Family

Genesis 50:15-21

Family is our greatest gift and our greatest curse—we find all the love, grace, and acceptance we need to make it in the world within the family circle, but we can also mess with each other, hurt one another, and fall into a dysfunctional abyss that boggles the mind in that same circle. If the Bible is consistent on anything, it is its refusal to shy away from showing families in the greatest form (Joseph protecting Mary and then his infant son, Jesus, from all sorts of threats) and its lowest (our story today—Joseph [Old Testament] and his brothers)—in other words, as completely real. 

The power of family to shape and mold us affects the world at large, for it is inescapably true that we interact with the world as our families teach us, both overtly and covertly. Families will clearly delineate expectations of family members. When I was in seminary, we encountered the “legacy” students—the second son of each generation of the family entered the ministry—that was just the way it was done—everybody knew that. Other times, it is far more subtle. A child grows into prejudice through the experience of seeing her parents recoil from certain types of people or by making constant inferences, such as referring to a group or person as “those people,” with the clear meaning that this family does not associate with “those people.” That shaping gets carried into our participation in the world. It shapes how we belong to groups like church, social gatherings, or choose pastimes. If a group should challenge some dogma our family held dear, we face a real conundrum—to break or maintain fealty to family? Christ noted this as people began to consider joining his fellowship. He knew well that many in the crowd came with sets of presumptions and preconditions instilled in them by family. The choice to join him would create a crisis moment for these folks. He wanted them to know that—hence, the fascinating circular interchange with Nicodemus, a member of the Council, on what being with Christ would mean (John 3); and the list of exclusions he lays down (one cannot marry, buy a field, or even bury the dead first—Christ must the only choice [Lk. 9:51-62]). 

Which brings back into the presence of this meeting between Joseph and his brothers after Jacob died. One can imagine all the mixed feelings electrifying the air between these men. The brothers cannot escape how Joseph wound up in Egypt. They cannot escape the disastrous turn their jealousy took. They cannot escape the fear that now that Joseph is un full ascendancy, he may well wreak havoc with them in utter (and perhaps justified) vengeance. Joseph, too, comes shaped by his experience. Miraculously, he is able to break free from family patterns (remember, father Jacob was hardly a saint, cheating his own brother out of his birthright with all the subsequent repercussions). He makes the astounding statement, “You meant it for evil, but God turned it for good” (Gen. 50:20). He rises above family, entering the different realm of the ever-present Kingdom of God. In so doing, he enters a different family—that one Christ came to foment in creation—the fellowship of grace.

Family dynamics are still in play, but the family has radically changed.

Through faith, God broadens our horizons and extends our vision. God shatters the self-focus so endemic in our culture and time. God does so by the ironic twist of seeing everybody the same—as God’s own children, regardless of what family claims them for its own. The closer we walk with God, the more we realize the power of Christ to transform and transcend our experience—we begin to understand what he was saying to those would-be disciples with all sorts of family responsibility—he was not cursing them; he was not dismissing their priorities; but, instead, he was offering them a way to care most deeply for those they loved as they learned to care most deeply for Christ at their head. 

We live in an insane world—we declare war on yet another group of addled terrorists on the anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on the United States. Do not miss the irony in that—the world hasn’t changed a whole lot despite all our efforts rooted in being the way our world shaped us to be. God offers an alternative. God offers a means by which to engage the world, seeing the deepest truth of every human being met—they are children of God—family. And, yes, family is messy by nature; but it holds our greatest hope in that it is a place where really and truly the deepest expression of human love can flourish. 

Broaden the circle; experience the power of love to redeem.

There is hope.