Throughout the gospel lectionary readings in Ordinary Time, Jesus regularly says surprising things that contradict our traditional notions of proper ethical behavior. Here’s a section from my forthcoming book A Year of Faith and Philosophy that explores this issue.
The gospel readings during Ordinary Time regularly include difficult teachings from Jesus. For instance, in the Proper 7 Year A reading from Matthew [last week], Jesus says that
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; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.
In the Year C reading from Luke’s gospel the following Sunday [today], Jesus tells a would-be follower whose father has just died that he should “let the dead bury their own dead” rather than delaying following Jesus in order to attend to his father’s funeral. It is enough to make one wonder what Jesus thought about “family values.”
In the estimation of many, “family values” are conservative values, focusing on respect for authority, hard work, independence, patriotism, faith and so on, but during every political cycle liberal and progressive voices are heard crying out that true family values are about concern for others, lifting the downtrodden, and speaking truth to power. And the never-ending war over who truly defines and owns family values rages on. But what do family values prescribe concerning my relationship with my actual family? Because it is pretty clear from the Gospels that Jesus didn’t necessarily value family relationships as highly as we might expect or demand.
The “What would Jesus do?” (“WWJD?”) concept has been popular for some time, intended to remind the follower of Jesus that moral behavior for a person of Christian faith is a matter of imitating Jesus as presented in the Gospels. One can find WWJD? coffee cups, posters, key chains, bumper stickers, T-shirts, wrist bands—the idea has been viral for a long time. But do we really want to do what Jesus did?
For example, should a person say to his or her mother, “Woman, what concern is that to you?” when she asks for a favor? Should we encourage twelve-year-olds to speak to their parents rudely and dismissively as Jesus did to Mary and Joseph during the Temple episode? Should we tell a person mourning the recent death of his or her father to “Let the dead bury their dead”? If one is concerned about family values, WWJD? at times might be a better guide for what one should not do.
Attempts to ground one’s own moral code, regardless of its content, in the example of Jesus from the gospel stories often are little more than thinly veiled attempts to create Jesus in one’s own image. For every gospel text congruent with our traditional understanding of family values (and there are many such texts), there is a text in which Jesus promises that following him and seeking God is guaranteed to turn one’s world upside-down and to violate almost every traditional moral expectation and norm.
Everyone is aware of families torn apart and destroyed when one of the family members sets out on a mission to “accomplish God’s work.” The stories of Jesus give ample justification for ignoring one’s family obligations and connections if they conflict with the perceived will of God for one’s life. The legendary football coach Vince Lombardi used to tell his Green Bay Packers players that their priorities were to be “God, Family, and the Green Bay Packers”—although his players report that frequently he clearly changed the order. Is God a cosmic Vince Lombardi insisting upon being at the pinnacle of a rigid hierarchy, to the detriment of anything else, no matter how important, that might conflict?
Maybe. But what if Jesus’s consistently violating our values and expectations is a call to consider something more radical than our limited imaginations can accommodate? If, rather than residing at “the top of the heap,” God is everything and everything is in God, then the lay of the land is no longer a landscape of “either/or.” The answer to the question “which is more important, God or family?” is “yes.” Jesus’s provocative statements concerning the family are intended to demonstrate that when we include God as just another object of important things that need to be placed in proper order we are misconstruing God entirely.
If everything is in God, then God is not ultimately in conflict with anything. If God and family appear to be in conflict, then faith tells me that somewhere, at some level, God and family are in unity regardless of appearances. If I have to regularly choose between paying attention to God and to my job, then my faith-energized assignment is to learn how to find God in my job (since my job is in God, as is everything else). Attempts to fit the life of faith into familiar categories, even if we are willing to significantly adjust those categories, miss the boat. The energy of the Christian life is captured well by the Apostle Paul: And I will show you a more excellent way.
For reflection: I learned a song in Sunday School that said, “Jesus, and Others, and You—what a wonderful way to spell JOY.” Consider this hierarchy in light of Jesus’s “difficult teachings.” Does the song have it right, or is there more to consider?
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In