Family in the Old Testament
Most of us are familiar with the story of Noah and the Ark. We know that God was displeased with humanity in general and that none but Noah, a “just and perfect preacher of righteousness,” and his family were worthy of being saved. How many of us know that, just a couple of chapters later in Genesis 9 (verses 20 to 25), Noah – the “just and perfect preacher of righteousness” – the husband and father in the one family good enough for God to save in a world-wide flood – gets drunk, passes out naked, and upon wakening, curses not only the son who covered him and backed out of the room without looking, but also curses his son’s son and all of his future descendants.
Most of us also know about Lot, another “just and righteous man” in the Old Testament. He and his family were the one family good enough to save when God decided to destroy all of Sodom and Gomorroh. It might surprise some of us then, that while Lot was trying to convince God to save the cities, this “just and righteous man” offered his own virgin daughters to be raped to placate a sex-crazed mob who’ve gathered to try to rape the angels visiting his house. Even worse, further into Genesis Chapter 19, (verses 30-38), Lot gets drunk and impregnates those same virgin daughters.
How about the story of Joseph? His brothers beat him, threw him into a pit in the desert, and left him to die…that is, until they realized they could sell him into slavery and make some money off of him.
In Genesis 21, Abraham abandons his first son, Ishmael, sending him and his mother into the desert to die. One chapter later, Abraham agrees to sacrifice his second son – now referred to as his “only” son, so I guess we’re to assume the first is dead – to God as a burnt offering. At the moment Abraham is to kill his son, God intervenes and the son’s life is spared.
The daughter of Jephthah in Judges, chapter 11, isn’t as lucky. As Jephthah sets out to battle the Ammonites, enemy of Israel, the spirit of the Lord enters him. He makes a deal with God. If God helps him kill Ammonites, Jephthah will make a burnt offering sacrifice to God of the first thing out of his house when he returns home. Kind of a reckless vow, don’t you think…aren’t most of us greeted by the people in our families when we return home?
Unfortunately, Jephthah’s daughter comes out with “timbrels and dances” to joyfully greet him upon his return from a successful genocide. He sends her off to the mountains for several months to “bewail her virginity” but when she returns, he keeps his deal with God and kills her.
Yikes! I think we can all agree that these Old Testament tales of family are not the models we want to look to for inspiration. How about the New Testament?
Family in the New Testament
Well, family fares better for sure. The incest, murder, rapes, beatings and curses are gone but what does the New Testament teach us about family?
The Apostle Paul writes in First Corinthians 7, “It is good for a man not to have sexual relations with a woman. But because of the temptation to sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman her own husband. I wish that all were as I myself am. [I think he means celibate.] But each has his own gift from God, one of one kind and one of another. To the unmarried and the widows I say that it is good for them to remain single as I am. But if they cannot exercise self-control, they should marry. For it is better to marry than to burn with passion. I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord.”
So, Paul is teaching us that those who can avoid family are better than those of us in a family? It’s a good thing his mother and father didn’t feel that way.
And he seems to think that the only reason someone would want a family is because they can’t control their desire for sex – not because they want children, not because they’d like to experience the love of a family, not because they would like to care for and love others.
Does he really think that only married people are anxious about worldly things? Does he really think that married people can’t think about pleasing their family and God at the same time? Shouldn’t the things you do to please God please your family, and the things you do to please your family, also please God? Is life really a case of God verses family? You can’t do both well? Is family just a distraction from the important part of life?
But hey, that was Paul. What did Jesus himself have to say about family?
In Matthew 10, chapter 37 Jesus says, “Do not think that I came to bring peace on earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man’s enemies will be those of his own household. He who loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and he who loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”
And in Luke, Jesus says, “The person who loves his father or mother more than me does not deserve to be my disciple. The person who loves a son or daughter more than me does not deserve to be my disciple.” Not a ringing endorsement of family values either.
Perhaps we can forgive Paul and Jesus for their dim view of the family. They both believed the end of the world was close at hand. Since the end of mortal life was near, there was really nothing more important than making sure you had eternal life.
Family Questions
Once a man asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” and Jesus said, “If you want to be perfect, go sell everything you own, give the money to the poor – which will give you wealth in heaven – then come and join me.”
But what good is a theology if it only makes sense at the End of Days? What good is a religion it if it’s only relevant to nomadic bands of celibate, single, childless adults?
We know the words of Jesus. What would Jesus’ parents, Joseph and Mary, think of his advice? What kind of parents would they have been if they had abandoned their family to follow a religious leader? I wish I could hear what Joseph and Mary had to say about raising kids, providing for a family, hard work and living what was probably an extremely difficult life. I wish I could have a glimpse of their household. How did they pass on their values to their children?
While I was working on this sermon, my 11-year-old son looked over my shoulder and saw the quotes from Jesus. Here is what he said, “What’s so bad about loving your family more than you love God? God’s kind of anonymous. He’s not there to give you hugs and love. I think God wants you to have a family. He would rather you love your family more than him. He doesn’t really need your love, but people do need love.”
Does the love of a spouse or parent or child somehow stand in the way of connecting to God or the Divine? Does loving your family somehow put God in second place? Do we really have to choose between loving God and loving a family?
The problem is the notion that we are only living a human life as a punishment for Adam and Eve’s misbehavior. The problem is the idea that we just get through this second-rate human life to earn divine eternal life. The problem is the idea that sacred and secular life are completely separate and that immersion in daily life prevents us from holy experiences. The problem is that life in this world is not regarded as valuable in itself, but only in its bearing on the afterlife.
Family in Ancient and Medieval Hindu Texts
The classical Sanskrit texts give us a different view of a human life. Under the Ashram system, there are four consecutive life stages, consisting of approximately 25 years each. Each has different aims, or goals.
The first period, student life, is the phase for general and religious education. Its goal is to learn to live a life of dharma or right action. Dharma is the science of ethical, social and moral obligations. Spiritual achievement is not possible without respect for social and moral obligations. This means doing your duty towards God, your family, yourself and others around you. Learning to treat animals with respect is part of this stage. The phase consists of acquiring knowledge, practicing meditation, and – most importantly as the mother of teenaged son and daughter – practicing self-discipline and celibacy.
The second period is household life. It consists of working hard, at school or your job, so as to be as successful as possible. It is the time to learn to liberate yourself from dependence on others. Its goal is artha, the acquisition of worldly goods, not to acquire wealth, but to earn a living in order to maintain the body in good health, to keep the mind free from worries, and to provide for your family. This is the phase where you find a partner to lead a family life.
The life of a householder is not just full of duty faithfully discharged, but it is also full of pleasure – pleasure in conjugal love, pleasure in being a parent, pleasure in the laughter of children in your house. Householders enjoy the pleasures of family as a gift from God. God isn’t jealous or threatened by this family happiness. He doesn’t see family as dividing the devotion owed to him.
Household life is considered to be of the utmost importance to God. It upholds the whole business of the world. Household life is the supporter, the maintainer, and the preserver of the other three life phases. The conduct of the world depends upon the soundness of its family households.
Life within a family is considered the training ground for the soul. It is life’s events and circumstances, the joys and sorrows, the struggles and the achievements, which help us evolve spiritually. Living with the same small group of people year after year isn’t easy. We have to learn to compromise. We have to learn to manage our anger. We have to learn to how to ask for forgiveness. We have to learn how to forgive others and to forgive ourselves.
By receiving forgiveness, we learn compassion, which leads us to love others in spite of their faults, sometimes even to love others because of their faults. The feeling of unity that develops from shared experiences, friendship, forgiveness and compassion prepares our spirit for access to divine love.
Family life isn’t a barrier to God, it’s the conduit. God teaches us to love and connect to the divine by loving and connecting to people.
We are not human beings on a spiritual path.
We are spiritual beings on a human path.
We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.
We are spiritual beings having a human experience.
*These quotes were popularized by Wayne Dyer and Stephen Covey, but were attributed in 1993 to Pierre Teilhard de Chardin as well as G.I Gurdjieff. (Obviously, a wonderful perspective.)
In the third phase, retired life, the duties of the householder begin to diminish. It is time for the enjoyment of the pleasures of life, presupposing a healthy body and a harmonious, balanced mind. It is a time to share wisdom freely, and towards the end of the phase, to move towards self-realization by learning to let go of life’s pleasures.
The last phase, renounced life, is a time for dedication to spiritual pursuits, meditation, and a time to seek spiritual liberation (moksha). Moksha is the release from slavery to worldly pleasures that comes with the realization that power, possessions, riches and knowledge do not lead to freedom.
What Family Are You In?
I think this four-phase view of life is really useful. It reminds us that everyone in a family is not living in the same family. It’s not surprising each of us in a family doesn’t see the family as the same thing. Each of us is using our family to learn different things. Each of us is working on different aims. Each of us has different goals.
My kids are just starting to learn about family. They’ve only experienced one family life for a decade or so. You learn a lot by being in one family or another for 50 years. You learn a lot when you leave your first family and when you create your own. You learn a lot by being fused to your spouse’s family…sometimes too much! Sometimes the lessons are painful.
I didn’t realize how much my parents loved me until I held my daughter for the first time. I didn’t notice how much my parents sacrificed for me until I began raising my own kids. I thought I was the beginning and end of my parents’ lives…
until I lived a life before I had kids…
and I try to have a life of my own now and still be a good mother …
and I try to imagine the life I’ll lead after my kids leave.
I didn’t realize that my parents had their own secret lives…with their own love for each other, with their own disappointments, sadness, joys, and all the stuff carried over from their first families.
How has your perspective changed on your first family as you’ve experienced your own household? I remember when I realized that that my friends’ families didn’t yell as much as my own Italian family did. At first I was proud of all the yelling because it seemed to make my family more exciting than other families. Then I was embarrassed by it – like when my dad yelled and cussed at traffic lights when friends were in the car.
Later, at my first job, I realized it scared people when I yelled, even if I was yelling at life in general and not at them, so I learned not to yell at work. When I married a reserved German/Swede, I realized yelling was a barrier to communication and worked hard at not yelling when I was angry…
Which was nearly impossible after having kids. I’m still a yeller, and I’ve yelled enough that it doesn’t really scare my kids, and I do yell at stoplights, but not when friends are in the car.
I never felt more at home than when I visited Italy. The moment we stepped outside of the airport, the taxi drivers began arguing loudly (yelling!) about who was going to take all of us…and we never had a driver who didn’t cuss the stoplights. Most even shook their fists. On that trip, I re-embraced my Italian-ness.
Doesn’t each phase of your life give you a new perspective on your past phases? You see your family in retrospect and it’s like you lived in a different family than you thought.
So, not only does each person in a family live in the same family differently, which means each person lives in a different family…
and not only does the family that we live in change as each of us experiences different phases, which means that we live in a different family…
but also each of us lives in a different family than we thought when we look back.
No wonder family get-togethers can be difficult. There isn’t just one family there…there are dozens of them.
The other thing I like about the four-phase view of life is that it reminds us that change is inevitable. It helps us accept that we move through stages in life. It helps us to let go of stages we’ve moved out of and it gets us to focus on the purpose of the life we have left to live.
Every day changes us. We all get older. We all learn new things. Sometimes we pick up baggage. Sometimes we leave baggage behind. Every night you go to sleep with your old self and wake up the next day with a new self. This is true for everyone in your family. So every night your old family goes to sleep and your new family wakes up.
The only way one can arrive here on Earth is through a mother and father. Being in a family, even one that you’re not born into, but one that you’ve chosen, or that’s chosen you, is part of the inherent, natural structure of being human.
There are all kinds of families.
For a believer, why would family be the second-class way to experience God’s plan? Why would we be given a human life if not to learn how to connect to God by living in it?
And for the non-believers among us, those of us without a god in the equation of life, even if our human life is the result of a cascading series of fortuitous coincidences, and there is no grand plan, it is the sacred connections that we find in our versions of family that makes life worth living.
In The Razor’s Edge, Somerset Maughm writes:
It was not for me to leave the world and retire to a cloister, but to live in the world and love the objects of the world, not indeed for themselves, but for the infinite that is in them. The satisfactions of the world are transitory and only the Infinite gives enduring happiness. Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.”
A Final Thought
From Wherever You Go, There You Are by Gary Snyder
All of us are apprenticed to the same teacher that the religious institutions originally worked with: reality. Reality-insight says…master the twenty-four hours. Do it well, without self-pity. It is as hard to get the children herded into the car pool and down the road to the bus as it is to chant sutras in the Buddha-hall on a cold morning. One move is not better that the other, each can be quite boring, and they both have the virtuous quality of repetition. Repetition and ritual and their good results come in many forms. Changing the filter, wiping noses, going to meetings, picking up around the house, washing dishes, checking the dipstick – don’t let yourself think these are distracting you from your more serious pursuits. Such a round of chores is not a set of difficulties we hope to escape from so that we may do our “practice” which will put us on a “path” – it is our path.
~Written in May 2009
School of Thought 