One of the favorite movies in our house is Home for the Holidays. We have watched it many times. The plot of the movie is revealed in the title, Home for the Holidays. Members of a large family scattered far and wide come home for the Thanksgiving holiday. Siblings and their particular families are coming back home to Mom and Dad’s house. Extended family are there as well.
Before the family sits down for Thanksgiving dinner, we learn a lot about their family dynamics and the tensions within the family relationships. Like most relationships, these relationships are complicated. By the time the holiday rolls around the tensions have built. When the family finally gathers around the Thanksgiving table, one of them accidentally drops the turkey on himself and his wife. That was the breaking point. An argument followed that became fever pitched. Old hurts, resentments, and unresolved issues between family members came out. Two of them go to the kitchen to eat in peace. Others are steeped in the argument and others are unaffected. Some leave in a huff.
The movie is sad and, at the same time, hilariously funny. At times the movie is tender and touching. It is sort of bittersweet. I suspect there’s at least one thing in this film that every person watching the movie will find that resonates with them. . The film is an echo of real life with all its messiness and how real life unfolds. Many families are very healthy. Not all are so dysfunctional, but at some level I dare to say that most if not all families, like most relationships, are at least complicated.
Today is Father’s Day. According to Hallmark it is the fourth largest card sending day in the United States. I suspect Mother’s Day is second or third. Both days fall on Sundays and that presents preachers with a challenge. Normally, I don’t speak of Mother’s Day or Father’s day in sermons. We pray for mothers and fathers in the prayers of intercession on these days, but the preacher’s focus is on the scripture for the day.
It is right and salutary and a good thing to give thanks for fathers. For many people, honoring our fathers is very appropriate, because of their positive influence on our lives and their loving and wise counsel, but such is not the case for everyone. Many people have been abused or neglected by their fathers. Some have been abandoned by their fathers. We cannot see life through rose colored glasses and the church must see the world as it is and not pretend that it is what we think it should be. On Sunday morning all kinds of people gather around God’s gifts of word and sacrament and our life experiences are not uniform. We gather as people with a variety of experiences and stories, some are happy and some are not, some are good and some are not-so good. We gather carrying with us experiences of our fathers that run the gamut. For some very positive and for others not so much so.
Families, even the healthiest families, are complicated. Films like Home for the Holidays hint at how life really is than the romanticized notions and holidays of the Hallmark calendar.
What a coincidence that this year, Father’s Day should fall on this particular Sunday in the year of Matthew, when the Gospel reading before us finds Jesus talking about families and what he says doesn’t quite fit our sentimentalized or idyllic notions but what Jesus says is more than a hint of what is really real.
What Jesus says in the Gospel for today is most confounding. We hear him say that he has come to break families apart! Do you find that a shocking and odd?
Let’s listen again:
Do not think I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace but a sword. I have come to set a man against his father and a daughter against her mother-in-law and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son and daughter more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.
When we reflect upon division in our country and in our communities and within our families, we seek Jesus out to heal our divisions, but here in this passage, it seems that Jesus has come to stoke division.
This is a contradiction to the Jesus we know – Jesus the Prince of Peace who came to break down barriers that separate people from one another and to erase lines drawn in the sand? Jesus, who demonstrated forgiveness and reconciliation and commands us to do the same. Jesus who has come as savior, who loves sinners and outcasts and brings good news to the poor. Jesus the very source of our unity.
Jesus bringing division and a sword is a contradiction to the Jesus we know.
What is he saying when he says he has come to bring division, even within families?
Some context is important here. What Jesus says is pretty accurate when it comes to the disciples he called. They responded to his call with unreserved loyalty, and many of them left their families to follow Jesus. Many left their work to follow him. Fishermen dropped their nets and immediately followed him. James and John, the sons of Zebedee left their father in his boat. For them, following Jesus was more important than the family business.
It is also true that in ancient times families were likely much more important than they are now. You depended on your family for protection and to leave your family was a breach of trust and a dangerous move because you were leaving behind your resources and security.
In that context, following Jesus and breaking from one’s family was a very radical turn. So, the resulting divisions ran deep.
It is true that a house divided cannot stand. God knows that and God does not will division. Jesus is speaking in plain terms about the effect of his presence and his ministry. Jesus, just by being Jesus, causes division that cuts like a sword.
Many received Jesus with open arms and many rejected him. That’s how it was and that’s how it is.
The compassionate heart of God flowed through Jesus and impelled him to love and it compelled him to be a truth-teller about the forces in the world and the systems at play that lacked compassion or jettisoned compassion altogether. What Jesus said and Jesus did brought division, caused turmoil, provoked antagonism, and provoked the rulers to take up their swords.
Many welcomed this compassionate embrace and many did not like it one bit, for it threatened the caste system and the privilege of the powerful.
The kingdom of God has broken into the world through Jesus, his life and death and resurrection. This good news causes division even in families.
The pastor in the church where I grew up was someone who switched careers in the middle of his life. It was a big change in his life and he reflected on it and shared the story more than once. He felt called by God to go to seminary and become a pastor. When he shared this with his wife, she wouldn’t speak to him for two weeks.
Their experience pales in comparison with others.
I had a friend in who had a high paying job with many benefits but my friend struggled with his work. The company he worked for manufactured weapons. This nagged at his conscience and his senses of values. He felt this purpose as some of the attitudes he encountered at work seemed way out of sync with the values of the Gospel. This very struggle found him praying more, coming to church more, and searching the scriptures more. He finally left his place of work because he felt he was not contributing to God’s mission, unable to live out his call.
When they learned of his decision his bosses offered him more money. They didn’t want to lose him. The decision was made and my friend left his high paying, lucrative job and eventually found a different line of work with compensation that was less than half of what he was making at the job he left, and he finally had a clearer conscience and a sense that he finally found something where he could use his gifts to advance the Kingdom of God.
Some of the people who were most upset by his decision were members of his family. They could not understand his actions and some relationships he enjoyed with family members were severed.
Like a sword, loyalty to Jesus can create division.
My friend and parishioner could honestly say that Jesus changed his life for good and for that he paid a price. Yet, in choosing to take up his cross to follow Jesus he found his life by losing it. Taking up his cross was its own reward.
Divisions run deep, especially theses day in our nation, and throughout the world. By remaining faithful to the life-giving word of God, none of us are sequestered from the pangs of division. Family can be that place but not necessarily. We can feel such pangs through many venues, at our place of work, with our friends, among our neighbors.
Even with discouragement and rejection we have this passion in our hearts. We cannot help but proclaim the Gospel in word and deed. We cannot help but celebrate the Risen Lord, and even though all of us are often fickle in our response to Jesus, we cannot help but follow him.
What Jesus said to the twelve he says to us. It is enough for the disciple to be like the teacher, enough for the servant to be like their master. In other words, seek to live like Jesus knowing that you, too, may invite some of the same responses that Jesus received – abandonment, rejection, mocking, and conflict. In addressing the twelve, Jesus offered these wise words: “So, have no fear of them even if you are rejected, whatever is covered up will one day be uncovered and what is secret will one day be known.” In other words, as one my friends likes to say, “Truth is a stubborn thing.”
Best of all, Jesus says to the twelve and to us, “Do not be afraid.” Do not be afraid. You are of more value than many sparrows.
It is enough to be like the master, the teacher, not above them and there is great comfort and consolation to be like Jesus but not be Jesus, for this master, this teacher is one we turn to for strength, for peace, for mercy. What we discover is a strange master, one who kneels to wash the feet of his disciples. Jesus, our master and teacher comes to us humbly and unlike all other masters, Jesus rules from a cross where he has stretched out his arms for all the world. Beneath this cross we find refuge, safe dwelling, and we are freedom from fear. That’s what perfect love does. It casts out fear.
Friends in Christ, do not be afraid. We are in good hands, God’s good hands. Amen.