1 Samuel 2:18-20 ; Luke 4:41-52
December 27, 2009
This morning, with a little help from Samuel and Luke, I’m going to talk about family values. I need to start by saying that this sermon – or rather the ideas in this sermon – are a work in progress. That happens sometimes. In my thinking and studying of the bible during the week, I am led to an idea that I think is important, where I know the text really might have something to say to us, but I am not yet settled on exactly what that is. This puts me in a more vulnerable situation than normally, but it doesn’t make sense to me that I should wait until I have completely “figured out” what the best, right interpretation of a text might be before I preach about it in this community. Bottom line: I need you guys. I know this might surprise you, but I don’t always have the right interpretation of the bible .
So, here’s my earnest attempt at figuring out what the scriptures might be saying to us this week about family values even though I don’t feel like I’ve quite hit the nail on the head yet. I hope you brought your hammers.
Many people say the bible tells us what family values are, and often I think they are looking to the wrong parts of the bible for those values. But, I think the topic of family does come up in Jesus’ life and that the concept is something Christians need to think about in light of our scriptures. So this topic is something I think is extremely important, but in our context and in our society I think it’s extremely hard to figure out what Christian family values are.
I think these two passages might be one place to look for our definition. And in the end, I don’t think it looks much like what passes for family values today in the world of conventional wisdom and public conversation. For one thing, it’s usually assumed family values are about a nuclear family…mom, dad, kids. And there’s a problem with this that has to be addressed before any conversation about family values can take place. Such a singular, narrow definition of nuclear family is wildly off the mark when it comes to families today. We know that just doesn’t cut it. There are many families that don’t fit such a stereotype that both seek and exemplify family values. And it’s easy for such families to feel excluded from the conversation from the get go if that narrow definition is accepted as the starting place. Believe me, I know.
But this morning I’m focusing more on a conversation between us – those of us gathered here. And I know we don’t start with such a false assumption. So setting that aside, there’s another problem with family being defined as nuclear or even extended family, even once you’ve appropriately expanded the definition of these things. Both Luke and Samuel add a component to family values that is often missing from our society’s debate, and it might be missing from our conversations about family values as well. Luke and Samuel add a whole other family. They add God’s family – specifically they both are raised to some degree by the synagogue…the equivalent of church for us.
In our passages, the young Jesus and Samuel are being taught family values. And for each of them, the synagogue plays a huge role in this teaching. Jesus even rebukes his parents a little bit for assuming it should be otherwise. They had come to get their child and take him back to his nuclear family because that’s where children belong – that’s where children are raised. But Jesus names another parent – one who has as much, if not more, of a claim on his life and growth as Mary and Joseph. God.
He adds this other family – the family of God – but that’s not where the story ends. It’s not that Jesus was raised by the synagogue alone. Even though Jesus rebukes his folks, Mary and Joseph don’t leave him in the synagogue with the teachers and priest. He may have spent three days in the temple learning, but in the end we’re told, “he went down with Mary and Joseph to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.” It was there, with his nuclear and extended family, that we are told he increased in wisdom and years.
This is the “O thank God!” moment for those of us raising and caring for children. Jesus may have defied his parents that one time in order to be with his “other” family, but then we find out that to be like Jesus, children are indeed to be obedient to us. Whew.
Of course, it’s much more complicated than that. Jesus was, without a doubt, a part of two families. It’s a false dichotomy to say that Jesus was raised by his nuclear family during those formative years just because that’s who he lived with. We know Mary and Joseph were Jewish, and Jesus grew up in the faith community of which his family was a part. For example, later in his life Jesus would feel the need in one case to reject his earthly family in order to honor his divine parent. And it’s clear he found his motivation for doing so in the scriptures and presumably the teachings he heard in the synagogue growing up. It’s not one over the other. Both are necessary – our family and the church – to help us with family values.
We have number of children here in our congregation, and I suspect most of us are pretty uncomfortable with the church playing an equal role in raising these kids along side their parents and grandparents. Families are surely uncomfortable with this because, I can say from first hand experience, we are fiercely protective of our authority in raising our children.
And the church is uncomfortable because frankly we don’t want that kind of authority over someone else’s child. We’ll teach our kids in Sunday school, but when the big issues arise in their lives – when the big questions come along – we go along with what the parents do regardless of our feelings about it.
But in our Christian story, children are a part of two families and both are responsible for instilling family values in some kind of mixture of authority, even if it’s not equal. Now, even if we accept this premise, there are some pretty big questions unanswered: First, what are those values we’re both supposed to instill? Who decides? What happens when there is a difference either within or between the two families? How is that adjudicated?
Let’s start with the question of what are the family values? If we’re to work together – church family and home family – what do we believe we should teach our children about how to negotiate a world and a culture that is as difficult for them as it is for us to navigate without being pulled into the destructive things we know are out there? Can we – do we even want to – come to any general agreement about what we should be teaching our children?
This year when present buying/giving time came up, I sent an email to my family about Lydia and Christmas based on values I have learned in the church over the years. The church has taught me with great clarity about the “problems” with Christmas as it is celebrated in popular culture. And we are passing these problems along to our children. So, I wrote an email that was as clear as I could that I did not want them to give Lydia presents. I said that I was not just being nice letting them off the hook somehow, but that I was asking explicitly that they not buy her anything.
I learned this value in sermons, adult ed classes, Sunday school, conversations, and minutes for mission. Don’t give toys, give to heifer. Don’t just give to your kids, but give to others. Don’t define “gift” as material goods. Now, I know I won’t – in fact don’t – follow these very clear prescriptions perfectly. I bought each and every one of my nieces and nephews a gift this year. And when Lydia can actually ask for something, well we’ll see how good I am at passing on these church family values. I think it’s safe to say that I will lose the battle more often than not – and I beg for your sympathy when that happens. But the point is my church taught me some family values that I promise I did not learn in my family of origin. I know what those values are and they are pretty clear. And I’m glad I have learned them, and I want my daughter to learn them as well. Then, we can at least make baby steps toward reaching them.
We can, I think, declare some things with confidence. We value kindness over popularity. We value cooperation over competition. We value giving over hoarding. We value acceptance and embracing difference over judgment. We value questioning rather than imposing beliefs. We value peace over violence. I think we can and should have shared values as a church and pass them on to parents and children alike.
But what about the times when there is disagreement about what our values are? In general, the assumption is basically that “home” family trumps “church” family every time. But, in the Christian story, if we believe we are a part of God’s family, not just our own insular families, do we not give our child over to something greater than our own authority? Isn’t God to be the ultimate authority? And church is a placed where the will of God is discerned in community. Aren’t there times we should defer to what the community has discerned? If we’re to accept the text about Jesus, it’s not as easy as one family always “winning” over the other. Jesus was right about being in the temple, opening himself to the wisdom there, and Mary was right to bring him home and offer the nurture and guidance of parents, grandparents and extended family.
Take a moment and think about the kids here in our congregation. When you think about it, there is in fact an instinct in this congregation to be that second “family”. Certainly I feel that with Lydia; like when I ask Janice at 9 a.m. this morning if she will watch Lydia during worship and she doesn’t hesitate to say yes. I see it when Dan and Sara sing in the choir and Slane is handed off effortlessly to one of many willing surrogates in the church. I notice it at fellowship time when kids sit together, and parents help kids other than their own get their food and monitor when they go for yet another piece of cake. I see it when the kids run around in fellowship hall and the sanctuary as if it is their home.
We already provide a second family and home, but is there room to do it better? Might those of us who bring children to church submit ourselves and the kids to the wisdom of the group sometimes in addition to our own? Don’t we sometimes need help with family values? Should we take time to figure out how to negotiate differences of opinion in what constitutes family values.
Church doesn’t function the same way now as it did in Jesus’ day, and there’s probably no reason it should. And that means that how we work together as parents and church will be pretty different from what happens in these stories, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn here. I think we all would do well to add some church community help to child rearing from time to time. This requires a lot of all of us. There has to be deep trust. We need to have spaces and time to talk about the complicated issues that face all of us when we try to figure out what our values are in this day and age.
The obvious assumption that has been underlying all of this is that it’s not just about instilling values in our children. We need each other to cultivate Christian values in ourselves! And we need to do it together. I am only willing to hand over some rearing responsibility to you if I know what your values are, what our shared values are and how we will negotiate differences. We have to talk about these things first.
I am a parent, and I already trust you all a great deal – I trust your wisdom and insights. Obviously I don’t speak on behalf of all parents, but I truly desire a community that has values to teach me and Lydia because I know left to my own devices, I too often just do what everyone else is doing because it’s easy. I need a reality check – a morality check. I think I’m not alone. This is often why people caring for and raising children are drawn to church.
So what role should the church play in teaching children here family values? If we do have a role, how can we go about figuring out what those values might be? How would we talk about the really difficult issues where there are differences of opinion? The children will grow – will they grow in wisdom? How can we help them do that?
So that’s it. My best attempt at figuring out what we might learn from the families of which Jesus was a part. I think in the end I’m suggesting that we don’t do quite enough. We don’t have many conversations about shared values we want to pass on to our children. We don’t have a lot of chances to talk with each other about these things, even for people who are responsible in some way for raising children. But, I wonder if we don’t need some improvement. What do you think?
God is the parent of us all. Ultimately we are in each other’s family by virtue of our baptism, and we should all be learning our values from God, and passing those values on to our children. Certainly we need all the help we can get. Amen.
