Fighting Like Family

Seeing how God reunites his fragmented family

07/22/2020

Matthew 12:46-50 While Jesus was speaking to the crowds, his mother and his brothers appeared outside, wishing to speak with him. Someone told him, “Your mother and your brothers are standing outside, asking to speak with you.” But he said in reply to the one who told him, “Who is my mother? Who are my brothers?” And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

There’s an old adage that says: No one fights like family. But it’s also true that nothing breaks a father or mother’s heart like seeing their children bickering and backbiting. Have you seen the ravages of family feuds in your family? I am sad to say I have certainly witnessed it in my own family, even in fights between my brother and me. Of course, I was always right in those arguments. Well, I would suggest to you this family feud, and the father’s desire to heal it, are the fundamental theme and thrust of the whole Bible.

Indeed, the Bible begins with a family feud, actually a fratricide when Cain kills Abel in Gen. 4. And the Father’s plan – like all good fathers desire – is to reunite his feuding family in peace and love. All human history begins with a family – Adam’s family – living in harmony and holiness with God, and human history will end with all of us living in harmony and holiness with God, provisionally on earth, and perfectly in Eternity.

How will God achieve such an ambitious undertaking? He does it through successive covenants, each one like an ever-widening concentric circle, embracing more of the human family in the Father’s loving arms. The first is the original one with Adam and Eve, called the Edenic covenant, made in the Garden of Eden. The circle was a nuclear family. The second was Noah and the flood, symbolized by the rainbow. The circle grew to encircle a whole clan. The third was with Abraham, gradually unfolding in Gn. 12, 15, 17 and culminating in Gn. 22. The circle had widened to a tribe. The fourth covenant was with Moses on Mt. Sinai and the giving of the Law. The circle was now a whole nation.

The fifth one was with David and the establishment of the Davidic Kingdom in 2 Samuel 7, which meant the circle was international (covering multiple nations). The sixth and concluding covenant, indeed the new and eternal covenant (as the priest pronounces over the chalice at every Mass) comes with Christ. Why did Christ come? To reunite the fragmented family of Adam into the fully reunited Family of God, and thus fulfill the Father’s will: to see his children not fighting anymore but living in harmony and holiness.

Why am I tell you all this? Because only now can we crack the code of Christ’s words in Mt. 12 about his true family. We read: “And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here is my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my heavenly Father is my brother and sister and mother.” Now notice when Jesus employs domestic language to describe his disciples, he is not dabbling with quaint metaphors. Rather, he is unveiling his Father’s heart, that, like all good fathers, wants to see their children love each other and forgive their family feuds. This is the grace and goal of the new and eternal covenant Christ ushers in: the reunion of the Family of God, like it once was in Eden and one day will be in Eternity.

Seeing the big picture in Scripture as the healing of a family feud can also shed light on some of the sins that are rearing their ugly heads today, like racism. In 1963, George Wallace became governor of Alabama and in his inaugural address declared infamously: “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever.” I don’t know what was in Governor Wallace’s heart; I dare not judge him. But I do know that speech must have broken God the Father’s heavenly heart. Why? Well, because it tried to turn the clock backward on all those covenants, and the healing of our family feuds. Almost diametrically opposed to Wallace’s words are those of Jesus in the gospel today: “Here are my mother and my brothers.”

My friends, let us do a quick check of our own heart beats. Does our heart beat in rhythm with God’s heart? Do we desire the healing of humanity, especially the deep wound called racism? Instead of segregation now and forever, let us celebrate the new and eternal sacrifice of Christ.

Praised be Jesus Christ!