Oh, The Relatives

Matthew 10:34-42

            Last year, someone gave Ainslee a book entitled, The Relatives Came.[1] It’s a clever little book that begins this way:

It was in the summer of the year when the relatives came.  They came up from Virginia.  They left when their grapes were nearly purple enough to pick, but not quite.  They had an old station wagon that smelled like a real car, and in it they put an ice chest full of soda pop and some boxes of crackers and some bologna sandwiches, and up they came – from Virginia.[2]

            The book goes on to describe a Norman Rockwell family reunion that we all dream about …

Then it was hugging time.  Talk about hugging!  Those relatives just passed us all around their car, pulling us against their wrinkled Virginia clothes, crying sometimes.  They hugged us for hours.  Then it was into the house and so much laughing and shining faces and hugging in the doorways.  You’d have to go through at least four different hugs to get from the kitchen to the front room.  Those relatives![3]

            When I’ve read this book to Ainslee and Eli I’ve often wondered about the images instilled in their minds about relatives.  Joyous family reunions, perfectly harmonious relationships, and relaxing family vacations do happen.  But I don’t think they’re as common as children’s literature would like us to believe.  Stories about conflict, extreme tension during family get-togethers, and stress are probably much more common.

            If my perceptions about stressful relationships in families are true, then the last thing we need is some passage in the Bible talking about further division in the family!  Last week, I included part of this passage in our Scripture readings … but I never talked much about verses 34-37.  Some of you may have assumed I was avoiding these difficult words.  You’re right!  I’m still not completely sure what to make of this saying of Jesus.  The Church is supposed to be an advocate for strong families and harmonious family relationships yet here Jesus seems to completely sever the last strands of connectedness that many families know.  Barbara Brown Taylor, an Episcopal minister in Georgia writes about this passage: “The last thing we need is a Lord who strides into our living rooms with a sword in his hand to chop us apart.”[4]  That seems to be what happens here.  But we can’t just avoid these words.  So let’s hear them again:

35    For 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;

36    and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household.

37Whoever 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;

You’ve probably not heard too many sermons on this text.  And this may be the only time I ever preach on this text!  Now, we all know that Jesus is often a contrarian.  But doesn’t this seem to go a little far?  Surely this is among the most shocking things Jesus says in the Gospels.  Don’t you agree?  You’ve heard me often ask, “What do we make of this text?” and I’m asking that again today.  Maybe today, it’s less of a rhetorical question and more of a plea to God that I don’t really blow it!  So, here’s what I do know and then you’re going to have to do some work to sort this out yourselves.

            Matthew’s Gospel is the considered the “Jewish Gospel.”  The recipients were originally thought to be Jews who converted to Christianity.  As I mentioned last week, at the time Matthew’s Gospel was written persecution of Christians was crushing the early believers.  It’s one thing to be rejected by a group that believes differently than you do.  But Matthew’s audience of Jewish Christians was being rejected by community and also family.

            Can you imagine being rejected by your family…I mean completely rejected…because of what you believe?  Most of us don’t know that experience.  Yet this is what Jesus is reminding the 1st century Christians. 

            When Jesus says these words, instead of alarming the Christians, it actually comforted them because it was as if Jesus had known all along what would happen to them if they followed after him.  Jesus was simply reassuring these Christians ahead of time.

            So, first, I want you to be encouraged if you’re considered an “outsider” in your family because of your faith in Jesus.  Our earthly families can be very hard on us sometimes.  Statistically, homicides in families are among the leading groups of people being killed.  Isn’t that scary?  But most of us who experience rejection in our families will know a more passive-aggressive approach.  It’s the absence of phone calls.  It’s hearing words that may sound like teasing to some, but to you who’ve endured it for years, these words are as sharp as daggers.  It’s shaming and trying to make you feel guilty when there should be words of grace.  For those of you who’ve ever been the recipient of this kind of abuse, you know how hard the earthly family can be on a person sometimes.  Jesus wants you to know that putting your faith in God gives you an identity that is stronger than any pain you’ve known.  And that identity is: child of God.

            Second, when you claim the identity, “Child of God,” then sometimes you will be called upon to distance yourself from earthly family values and practices that run counter to God’s family values and practices.  Jesus demands loyalty to him first and that often creates some difficult challenges…and possible rejection.

·        If your family is abusive with teasing and ridicule.  If this is a family game that is played, then Jesus wants you to stop that and build up rather than tear down.

·        If the family pattern has always been to affiliated with Jesus, but not really committed, then Jesus wants you to take that full step toward commitment.  Make your faith not just a role you play, but your core identity.

·        Lastly, one of the toughest roads we are called to go down is the road of forgiveness.  Will you be willing to forgive someone that the rest of your family won’t?  Can you forgive your parents, or your children, for the mistakes that they’ve made?

Each of these, among many others we could mention, will often distance us from our families and may lead to rejection. 

            At the end of Ainslee’s book, the story concludes in this way:

Finally, after a long time, the relatives loaded up their ice chest and headed back to Virginia at four in the morning.  We stood there in our pajamas and waved them off in the dark.  We watched the relatives disappear down the road, then we crawled back into our beds that felt too big and too quiet.[5]

            Oh, the relatives!  Some of you know that emptiness that comes when families move apart…whether it’s through conflict or disappointment.  But remember that Jesus offers you God’s family. 

            Amen.


[1] Cynthia Rylant, The Relatives Came (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).  Illustrated by Stephen Gammell.

[2] Cynthia Rylant, The Relatives Came (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).  Illustrated by Stephen Gammell, pp. 1-2.

[3] Cynthia Rylant, The Relatives Came (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).  Illustrated by Stephen Gammell, pp. 9-10.

[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “Learning To Hate Your Family,” Teaching Sermons on Suffering: God In Pain (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1998), p. 27.

[5] Cynthia Rylant, The Relatives Came (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985).  Illustrated by Stephen Gammell, p. 25.