanted to count his aunts and uncles – which is a more complicated enterprise given the marriages and divorces and the fact that when you get to the second generation he’s never met some of those people. It gets even more complicated when we factor in the people he calls “uncle” or “auntie” who aren’t technically related but very important to him. He explained that to me by saying they are like “Pat and Denny” who are his grandparents but not related to him. And that was settled.
Given our mobile society, the way families spread across the county today, it makes perfect sense to us that children would have family members who aren’t related to them. When our biological families aren’t near, we create family where we are and “adopt” people of all ages to connect with and celebrate good times with. We hear today’s scripture through that lens and it makes perfect sense to us when Jesus says that his students have become his family because of the time they are spending together and the values they share. In the first century his statement was shocking and impossible.
First century families were led by the paterfamilias, the head of household (father of the family). This was always the oldest male. And the family consisted of the people he owned: his slaves or indentured servants, his wife (who had been purchased from her father) and his children. All of these people lived and worked under the command of the household head, and because they all obeyed him, things ran smoothly. He ran the family business, he sacrificed to the family gods (whom he inherited from his father), he made all the decisions about who lived and who died. The empire ran smoothly because its households ran smoothly and above them all is the greatest householder – the Emperor, who owns the empire and all its peoples.
Because family IS the fabric of the Empire, it’s a reality that impacts everything about the first followers of Jesus. It has a unifying effect – when the head of household becomes a follower of the Anointed, the household becomes followers of the Anointed. The New Testament is filled with references of groups (we call them churches) who meet in households – Chloe’s, Lydia’s, Aquilla and Pisca’s, Philemon’s, and more. The group is absorbed into the milieu of household.
Sometimes, on the other hand, the Jesus followers have a disruptive effect. Today’s scripture about Jesus choosing his own household fits that category. The male followers who leave home to be with Jesus disrupt their families and the family businesses. The female followers would have had an even more disruptive impact on their families. Runaway slaves who joined Jesus groups and freed slaves who formed groups and became family were a disruption. We’ve talked about Thecla, who was a woman who refused to marry so that she could work with the apostle Paul – very disruptive.
Even more disruptive is the idea that God is the father of these groups which function like families. Jesus – a human male – isn’t the father. He defers to God as the lead. But unlike human fathers who are loyal to the emperor, God is at least equal to the emperor. To say that the family’s or the group’s allegiance is to God is treason. In Empire, that’s the greatest disruption of all.
There’s another important way that Jesus’ story is disruptive of family and that’s found in the genealogy of his ancestors in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew traces Jesus’ line from Abraham through David to Joseph, naming the male head of each generation. But five times he also names the women involved:
Tamar – wife of Judah’s son Er and also mother of 2 of Judah’s sons
Rahab – prostitute in Jericho who was the great-great-grandmother of David
Ruth – David’s great-grandmother who became the wife of Boaz, her husband’s distant cousin
Bathsheba – whom David stole from Uriah who became Solomon’s mother
Mary – mother of Jesus
Each one of these women were in danger for their lives because they lived in a patriarchal society. Each one found herself in a compromised position because of pregnancy (or lack of it) and used her ingenuity to survive. In most cases she tricked the head of household into caring for her and her children. The way Matthew puts it, not only is the Jesus movement subversive, his entire ancestry has been subversive of the householder’s power.
Some Christians today (like Focus on the Family for instance) insist that the Roman model is God’s ideal and the church should support patriarchal families alone. Fathers should be in charge, mothers should be obedient and raise obedient children. (Technically they say God is in charge of fathers, but it’s interesting that God always seems to be on the side of what the fathers want to do.) The first century followers of Jesus were already shaking up this model. They were treating all people as equals within their groups (at least sometimes). They were affirming those who didn’t marry. They were adopting folks who needed connection. They were breaking all the rules.
It seems to me that when God is the head and God is love, then people are always more important than rules. That’s what we’re holding up as true here at Family of God. Love is what creates family. Because of our culture, we feel like we’re doing something new when we celebrate diversity in families – traditional models; single folks; same gender couples; biological, adopted and foster kids; non-related aunties and uncles and grandparents; sons that become daughters and daughters who become sons. Some of it’s disruptive – which makes us much closer to the first century reality than anything that’s been connected to Christianity in our time.
In the first century family/household was about structure and control. The people who followed Jesus were about his values. In the twenty-first century we stand for families shaped by those values. We’re willing to give up control to allow love and life to flourish. So families are groups of people who love each other. They focus on support and encouragement and joy. They make sure everyone thrives and life is meaningful. They can be folks who live together or folks who worship together or folks who just hang out together. Family is a word that describes us as connected by God for the benefit of everyone. Family of God.