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By Diane Marshall
OUR Christian calling is to model relationships of equality, respect, and dignity in our homes. Major changes both in our own lives and in society may require that we rethink and redefine relationships in marriage and family.
The often controversial and always soul-searing task of addressing contemporary issues that face us as Christians requires both a compassionate worldview and a supportive community so that we are neither defeated nor burnt out by the work involved in restoring justice to family life. But we live in a consumer culture of greed and covetousness, where people as well as things are used and discarded. The question for many, Christians sadly included, is not how can I be of service, but what do I get out of it?
As followers of Jesus, we are challenged by Christ's example of compassion when confronted with the two-fold calling of pursuing, both in private and in public, the act of maintaining faithful relations with others and pursuing justice for all. As Christians called to love our neighbour, we do not find it easy to practice this kind of self-denying discipleship in such an instant-gratification society.
In the private sphere, maintaining faithful relationships takes patience and commitment to work things through together, not easy recipes or quick fixes. In the public sphere, as the Church seeks to pursue justice in the context of a globalized economy, we in the pews are frequently embarrassed when faced with the plight of child poverty in our own backyard, as well as the evils of child labour and sweatshops in distant places which sustain our consumer lifestyle and fashion industry.
In the realm of nature, as the ecosystem is being destroyed by corporate exploitation, our Aboriginal brothers and sisters call us to be stewards of the creation and we ignore them at our peril.
The little ones...
The gospels record that Jesus welcomed the children, the little ones, and held them up as role models of faith. But children need households in which to be born, to grow and be nurtured. Thus, we must ask ourselves, what does it mean for us to do justice and to seek mercy for God's little ones? These children are in our midst - in our families, churches, classrooms, neighbourhoods, dormitories, reformatories, and our selves. And here is where the 'public' and the 'private' interface. We are called to love our neighbour as ourselves. Loving ourselves does not mean we ignore our own pain and do not learn compassion for our own brokenness, for then we often cannot be truly merciful to others.
We hide, we erect defenses, we avoid getting involved. We walk by on the other side of the road and ignore the call to be like the good Samaritan, showing compassion for our neighbour. (Luke 10:25-37) We walk on by because to get too close to someone else's pain brings us too close to our own. And we are terrified of our own pain, afraid to face the shame that often binds us.
The family as...
From a Christian point of view, the family is more than a basic social unit. It is a sphere in which God is at work in us, shaping and molding us so that we may become people who genuinely wish to share Christ's life of love. In the family, if we seek to be rooted and grounded in the love of Christ, as the Apostle Paul's letter to the Ephesians puts it, we can learn to be people who grow to love and want to live in a community of love. These are the family values that count.
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June 7/2007
Jesus himself never held up one exclusive model of family structure. In fact, in Mark 3:12-35, where it is recorded that his mother and brothers came to see him, Jesus response shows that he includes many others in how he defines family: Whoever does the will of God, he explains, is my brother and sister and mother. From then on, kinship through blood was enlarged to include all those who chose to do the will of God. The early church community behaved like a kinship group, eating together in various homes and sharing their possessions in common.
Jesus' teaching abolishes the acquisitions of wealth or of honour by patronage (do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume... for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also (Matthew 6:19-21) and radically equalizes relationships by redistribution of resources. The family then becomes an intentional community, within which biological or adoptive families, and wider families through adoption by faith, are important in the raising and nurture of children.
The call to love one another does not mean necessarily that we like one another, but, whenever possible, that we treat each other like kin and do all we can to enable individuals and families to survive and to thrive. In other words, Christian believers are called to realize the presence of God, and to value and support those characteristics of community that are foundational to healthy families. Such characteristics make it possible for people - whether heterosexual or homosexual, male or female, old or young, rich or poor, healthy or disabled, black, red, brown, yellow or white - to sustain relationships of emotional intimacy, connectedness, and nurturance, providing opportunities for creativity, and fostering mutual support and interdependence.
Our task then, as His friends, in an age where families are under pressure, is to re-imagine and re-create household communities as the embodiment of justice and love.
Seven practical suggestions for creating just household structures, to encourage and sustain family community and cohesiveness:
• everyone shares in the maintenance (adult and child, male and female). Cleaning, and care of home and garden. Housework and yard work are not subject to gender or age divisions.
• everyone learns to care for the weaker or most vulnerable members of the family, including the pets. (male and female, young and old). Care-giving is not merely women's work.
• everyone has an share of the family finances, (age-appropriately however small), . Spend as they see fit, and saving for special occasions or gifts. Money is to be shared, not possessed only by the major wage-earner(s).
• everyone shares in major decisions that affect the family as a whole: moves, holidays, school events, etc.
• consider informal but regular family meetings allow for open communication and resolution of conflicts or differences among family members, and help to keep relationships open and growing.
• involve professional help when anger management and conflict resolution become problems. This before these escalate into family violence, whether spousal abuse, elder abuse, or child abuse.
• accept people as they are. Refusing to isolate, or ostracize, a family member because of difference (eg: if someone who may declare themselves gay, or leave home earlier than expected, or suffers from physical or intellectual disability, or quits school).
Diane Marshall, M.Ed., RMFT works with the Institute of Family Living (IFL), Toronto, and is a regular contributor to canadianchristianity.com. This article is based on her book: Healing Families - courage and faith in challenging times.
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Thank you.