TODAY'S "HOLY FAMILIES"

   

Put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness,

and patience, bearing with one another and forgiving one another, 

as the Lord has forgiven you. Over all these, put on love.

Let the peace of Christ control your hearts and be thankful.

Colossians 3:12-17

Some of my earliest religious memories revolve around the image of Mary, Joseph and the child Jesus - the Holy Family of Nazareth! I credit that to Sister Mary Ancilla, my first and second grade teacher. I remember how important the Holy Family was to her and so it became important to us, her students. It was probably a Sisters of Charity thing, having their Motherhouse in Nazareth, Kentucky, and all! 

The Holy Family of Nazareth was presented to us, even as first graders, as the ideal family and we were challenged to model our own families after them!  That always made me a little more than uncomfortable. I knew that Rhodelia was not Nazareth and we Knotts were not Jesus, Mary and Joseph! I always felt we missed the mark by a couple of hundred miles! We were certainly not holy card sweet by any stretch of the imagination!

I don’t have my own family, but in the seminary I was pumped full of pious ideas about what a “good priest” should be. I could never measure up to those, nor would I really want to these days. I have worked hard to create a priesthood I can live with, one that gives me life and life to the people I serve. I am not at all interested in twisting myself into being a priest in the image of the old 1950 movie, “Going My Way!”  So, I have a little understanding of what families go through when the church “idealizes” family life and people feel they can’t measure up to Jesus, Mary and Joseph or some TV family of the 1950s like “Leave it to Beaver.” The traditional family of the 1950s was a brand-new and short-lived phenomenon. We can't return to the days of the "traditional" family because they hardly existed in the first place. Many times, the models being held up as "ideal" did not inspire us to reach for that ideal, they actually made us ashamed of our families.

As a preacher, I have always found this feast hard to preach for that very reason. Families today are going through a great upheaval so pushing too much idealism can actually make some struggling families feel defective and judged: single parent families, blended families, interracial families, adoptive families, same sex families and foster families.  These families need encouragement and support, not condemnation and judgment. Preachers today have to be careful how they preach on this feast or somebody could get hurt!  But, you know, the more I read the story of the Holy Family, the more I realize that theirs was not the idealized family that was presented me as a child. They had problems too, real problems! What made them “holy” was not that they were problem free, what made them “holy” was how they addressed their problems and rose above them. 

Mary conceived Jesus before she was officially married. Joseph considered divorce at one point. Mary gave birth in a barn, away from home. Joseph and Mary were so poor that all they could offer was two doves when Jesus was presented in the Temple. We are told in today’s gospel that Jesus, Mary and Joseph were refugees in a foreign country, trying to avoid a child-killing maniac. As we read in another gospel, when Jesus was 12 years old, he was listed as a missing person for a few days on one of their trips to Jerusalem. Joseph seems to disappear in the gospels after that, so Mary was probably a widow and single parent at some point early in Jesus' life.

Jesus was almost lynched by a mob of angry parishioners after a sermon in his own hometown of Nazareth. At one point in his ministry, some of Jesus relatives showed up and tried to take him home, convinced that he had actually lost his mind. Mary had to watch Jesus tried and executed like a common criminal.  What made the “holy family” “holy,” was not that they were problem free. What made them “holy” was the way they handled their problems!

It does no good whatsoever to beat families over the head with some idealized and romantic notion of family life. Whether we like it or not, families have changed, and I believe that most families are doing the best they can --- and many of them are doing it against great odds! They need encouragement, not judgment!

I struggled again this year with what to say about families on this feast of the Holy Family, but after thinking about it for several days, this idea came to me over the holidays as I got together with my own family. Families don’t just happen, they must be worked for! As long as our parents were alive, we were a family because of them.  We automatically got together with them, but after they died, after we sold the family home, being a family became a decision.  These days, somebody has to take the lead to get us together. My sister, Nancy, has been hosting our sibling Christmas dinner each year.  This year my sister Lois took over. I used to do it years ago. Each year, I always say at some point, “We need to love and appreciate each other because one of us may not be here next year!” A few months after I said that last year, my youngest sister died of a brain tumor, followed by two brothers-in-law, an aunt and two cousins! I said it again this year. We have no idea who might be gone by next Christmas!

This year, for the second year in a row, I got the best surprise Christmas present ever from my family. My youngest brother gathered up some of my nieces and nephews and their kids and brought dinner to my house. I usually have to go to them. Last year, when they left, they gave me a box of letters from my 20 nieces and nephews, thanking me for all the times I have “been there” for them and how proud they are of me! I was deeply and profoundly moved because it was something totally new and unexpected.

Even those of us who are single must create surrogate families, circles of friends with whom we can share and celebrate and even commiserate. To have friends, we must be a friend! We have to give to others, what we want from them: respect, love, support, honesty and fidelity. Friendships, like all forms of family, are a matter of intention and work, not luck!

On this Feast of the Holy Family, I salute all the families here today, in all your great variety! Some of you are nothing less than heroic in your efforts to maintain your families. Don't beat yourselves up if you are not some idealized "cookie cutter" family, just do the best you can with what you have! 

Whatever family we have created for ourselves, the values on which they are built are always the same. They are the values mentioned in the readings selected for this feast: heartfelt compassion, kindness, forgiveness, humility, gentleness, patience, gratitude, care, respect and love.