Family is messy and complicated. Blood runs thicker than water as you
know, and we don’t choose the family that we have. So what is the
most necessary thing for a healthy family? Is it a well ordered
structure where the authority lines are abundantly clear and no one
gets out of line with the tune everyone plays? Not really. That sort
of family culture breeds contempt and hurt.
Rather the most
important thing for a family is honesty and truth. Unity is not about
sameness, but about oneness. Being together, unified. And the only
way that happens is when there is open honestly and everyone is on
the same page. The opposite of this is playing a game of wack-a-mole
when someone steps out of line.
One of the best
examples of this I know of is from the TV show Blue Bloods. If
you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. The show follows a large
family, all either working in or around the NYPD. The patriarch is
the current police commissioner, the grandpa is a former police
commissioner, one brother is a detective, the other a beat-cop, and
the sister is a prosecutor. They all have different perspectives,
life-experiences and ways of doing things. In every single episode
they come together for a family meal on Sunday, pray, and enjoy time
together.
The
crazy thing is that with that unity and love that they share it is
also filled with so much conflict. The siblings get is fights over
work related stuff, there is tension between kid and parent, and all
the other messiness that comes along with being a person in a family
of similarly broken and complicated people. And yet in all of that
there is abounding love, even in the deepest of disagreements. Why?
Because there is honesty. Watch the linked clip above if you haven’t to see what I mean!
What
happens when the opposite is true? I have in the past known and lived
some of the tensions of that reality. Where the presumed pretense is
to keep your mouth closed, and your opinions to yourself because they
go against the prevailing dogma. The truth and honesty between people
is not there, and you never actually get to know the other person
because you are presenting a fascade to “go along to get along”,
and you know the other person is likely as well.
Jesus
talked about whited sepulchers when describing the pharisees (Matthew
23:27). The outside may have looked pretty, but inside was rotting
flesh, and dry bones.
So
which one is better. Honest messiness that doesn’t look as pretty,
but is real and true? Or a fabricated image of “everything is
perfect, there are no problems, and we are all in line”? I can just
about guarantee with few exceptions that the latter is a fabrication
that is built on fear and hurt. We are all messy and broken. That is
the reality of being human. And even more fundamentally that is the
hope that the Gospel brings.
In
all of our broken messiness, Christ loved us so much He gave His life
while we were yet sinners! For
those of us who have accepted that gift of salvation we are now part
of His family and His Kingdom. But that Kingdom is not one of rigid
uniformity and sameness. Rather, Christ’s Kingdom is built of all
of our differences beautifully pieced together like a mosaic, working
together to build His Kingdom as a representation of the beauty of
His creation. We are all different, and with that difference we are
all commonly bonded together by that amazing work of salvation
through Christ.
The
unity of His Kingdom is not sameness, it is recognizing how our
common experience of salvation reinstates us to the fullness of our
created intention, in all its many differences.
Think
bigger and broader. If you are in a place of rigidity, where
everything is forced to look and operate in a specific way, there is
so much more that Christ offers.