The Gospel for next Sunday has this puzzling
passage. Jesus says: Do you
think that I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather
division! From now on five in one household will be divided, three against two
and two against three; they will be divided: father against son and son against
father, mother against daughter and daughter against mother, mother-in-law
against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.” (Luke
12:51-53)
The song says he came singing peace … but here he is
announcing inevitable division, even in the hallowed relationships of immediate
family. He spells out the fault-lines,
generations within the family at odds with each other.
Family is such a curious thing. One of the pivotal characters on Coronation Street is Gail, whose family year
by year redefine dysfunction. Last I
heard, she had two sons in prison. Gail is
nevertheless unshaken in her belief that family is paramount. Normal questions of right and wrong seem not
to apply to family relationships. Gail will
do anything for her offspring including breaking the law. A caricature, perhaps… but she represents a familiar
tribal ethos in which history may get rewritten, skeletons locked deep in the
closet, official mythologies created, and children rarely told the truth. Most historians, biographers especially,
know that truth rarely thrives in family narratives. You may be disloyal elsewhere, but not to
family.
Jesus creates a different community. He called it the Kingdom… because, in the
thought-forms of those days, and long after, every human society was subject to
some kingdom, with a ruler, good or bad[1]. Jesus announces the Kingdom of God, a
spiritual kingdom, subject to God, ruled in peace and justice, love and truth. He says that to be part of this community,
subject to this king, may indeed trigger conflict with other allegiances -- the
iwi, the ones we were born among, brought up and taught to love and
respect. Some decision we make, or some
opinion we hold or express, which accords with what we are finding in Christ,
is at odds with what the family expects of us.
It comes to be seen as disloyalty, or hypocrisy, letting down the side.
Moreover, “family” as we know is a flexible
concept. It can be much wider than the
folks at home. The gang, or the tribe,
can be family. Similar loyalty is
expected in places to the nation, or to the ethnic group, or one’s social
status, or to the religion… the “church family”. Jesus warns here – and he words it as a
warning -- that allegiance to him takes priority, and so carries always the
possibility of conflict. The only way I
know to resolve this is in contemplative life and prayer, receiving the gifts
of love and non-violence in our attitudes and memories, becoming steady and
gentle and always ready to listen. When
Jesus has priority, it is always, necessarily, in humility and with a peaceable
heart. These are fruits of the prayer of
silence and stillness.
[1]
The Greek word is basileia (βασιλεια)
= kingdom. There was the kingdom of
Caesar, the kingdom of Satan, etc. Jesus
proclaimed the kingdom of God.
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