That story in particular got me thinking, especially in my role as a father. Mary gets all the dialogue in Luke's telling, and Jesus's reply that of course he would be in his father's house, carried with it the challenging echo of the blended family; you can almost hear, "you're not my real Dad," in there.
That got me to thinking about the different shapes and sizes and forms that families can take, including my own, and the connections that make us a family. Somehow it ended up with me trying to tie together my favourite crime novelist, an advice letter written in a Roman prison cell, The Godfather, a missing child story from the New Testament with a happy ending, and Krazy Glue. I dunno if it worked, but it was fun to do, and seemed to be pretty well received last Sunday.
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I hope you haven’t come here today for exceptional insight or wisdom, I have been privileged with both of these things on some rare occasions, but not while I was preparing for today’s reflection. What I took away from pondering the scriptures that we heard today is the simplest message in the world, and it did not come as a revelation or a bolt from blue, but a slow realization. One that comes inevitably, like the dawn, so that when it arrives in full you can’t say for certain when it arrived. But that’s not how it began.
It began with thoughts of Krazy Glue.
Krazy Glue, with a ‘k’, for trademarking purposes, is a type of cyanoacrylate, or CA, adhesive. CA glues have been around since the first world war. Krazy Glue wasn’t even the first to market; Superglue beat it to the punch years earlier. But if you watched TV in 1980, you almost certainly saw the commercial that showed a construction worker affixing his hardhat to a steel beam and suspending himself from it using only a single drop of this miraculous substance. And it’s true! In their purest form, these glues can support 2000 pounds per square inch, and that image of the fellow in the hardhat dangling from that beam is almost indelible in my memory, and is still featured in their packaging to this day. But Krazy Glue’s strength is not as remarkable as its origins.
What does CA glue stick to better than anything? That’s right: fingers. And not just fingers either. I happen to know for a cold, hard natural fact that it works jim-dandy on teeth too. (Long story.) One of the original proposed applications for cyanoacrylates was as a liquid bandage. In theory it could be used to close large wounds quickly, even under battlefield conditions. In practice though, it was too sticky to be used effectively, and this usage was pretty much abandoned after the VietNam war. A specialized form is still used as a surgical closure, though the legacy remains in the original: Krazy Glue sticks nothing together better than people.
The bonds between people are important. It’s how we build family. It’s how we build community. With luck, it all ties together, and you have different individuals coming together, then those groups intertwining, and next thing you know, maybe you have a constructive, productive society. This is why we keep hearing that families are “the bedrock of society”, right?
But what does “family” even mean? Some people don’t take it much beyond blood ties, and the manner in which kinship privileges are extended to those that we permit to marry into them becomes critically important.
There’s a flashback scene in The Godfather Part II, set in 1941, just following the attack on Pearl Harbor. Sonny Corleone, played by James Caan, describes the thousands of Americans who have subsequently signed up to fight as “saps.” When younger brother Michael (Al Pacino) asks what makes them saps, Sonny says “they’re saps because they risk their lives for strangers.”
Michael: They don’t risk their lives for strangers, they’re risking it for their country.
Sonny: Your country ain’t your blood, you remember that.
Michael disagrees, and there is almost a fight at the family table when he reveals he has joined the marines that very morning, but the point is, even though both men love and respect their families and have very similar values, only one of them is prepared to risk everything with and for people he does not know.
Once he comes under fire, how much tighter will the bonds be between Michael and the men he fights with, his “brothers in arms”? Would he risk as much for them as for his brother Sonny, his actual familia? What about his half-brother Tom Hagen?
Whether we are talking about the Corleones or Michael’s comrades, we know there is no such thing as the perfect family, right? We all disagree, bicker, argue, shout, fight or whatever at some point or another. And at the extreme end of this continuum, there are sometimes family members that need to be kept away from each other, for their respective safety. How are these families, in their untenable situations, supposed to be the “bedrock of society”? Are only some families “real” families?
I mean, take a family where a working class, blue collar dad, living in a country rife with corruption and growing resentful under an occupying government, who then marries a teenaged girl pregnant with somebody else’s baby; is anyone expecting that to turn out well?
That’s right: this Galileean carpenter and his wife and her son, the Royal Family, such an intrinsic component of this time of year, is not only one of the earliest recorded and most famous of blended families, but they spend just as much time muddled up and making their by guesswork and good intentions as the rest of us, from a certain perspective.
In our reading from Luke, we heard how Mary and Joseph realized their son was missing from the caravan as they were returning from Jerusalem. This caravan would have been made up of familiar people and extended family members, so there was initially no cause for alarm, but when it turned out he was not travelling with the group after all, the two of them turned back to Jerusalem to find him. They do so three days later - and I pause here to ask all of you who are parents to remember a times spent waiting up for your son or daughter to return home, knowing that you weren’t going to be able to sleep anyhow, so you might as well stay up and ruminate for a spell, and then multiply that feeling by THREE DAYS - at the temple.
The words Paul attributes to Mary are brief but heartfelt, and convey the combination of worry, anger and most of all , relief at finding her son safe and sound: “Child, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have been searching for you anxiously!”
(I note here, with some interest, two points. First, Mary’s excellent and timely usage of a mother’s greatest weapon - guilt - , and secondly, that Joseph’s words are not captured. I presume that this is because he was either literally speechless, or perhaps he spoke and his words were considered unprintable according to the standards of the time. Either way, I truly feel for the man, as I often do.)
Now, I am not about to open a theological can of worms in terms of questioning the divinity and thus implied perfection of Jesus Christ, but I will say that from my privileged, middle-class, 21st century perspective, his response to his mother in the temple leaves a lot to be desired.
Instead of being chastened, or embarrassed, or apologetic, he is legitimately surprised at their anxiety. “⌊Why⌋ were you searching for me? Did you not know that it was necessary for me to be in the house of my Father?” The scriptures tell us that Mary did not understand what this meant, and despite knowing full well who Jesus is referring to, I can’t help but feel Joseph was maybe a little hurt as well. Regardless, Jesus returns with them, “submitting” as Paul relates it, and we have no way of knowing if he simply followed his parents home or was perhaps pulled along by the ear.
It’s important to note that Mary and Joseph were not helicopter parents - Jesus being out of their sight was not upsetting, as they believed he was within the caravan full of extended family, and people thought of as family. Conversely, Jesus is not being - you should pardon the expression - a smart-ass; he was neither afraid nor upset because he legitimately believed he too was among family, and in his father’s house to boot. From the caravan to the temple, it would seem that the concept of family can encompass a variety of stylings and permutations.
Consider my own extended and expanded family. Before we met, my wife Audrey became pregnant while travelling one summer while in college. She had the baby and gave him up for adoption to a couple unable to have children, exchanging letters and photos with his new family through a lawyer retained by the agency.
When the agency folded, she was told that if she wanted to maintain contact, she would have to do so directly going forward. By this point, the boy she had named Robyn was in his early teens, the two of us had been married for 7-8 years and we had a daughter of our own. When Audrey asked me what I thought, I told her the truth: that I was very apprehensive about opening our family up to such a close contact that we knew so little about, but that it was absolutely her call, and I would back her up, whatever she chose.
Unsurprisingly, she reached out and the exchange of photos and letters continued, and after a couple of years we decided to meet. My apprehension was peaking pretty hard when the four of them arrived at our home for dinner - yes, four: after welcoming the boy they named Bryce into their home, guess who went and got pregnant after all? - but their obvious and heartfelt love for their son and daughter, and their immense gratitude to Audrey for letting Bryce know his biological mother and her family warmed me to them immediately. As we sat down to dine, I made a toast: “Here’s to the families of choice.”
Despite the familiar saying, we can choose our family, and we do so all the time.
Andrew Vachss, the author of our third reading, makes this point again and again: we need to stop defining families biologically and start defining them operationally. Siring a child or bringing one to term is not what makes someone a parent. As he says, “we are what we do”. The ones we love become our family, our true family, and the terrifying truth behind that is that there doesn’t need to be any limits to it.When the woman he describes scooped up that child in a warzone, do you think she had time to second-guess herself about needing more food and water than she did on her own?
And what about our church family? We share beliefs, traditions and values - well, more often than not, anyhow - and seek ways to reach out and share our ideals about freedom and justice and compassion with everyone. We have tremendous latitude in how we express our faith, but in the early days of the church it was quite different.
Colossae was a Phrygian city in present day Turkey. Paul was in a Roman prison when reports reached him of the church there partaking in activities described as heretical. There are no details given, but it is speculated that they may have incorporated a variety of practices that would have been considered pagan at the time. It might be an interesting thought experiment to consider what Paul and other early church leaders would have thought about our decorating our church in brightly-lit evergreens to celebrate Christ’s birth at mid-winter instead of the spring or summer when he was probably actually born, but that is a topic for another time, perhaps.
At any rate, prior to our excerpt from Colossians, Paul has listed a litany of things for their church, and any church, really, to rid themselves of: anger, rage, malice, slander. Verse 11 is famous for opening the church to all, saying “Here there is no Gentile or Jew, circumcised or uncircumcised,barbarian, Scythian, slave or free, but Christ is all, and is in all.”
Then he begins his appeal for new behaviour: “as the chosen of God, holy and dearly loved, put on affection, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, putting up with one another and forgiving one another…. And to all these things add love, which is the bond of perfection.”
The bond of perfection. What a brilliant expression! Krazy Glue is amazing, but love is miraculous. It holds things together that would otherwise fall apart, makes the impossible feel possible.
Love is what ties it all, ties us all together. It’s what held Jesus Mary and Joseph together in their challenging times, and, if we’re lucky, it can do the same for us. When love defines our relationships, both within and outside our many families, that is when we are at our most Christ-like, when we are living the lives God most wants for us as his children. But don’t take my word for it! Some of the greatest thinkers and poets of the 20th century have spoken extensively and profoundly on the importance of love:
Love will keep us together - The Captain & Tenille
All you need is love - The Beatles
Think of your fellow man, lend him a helping hand/ Put a little love in your heart - Jackie Deshannon
God knows, and Paul recognizes, that no family is perfect; that’s why he includes that bit about putting up with another. That’s what makes this such a great passage to read during the holidays, right? Love and faith are tied closely together for me;I always have the most hope when I know love will be involved in my future.
Looking back now at our decision to meet with Bryce’s adopted family, it seems silly to admit how fearful I was that expanding our family might somehow diminish the amount of love I had available to distribute. I’d had similar worries prior to the birth of my first daughter, and again prior to the arrival of the second. Clearly, it takes a long time for me to get important messages.
Meeting Bryce’s family though, expanding my family in a whole new way, felt like finding a hidden gusset on a piece of fully packed luggage. The case is unquestionably full, but by moving a zipper and revealing a previously concealed fold of material, it expands to accommodate even more. A miraculous transformation brought on by the simplest of means.
There was always a blood line connecting our two households, but what really made us family was that first meeting. Fenya and Glory refer to Bryce as their big brother. He calls Audrey’s parent’s Oma and Opa, and they were just as proud as the other parents when he married his high school sweetheart 5 years ago. During his toast, Bryce’s Dad Robb said to them, “It had to be hard for you to see Bryce go, all those years ago, not knowing where your daughter's child would end up. And now here you are, and God's brought you full circle to a place you couldn't have imagined then, watching your grandson get married, and knowing you are still a part of his family."
I expressed my wonderment to Robb later on, and he shook his head in similar amazement and said, "There are so many ways each of our lives can turn; what can we do except look forward in faith, and look back in gratitude?"
When Bryce and Sara came over to visit just before Christmas, he asked how Oma and Opa were doing. Audrey started updating them on her parents when he said, “Actually, I mean you two.”
And that is how I found out that I am going to become a grandfather of sorts next summer.
There is no blood shared between myself and Bryce, but we are connected, and we are family. A family held together by love, the bond of perfection. I intend to be "Poppy". though, and not Opa.
There is a lot of talk about the amount of divisiveness in the world these days: the entrenchment of ideologies, the fear of increased immigration, the rise of intolerance. We’ve seen it before, and the solution is always the same: love. In 1965, Jackie DeShannon, who I quoted earlier, said:
What the world needs now is love, sweet love
It's the only thing that there's just too little of
Like I said at the beginning, there is no brilliant insight here. It’s the simplest message there is: love is what holds us together, whoever “us” might happen to be.
And if we try hard enough, and broaden our perspective enough, we can see others as our family: people of other languages, other faiths, other colours, other political affiliations or sexual orientations, it doesn’t matter.
Whether we see them in our homes, across a backyard fence, in mall or across a border fence, recognizing them not as “others”, but as fellow children of God and thus part of our truest human family, we can connect in new ways, learn new things, and come together, stronger than ever.
We live in a broken world, and we always have, but we can make it better. We can piece it together with the bond of perfection.
Amen
And if we try hard enough, and broaden our perspective enough, we can see others as our family: people of other languages, other faiths, other colours, other political affiliations or sexual orientations, it doesn’t matter.
Whether we see them in our homes, across a backyard fence, in mall or across a border fence, recognizing them not as “others”, but as fellow children of God and thus part of our truest human family, we can connect in new ways, learn new things, and come together, stronger than ever.
We live in a broken world, and we always have, but we can make it better. We can piece it together with the bond of perfection.
Amen
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| Kintsukuroi - the Japanese art of mending pottery with gold |
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Scriptures:
Colossians 3:12–17 (Lexham English Bible):
Appeal for New Behavior
Therefore, as the chosen of God, holy and dearly loved, put on affection, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, putting up with one another and forgiving one another. If anyone should have a complaint against anyone, just as also the Lord forgave you, thus also you do the same. And to all these things add love, which is the bond of perfection. And the peace of Christ must rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another with all wisdom, with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God, and everything you do in word or in deed, giving thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus to God the Father through him.
Luke 2:41–52 (Lexham English Bible):
Jesus in the Temple at Twelve Years Old
And his parents went every year to Jerusalem for the feast of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up according to the custom of the feast. And after the days were completed, while they were returning, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. And his parents did not know it, but believing him to be in the group of travelers, they went a day’s journey. And they began searching for him among their relatives and their acquaintances, and when they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him.
And it happened that after three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting in the midst of the teachers and listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his insight and his answers. And when they saw him, they were astounded and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you done this to us? Look, your father and I have been searching for you anxiously!” And he said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that it was necessary for me to be in the house of my Father?” And they did not understand the statement that he spoke to them. And he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was submitting to them. And his mother treasured all these things in her heart.
And Jesus was advancing in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and with people.
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