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Bob tells his wife “I want to see our kids every other weekend and once midweek” “But Bob, we're married and live together so you have to see them every day.”
Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home.
Please go play with your brother. That's basically the reason we had him.
When I call a family meeting I turn off the house wifi and wait for them all to come running.
I wonder what my parents did to fight boredom before the internet. I asked my 17 brothers and sisters and they didn't know either.
My parents won't say which of their six kids they love the best, but they have told me I finished just out of the top five.
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Funny things families. Today the Church celebrates the Holy Family. Which gives us a chance to think about families from God’s perspective.
So we have a reading about family. Actually it’s a reading with quite a lot about St Joseph. The bible doesn’t tell us a lot about St Joseph. There’s a lot about Our Lady- Mary along with St Peter and St Paul are the three most mentioned mortals in the New Testament narratives. But today as we think about the Holy Family - well the baby gets a bit part, Mary gets a mention, but finally Joseph gets a look in.
The Holy Family teaches us that blood may be thicker than water but love is thicker than blood.
The Holy Family teaches us that sacrifice is at the heart of a strong family
The Holy Family teaches us that a successful family is not child nor even parent centered, but God centered.
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The Holy Family teaches us that blood may be thicker than water but love is thicker than blood.
“Milo looked up … he was becoming quite accustomed to be addressed in the oddest places at the oddest times by the oddest people, and this time he was not disappointed. Standing next to him on the step was exactly half of a child who had been divided neatly from top to bottom.
“Pardon me for staring” said Milo (after he had been staring for quite some time) “But I have never seen half a child before”
“It’s .58 to be precise” said the child from he left side of his mouth (which happened to be the only side of his mouth.)
“I beg your pardon?” said Milo
“It’s .58. It’s a little more than half”
“Have you always been like that” asked Milo impatiently, for he thought it was a needlessly fine distinction.
“My goodness no” the child assured him. “A few years back I was just .42, and, believe me, that was terribly inconvenient.”
“What is the rest of your family like” asked Milo, this time a bit more sympathetically.
“Oh we are just the average family” he said thoughtfully. “Mother, Father and and 2.58 children - and as I explained, I am the .58” [1]
I love that passage from the Phantom Tollbooth. It delightfully mocks our concept of what a normal family is.
In the media you will often hear the word “Family Values” - and sadly it can be a code word - for being prejudiced against single mothers, prejudiced against gay couples who have adopted disabled children, prejudiced against the victims of divorce. Which is a shame because “Family values” is a beautiful word.
Family values can also be a code for a church in which single people are excluded. Which is a shame because it goes totally against the Christian concept of marriage in the wedding service where we pray “May the hospitality of their home bring refreshment and joy to all around them; may their love overflow to neighbours in need and embrace those in distress.” [2]
Yet look at the Holy Family. Hardly your “normal family”. Mary is pregnant before marriage. Joseph doesn’t share a single chromosome with Jesus, not one strand of DNA. Yet here they are, presented to us as the ideal model of a family. Because while blood may be thicker than water, love is thicker than blood.
I have met both in this church and in a previous church I served in, amazing people who served as foster parents - or adoptive parents. What could be more Holy than to provide a family for someone who has none.
For the last three Christmas days I have been welcomed around the table of people who are not my relatives but are my inlaw’s inlaws. I know many of you who have hosted Christmas will have welcomed people who are not your relations, but on Christmas Day became part of your family.
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2) The Holy Family teaches us that sacrifice is at the heart of a strong family
“The angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is due to search for the child to destroy him”
I am sure the last thing - if you have had a new baby - that you want to do is to have to move house not just to another area but to another country. Joseph and Mary would not have taken that decision lightly. But if you are a parent you know that you don’t make decisions lightly - you make sacrifices for your kids.
Some of you will have made decisions about working longer hours to provide for your family. Some of you will have made decisions about where to live to get the right school for your children. I made the decision to leave my previous church in Victoria because even though I could just have hung on there, my family were really struggling there, coming here to St Barnabas looked like it would be better for my family's faith.
Like Joseph uprooting himself and his family to keep them alive -sacrifice is at the heart of a strong family.
“Be nice to your kids. They'll choose your nursing home.”
And as our reading from Ecclesiaticus reminds us - the sacrifice for a family doesn’t just go in one direction. “Those who respect their mother are like those who lay up treasure. Those who honour their father will have joy in their own children” (Ecclus 3:4-5). Many of you will have made sacrifices to care for elderly parents.
The Holy Family teaches us that blood may be thicker than water but love is thicker than blood.
The Holy Family teaches us that sacrifice is at the heart of a strong family.
And……
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The Holy Family teaches us that a successful family is not child nor even parent centered, but God centered.
“Now after the wisemen had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream” (Matthew 3:13)
“When Herod died an angel of he Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph and said”
We live in a society that is very child focused. Children get whatever they want. When I sign school forms forms for church schools I am shocked at the number of 10 year olds who think they are choosing what school to go to. As I try to point out to the child, it would be a terrible thing for your parent to let you make the final decision. If turned out to be a disaster and you got no qualifications and could never get a job - it would be your fault. Your parents need to choose the school they believe is best for you. Then - even if it turns out to be a disaster, at least you will be able to blame them….
We live in a society that is very child-focused. A few hundred years ago in this country, and still in many parts of the world, people live in a society that is very parent focused. So in Tudor times here, or in India today, many people marry the person their parents tell them to. Which might be to do with providing for the parents’ retirement rather than what is best for the children.
A parent focused family is no better than a child focused one. One can lead to selfish spoilt children, the other to oppressed bullied children.
The Holy Family teaches us that a successful family is not child nor even parent centered, but God centered.
By the time the wise men finally got there Jesus, was probably a toddler, and the toddler could have told Joseph and Mary “Don’t wanna move” - but they did what the angel said and saved his life.
Several years later Joseph could have said “Why go back to Israel. I am settled in Egypt and it would be terrible for my carpentry business to leave”. But they did what the angel said, and brought Jesus back to become Israel’s Messiah.
If we want our families to flourish, we need to seek God’s will. That means listening to what God says through supernatural means - nudges, pictures, dreams. It means listening to what the Holy Spirit has said down the ages through the saints. And it means listening to what God says through his bible.
Today as we think of the Holy Family, we are reminded of the immense diversity of families, we are reminded of the sacrifices necessary to be a strong family, but we are reminded also that to be successful, like the Holy Family, our family’s focus must be on our Father in heaven and his will for us.
Amen
[1] The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster, Chapter 16, p.192-3
[2] The (Church of England’s) Marriage Service, Common Worship, Church House Publishing.
