Family Values

Marcus Hodges O.P.

19 August 2001
Twentieth Sunday of the Year (C)

fr. Marcus Hodges preaches on the family and the Gospel.

There can be little doubt, even in our secular, post-religious age, that phrases such as 'back to basics', 'family values' and the like, are inspired, if not solely inspired, by Christianity. Our fellow countrymen may well have rejected the faith professed by our forefathers and certainly the central Sunday obligation and practice, but they still wish to echo much of the moral code taught by the Church, albeit somewhat watered down.

This is, however, an echo which, I fear, lacks the true heart of the faith; an echo which even at best represents merely a chocolate box approach. The potentially popular doctrines are grabbed hold of; the less palatable bits are ignored.

No doctrine, surely, is more widely popular and generally accepted than the so-called 'family values' and all that this purportedly involves. Even the thrust of Catholic teaching itself, in modern times at any rate, has made an enormous effort to place the family at the heart of Christian practice.

Furthermore, many non-practising Christians know, it seems, that it has only been since the demise of the churches that the phenomena of divorce, separation and broken families have become so ubiquitous. Christianity, they say with confidence of the spectators who don't wish to get involved, would not have let such an appalling state of affairs exist.

What, however, are we to make of today's extraordinary and challenging Gospel passage? For many, I suspect, today's reading will fall on, if not deaf, at least dulled ears. After all, so much of Jesus' teaching is topsy-turvy, seemingly impossible in the end to make much sense of.

Yet what can we make of a doctrine which turns sons against fathers, daughters against their mothers? This promise of internecine strife, it turns out, isn't confined to the nuclear family either: the 'in-laws' are going to be involved too! Doesn't this part of the teaching of our Lord make our Christian 'family values' rather difficult to maintain?

Remember too the episode when a woman in the crowd shouted out praise for the Mother of Jesus. All she earned was a rebuke: 'Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and keep it!' Again, when his Mother and brothers tried to see him, he said to those around him: 'My Mother and my brethren are those who hear the word of God and do it.' Neither story fits well, surely, with our wholesome and so Christian idea of filial piety and family loyalty.

So the true Christian doctrine - as taught by Jesus Christ, not the pick-and-choose Christianity of politicians and the like - seems to instruct us that the family which is bound by blood is to be thrown aside in favour of the family that is bound by faith.

In other words, our true loyalty, if we are to be disciples of Jesus, is not to father or mother, son or daughter, in the biological sense, but to our brethren in the faith. Our true family is nothing short of the Church herself.

This is not an easy doctrine by any means, but a teaching which may, for example, help to explain to a doubting and confused world the Church's profession of celibacy both amongst the clergy and those called to religious life.

More importantly, there are a good many true sons and daughters of the Church who themselves have experienced considerable difficulties and pain within their families. For these people, the Gospel passage not only rings true, but also can become a very real source of comfort. For many the human family can remain little more than an experience of tyranny; for these people, Jesus' words can give them the comfort of a family otherwise denied.

It is often taken for granted that 'family values' are taught and learnt at home. The teaching of Jesus, on the other hand, seems to suggest a radical departure from this expectation. For Jesus, the true location of these 'human values' is re-located in the Church.

It is in the company of the faithful that we learn to live together in harmony. From this 'family' we learn what is necessary to live together with our biological family, to nurture and comfort, to love and cherish; not the other way round.

fr. Marcus Hodges OP is a Catholic Chaplain the Royal Air Force.

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© Text 2001 Marcus Hodges O.P.
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