Holy Family
Today’s feast of the Holy Family has often been introduced as that of a perfect family to measure ourselves against with apparent perfect parents and perfect child. Today’s gospel indicates that the Holy Family did not measure up either especially when a child disappears for days. Luke is the only gospel writer to record the story of Mary and Joseph losing Jesus and later finding him in the temple. God does not come into an ideal family but into each flesh and blood family.
This Feast is not about measuring up but expresses God’s great love and mercy for all especially as we all live, struggle and negotiate a real harsh world. It has nothing do with measuring up or being perfect. What we celebrate are everyday actions towards hope and compassion in the face of pain, suffering, violence, poverty, and uncertainty. Our call is to never give up but continue struggling and being open to one another in their struggles. We recognise that we are part of one another which enables us to allow our hearts break open to allow love, kindness, compassion, and mercy flow through us as signs of God’s faithfulness – ‘God with us.’ For nearly fifteen months we have watched a genocide unfold in real time – not to mention Ukraine, Sudan, Lebanon and Syria. For many it is traumatic to watch helplessly, and others look away. Others express family by solidarity which ‘is the political version of love’ (Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Jewish American lesbian feminist, author and activist (1945-2018). The Holy Family was living under a regime of Roman occupation. Later we hear that even infants were not safe as they are not today in Gaza. Our television screens portray 1000’s of dead children and grieving parents and relatives.
We cannot ignore that we are part of the family of humanity! Today feast is not just about family life. Jesus teaches us that he, like us, must be ‘in the Father’s house’ which must include the whole of creation and our interconnectedness with all. It is a call to be open to the wider world and its struggles. It means accepting an ever-wider web of relationships beyond kinship and neighbour. Jesus today begins to make the break he would ask of others later. Though Jesus returns to Nazareth with his parents, the time will come when he separates from his family to do what God required of him. But an ominous note sounds when he declares he must be in God’s house. We know the end of the story. We know that as Jesus builds a new family to live in God’s house, he will offend some religious leaders by filling in the empty places at the table with people whom others did not consider part of the family. Jesus claimed that all these unwanted folk were God’s beloved children.
In every moment of life, God’s word wells up within us. God is everywhere. There are no God-forsaken moments or persons. We are always on ‘holy ground’ and always encountering ‘holy people.’ We shape each other’s’ present and future experiences in every encounter, and by these encounters bring beauty or ugliness to the world and to God’s experience of the world. Paul says, ‘let the peace of Christ dwell in your hearts.’ It is about the relationships we establish. The philosopher A.N. Whitehead said that peace involves the expansion of the self beyond its typical boundaries to embrace the well-being of others and the planet; it means growing beyond ‘us’ and ‘them’ by befriending the universe. Can we expand the boundaries of our hearts to embrace life beyond our national self-interest? Can we see global well-being and security as important, even more important, as our own national security? Can we provide the resources necessary for every child to have a healthy diet and the opportunity to grow in mind, body, and spirit, regardless of their place of birth?
In a photo, an elderly man is photographing his granddaughter who has just turned over a rock to find a bug that had crawled under it. This discovery was like finding that pearl of great value. This story reminds us of life’s treasures to be discovered in minute forms or in hidden places. God is not only available to us in obvious ways but also in the still, small voice; the quiet wisdom on the lips of a friend or stranger; the example of courage and faithfulness of the frail and infirm; in a drop of wine and a small piece of bread; and in the gaze of a child making a new discovery, and of their inquisitiveness, energy, restlessness, forthrightness, sense of awe and wonder, playfulness, and laughter.
The stories of Samuel and Jesus are often read and interpreted with adult eyes and how they might affect us. They need also to be heard in new ways the stories of young people and ask, 'What are we doing to provide a safe place for youth to grow in wisdom and stature and be clothed with what they need for the journey?’ These two youths ministered before God in a culture where children typically had no status and no voice. It seems that such instances demonstrate that even in oppressive circumstances those without voice can still find a way to push the limits of the roles that are assigned by the culture.’ The Catholic bishops in the 2009 social justice statement reminded us that youth can be and are prophetic in our churches. They may do things differently to us but clearly their commitment is there. How do we as church provide spiritual mentors and spiritual resources ensure that youth voices are heard today, their gifts welcomed and considered as full and inclusive members of the church?
The poet John Muir says that ‘Everything is hitched to everything else.’ We are all connected; we are all relatives. Today as we celebrate our identity as family, we are also reminded that we belong to a global family that excludes no one. Judaism, Islam and Christianity/Catholicism have been obsessed with making babies ‘be fruitful and multiply’ - but not relationships.
Inclusion is not trendy modern theory but a biblical imperative. Today’s feast confronts all forms of individualism. Many people who are usually overlooked in the preaching of today's celebration. We are called to remember those who are marginalised by our society and also the church-the single gay person, the gay couple, people who are poor and elderly, the immigrant and the asylum seeker. This feast must cause us to remember that we are all in God’s hands.
We can focus on all the violence that is heaped up against the human family. Our faith must cause us to rise up against those who use children for the slave trade, sex trade, to fight in war. We need to say to those in power that they cannot have any more of children. We need to bring life where others plot death. Children today are targeted by the war-markers: military recruitment centres with their promise and also the indiscriminate bombing from the air and indiscriminate killing by landmines. Today we recognise that God comes in all and is there for all. God comes to us in flesh and touches us through others.
This feast has no meaning if we idealise the holy family or if we project our ideas of an ideal family on it. We are all part of a family from which no one should feel or be excluded. There is no one kind of family: single parent; mixed families where husband and wife have children from different marriages; childless couples; divorced/ widowed people; single people; gay couples; religious communities; people in boarding houses. Even if single, we have the affectionate families with which we surround ourselves. (Some queer theologians have even argued that these affectionate families of networks of single gay men, may more closely represent the Gospel ideal than the nuclear family).
In his 2025 Message of Peace, Pope Francis in referring to God’s liberating justice says that we need to hear the ‘desperate plea for help’ rising up from so many parts of our world. God never fails to hear this plea and we need to cry out and denounce the many situations in which the earth is exploited and our neighbours oppressed. Francis reminds us that we must feel in some way responsible for the devastation of ‘our common home’ and whatever plagues our human family. He refers to inequalities, the inhuman treatment of migrants, environmental decay, the confusion created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue and the immense resources spent on the industry of war. All these are a threat to humanity as a whole. At the beginning of this year, then, we desire to heed the plea of suffering humankind in order to feel called, together and as individuals, to break the bonds of injustice and to proclaim God’s justice. He calls us to a spirit of solidarity and interdependence.
We are all family. ‘Family’ is never a given. It requires conscious commitment to live out the ‘reign of God’. Jesus founded a new family, a larger circle. Unlike religious institutions, Jesus said little about family values but relationships – right relationships, justice, fairness, sharing, and compassion.
Our challenge is to love in all places; to extend across boundaries; to offer it where we might not even be supposed to love. We cannot allow tighter boundaries be drawn around the universe of acceptable recipients of our love and justice. On the threshold of 2025, let us ask how we might be in solidarity with those need defending and work for policies that protect the rights and dignity of children, all people, and the planet. Let us put on heartfelt compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience (Col 3:12). In a truly holy family, all are respected and cherished, nurtured and supported. So as John Muir wrote: ‘Everything is hitched to everything else.’
As you step over the threshold of time into a new year, receive this blessing:
May health return to you if it has been absent and abide with you if it is present;
May the challenges you face be easier than you imagined
and the surprises you discover more joyful than you expected;
May your love touch many lives and your compassion offer hope to even more;
May peace surround you like the hours of a day and wisdom guide you with eyes that never close.
Steven Charleston (Episcopalian Bishop and Native American Elder)