Family and Faith

In a very public Father's Day letter published in the New York Times Anna Quindlen once wrote, "We might as well have a universal support group: Adult Children of Parents." The gist of the letter was a bit of a commentary on the challenge every child faces: to wake up to the reality that they are individuals, not extensions of their parental units. Most of us do not have to hate our family to differentiate ourselves from them. But sometimes our families do hate us when we try.

Jesus knew this. In the gospel of Matthew, Jesus speaks of the gut-wrenching work of choosing for ourselves who we want to become. He compares and contrasts those who follow Jesus and those who don't - including a controversial passage that says that if we love our families more than Jesus we are unworthy. I suspect that Jesus and Anna Quindlen were making similar points. All families are complex webs of interconnection. From the smallest details (Duke's or Hellmann's?) to larger issues like politics, our family beliefs, customs and idiosyncratic ways are engrained in us. This is not a good versus bad thing; it is a complicated dance toward maturity and choosing for ourselves how we want to create the next generation of 'family.'

Following Jesus was a sure fire way to get you scratched from the holiday party back in the day. This idea of 'hating' your mother and father was not Jesus' idea; it was the reality for anyone who chose to follow Jesus at that time. Today, we understand this, right? How many families do you know that have survived unscathed their voting records in 2016 or their various positions on the Black Lives Matter movement?

Jesus is not trying to break people up. What he is saying is this: love me best. And, if that is true, then he promises us this: no matter the ups and downs of our relationships and life as a result of choosing him - whatever we lose for his sake, God will breathe new life into. We will lose if we love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength because it will require us to jettison old habitual ways of believing, thinking and being. People won't like that. But God will love us and continue to breathe on our dry, dead bones.