The Dysfunctional Family of Jesus

Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the Feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to custom. And when the feast was over, when they were returned, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents did not know, but supposing him to be in the group they went a day's journey, but then they began to look for him among family and friends, and when they found him, they returned to Jerusalem, searching for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and ask them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at His understanding and his answers. And when his parents saw him, they were astonished. And his mother said to him: "Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you in great distress." And he said unto them: "Why were you looking for me?" Did not you know that I'll be in my Father's house? "

'Because he was our childhood pattern

Day by day like us he grew;

He was small, weak and helpless;

Tears and smiles like us he knew ...

Christian children all must be

Mild, obedient, good as he.

(Cecil Frances Alexander, 1848)

It is the first Sunday after Christmas - the 'Feast of the Holy Family'. How is this Sunday will be remembered in the Catholic Church anyway, and our Gospel reading this morning did not also give us an image of the earthly family of Jesus in his childhood, it is appropriate for us to remember the holy family in day.

We're in the middle of a series of traditional festive days as far as Christians in the world are affected. Two days ago we celebrated Jesus' birth on Christmas Day. Yesterday was the day after Christmas, commonly known as "Boxing Day", but my father always used to remind me it was also 'St. Stephen's Day '- the festival celebrating the brutal death of the early Christian martyr, St Stephen. And tomorrow is the "Feast of the Holy Innocents," where we remember Herod's heinous murder of children in Bethlehem when he tried to kill Jesus as a toddler.

Tomorrow is also interesting that the Islamic festival 'Ashura', which remembers the martyrdom of Prophet Mohammed's grandson and his family and friends. It's strange, I think that this Christmas season has been such a time to remember so much brutality, and yet right here in the middle of all the bloodshed is the Feast of the Holy Family, 'where we focus on the joys of the family home - probably the last place we would expect to find violence.

In reality, this seems like a strange time to remember "The Family" for a number of reasons, and not just because of the way this Remembrance Day is squeezed in between the memories of so many martyrs of origin. What struck me as most peculiar about this family today is that it is the only day of the year devoted to a focus on the family, and even then only at the end of the Catholic Church. In order to get the impression from a lot of Protestant churches in particular, the family is basically what Christianity is all about!

Take a look at almost every Protestant church building in this country and you will discover that their main Sunday service is offered as a 'Family Service'. The church is of course widely recognized as the main institution that raises and defends the importance of family, and in Western society as a whole 'Christian values' and 'family values' is taken to be almost synonymous.

Go to the homepage of Fred Nile's 'Christian Democratic Party' and what does it say right at the top of the page? "Promotion of Family Values for over 28 years"! This is essential to what it means to be Christian, it is not - to maintain the place of family in society? And that is why Fred urges us to resist any proposal for the legalization of homosexual marriages. For god-given institution of family must be sustained!

In truth, the "Christian Family Values' is generally recommended especially for those who are most voacl to adhere to what the Bible says about the irony is that the Bible actually has little to say about the importance of the human family, and in the form of childhood family of Jesus, this excerpt from Luke chapter 2 is all we get!

This in itself is certainly surprising! Why do the Gospels say so little about the childhood of Jesus? Why is there only one story in a gospel to give us some idea of what Jesus was like when he grew up?

Of course I'm not covering the stories that proliferated apocryphal literature, composed centuries after the earthly life of Jesus. Those who have read the Gospel of Thomas - a book attributed to the apostle Thomas, but generally believed to have been written in 3rd century - will remember the highly entertaining stories from his boyhood of Jesus that are recorded there.

As a 10-year-old boy Jesus supposedly save his parents from an attack by a lion, and from age 8, there is the famous clay pigeons episode, where the model pigeons boy Jesus was to shape the clay suddenly transformed into real doves and flew away!

Then there is the story of the boy Jesus, who is playing with some etching channels in the mud, and another boy comes and muck up channels by hand. Immediately the boy's hand wither. Another boy played a joke on the 6-year-old Jesus by jumping on his back and he immediately drops dead. Of course the dead boy is raised and the withered hand is restored.

Although these stories is no doubt a product of imaginative human imagination, their very existence highlights the scarcity of genuine material fact exists. Human imagination had to fill in the blanks!

This lack of historical material is surprising enough, but it is even more surprising is that a true story that we get from the holy family barely leaves us with a pattern that we want Christian families to imitate!

We read it this morning in Luke Chapter two. The 12-year-old Jesus and his family in Jerusalem. Jesus' parents head for home, presumably as part of a larger caravan, where the boy Jesus had been left with the other children of his own age. A day's journey from Jerusalem, they finally realize that Jesus had for some inexplicable reason, decided to stay behind!

When Joseph and Mary coming back to Jerusalem, they search high and low, finally finding the boy Jesus in the Temple three days later, dialoguing with scholars. When Mary confronts Jesus with his behavior and level of distress that he has caused both her and Joseph, Jesus says to her: "What did you expect?" "Did not you know that I'll be in my Father's house?"

"Christian children all must be mild, obedient, good as he is," says songwriter. Well .. It is not for me to judge Jesus' behavior, but if this incident is typical of his childhood, gentle and obedient, he was apparently not!

And we do not have to pretend that this ambiguous relationship between Jesus and his earthly parents are somehow resolved itself happily, as he grew older, for yes, the examples we look at Jesus with his mother and siblings later in life suggests that his relationship with his human family continued to be strained

According to the story recorded in Matthew 12 and other places where Jesus' mother and brothers came looking for him, Jesus practically ruled them!

"Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?" Jesus says. "And extending his hand toward his disciples, he says:" Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother. "(Matthew 12:48-50)

Further, Jesus 'statements about the importance of family and family unity almost square with those who proclaim "Family Values':

"For I am come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law." (Matthew 10:35)

And then there's Jesus' infamous statement recorded in Luke chapter 12:

"If someone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yea, and even his own life, he can not be my disciple" (Luke 14:26).

Now I know these verses are all open to interpretation, and I do not think Jesus ever really requires of us that we hate our human family, but it must be said that the dear old Fred and his companions, who represents those Christians groups maintain the 'family values' will have a hard time showing that these values can be in any way rooted in the teachings of Jesus.

So what can we learn from the 'holy family' on this surprising holiday? What we seem to learn of the holy family in our Gospel reading is that there is something particularly sacred about the nuclear family concept as such!

I do not know about the modern analysts will mark the holy family as "dysfunctional" or not, but we have to accept, I think that the relationship was complex, tense and regular unpleasant.

Jesus was a part of the human family, and we have no reason to believe that childhood for him was still a beautiful experience, filled with all the joy and wonder we could hope to find in a family home. Yet, Jesus, we know, was not hampered by his human family, and his ultimate loyalties were not to his earthly parents.

What kind of childhood pattern of leaving our children and what kind of parents this pattern leaves for us, which will educate children I do not know, but I can see in this depiction of the holy family a de-emphasis of the ultimate significance of human family unit and a recognition of the fact that however strong relationship may exist between parent and child, it is not the main factors in the lives of one parent or the child!

Ultimately, our children must learn to deal with God on their own terms, just as we as parents have to. Ultimately, whoever we are and no matter how closely we are tied to our earthly families, we each have to recognize first Parenthood of God and the ultimate demands of God in our lives.

It all sounds pretty negative and family unfriendly and frankly un-Christian! Nevertheless, while the weight of the nuclear family be painful, the reverse of this is focused on the Comprehensive Parenthood of God who makes us a part of a much larger and more spacious family - one that contains all sorts of people we not associated with blood but with whom we are still united by our spiritual bonds through our Heavenly Father.

This is the family of faith that ultimately goes beyond our earthly families as the place where we find our true identity and spiritual home - a family that includes people of all races, cultures and languages, a community where we can reach out to one another and embrace each other like sisters and brothers, whether we be black or white or male or female, or rich or poor or young or old or gay or straight or just or unjust.

This is the new holy family, that God is there - a truly inclusive family where everyone is welcome, all are valued for their unique and all are loved, just like our heavenly parents loves each of us.

"For He was our childhood pattern," but in truth, it is a difficult pattern for us to imitate either as children or as adults. For the first, Jesus models for us what is a refusal to be constrained by conventional concepts and family values that he follows God. Dare we follow this pattern? Dare we expose our children to this pattern? It may mean the end of a quiet, happy family, but of course it could also be the start of something much more exciting?

Rev. David B. Smith (the 'Fighting Father') Parish priest, Community worker, martial arts master, pro boxer, author, father of three www.fatherdave.org Get a free preview copy of Dave's book, sex, Ring & the Eucharist when you sign up for his free newsletter