FAMILY VALUES
Rev. Dr. Joyce Antila Phipps
Old First Church, Middletown
Texts: Psalm 26; Mark 10: 2-16\
Ana Beatriz came here as a young woman from Brazil and, like many other Brazilians, settled in the Ironbound, that section of Newark on the south side of the tracks of the passenger line to New York. She married and had two children. Although her husband was a hard worker supporting the family financially, he had this overwhelming desire to control every single aspect of his wife's life.
Having found Jesus, he dragged Ana Beatriz to worship services where she was told that she had to obey her husband no matter what. After all, doesn't it say in Ephesians, “wives be subject to your husbands?” Having been raised in a home that inflected corporal punishment on him, he thought nothing of using a belt on her – and the children who were both under six years old.
When I asked her why she was returning to him, she told me that the pastor told her that she had to subject herself to her husband. It was part of God's plan. Then, last February, she was banging on the door as she heard her son scream as he was being beaten with the belt as so-called discipline. She had taken it time and time again but she couldn't believe that this was part of any plan of a loving God and dialed 911. As the police took him to the station and sent the 6-year old boy to the hospital for medical treatment, his parting shot was: I'll have you deported and you'll never see your kids again!
Family values. No matter what your situation, whether single or married, we are part of a family, even it is only a family of one. Family values are big business, especially in an election year. Everyone claims to be building stronger families or creating healthier families. No matter what the political bent of the candidate, all the issues somehow get connected to families and “family values.” And, like many other ideals imbued with such status, the ideal family values seem to carry whatever connotation its users give it. Unfortunately, however, many of those who bandy the phrase about carry narrow agendas that are actually destructive of the basic value in any family – love.
Family values. We have all heard and seen the way that hate and fear-filled people use Scripture to back up their straight jacket view of the world. They pull quotes totally out of context. For years they used Jesus' statement about marriage and divorce in condemnation of victims of domestic violence leaving their marriages and even to the point of prohibiting divorce even when there is serious physical or psychological abuse which has affected the entire family.
The Gospel reading this morning has also been used by the same so-called family values people to justify a legal marital relationship long after the love has evaporated. These passages have to be read in their context. Let's look at the comments attributed to Jesus here. The Pharisees have come to Jesus and asked: Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife? They were obviously trying to trap Jesus into saying that a Mosaic rule was not moral.
In the ancient Hebrew world, it was probably easier for a woman to kill her husband rather than it was to divorce hm. The husband, of course, could divorce her on the flimsiest of grounds. One Talmudic comment from the second century said it was permissible for a man to divorce his wife if she served him burnt bread.
The Matthean version of this story makes it a bit clearer because what Jesus calls for in Matthew's version is parity between husband and wife, something unheard of for that time. Mark's version is shorter, more brusque. It seems for our time we must look at the larger picture Jesus brings to us, which is the law of love. No question about it; lifelong marriages are the ideal. Some people are fortunate enough to continue to grow in loving relationships with their spouses. But, as we all know, people change, and sometimes not for the better.
The studies of some psychologists stating that divorce creates some form of permanent damage on children miss the point. Life creates so-called permanent damage on children; there is no such thing as risk free living. The question should be how adults treat their children while going through the throes of a divorce. Some parents use their children as weapons while going through a divorce; unfortunately, however, some parents also use their children as weapons while being married as well.
The ethical imperative of the Gospel is love. And it seems that the real family values are those of love. Love comes in all sizes, shapes, colors, and varieties of relationships. The neighborhood in Plainfield where I live has a number of gay and lesbian couples. Some have either adopted children or brought their biological children from previous unhappy marriages into their new relationships. The loving relationships I see in those neighbors and their families are examples of real family values.
Passages like the one we read this morning need to be studied and dissected so that we as Christians can understand the place of Scripture in the framing of our ethical imperatives. We cannot continue to live simply tolerating how society has changed around us and gloss over difficult passages. We need to come to terms with the reality of peoples' lives and relate Scripture to that reality. There are too many women like Ana Beatriz who have been bludgeoned with literal and uncritical readings of texts like this one not to tackle such passages.
It's not easy to wrap it all up in a 12-minute sermon. It requires a thoughtful exploration of Scripture and discussion of what we really think for this passage and many others that conflict with our daily lives in our time. It takes time and effort. If Christian churches are to continue to be a force for real family values, in this century, it behooves us to take the effort.
Let us pray: Eternal Spirit, be a force of love in our hearts, giving us the discernment to live as would Jesus in these times. In the name of the One who shows us how to love, even Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.