WOMEN ARE EQUAL IN GOD’S FAMILY VALUES

Much is said, especially in religious circles, about family values, and family is certainly of utmost importance. Caution is needed, however, because we can easily promote the values of our religion instead of the values of Heaven. Luke 8:19-21 provides a window into God’s Family Values to help us with this. 19 Now Jesus’ mother and brothers came to see him, but they were not able to get near him because of the crowd. 20 Someone told him, ‚Your mother and brothers are standing outside,wanting to see you.‛ 21 He replied, ‚My mother and brothers are those who hear God’s word and put it into practice.‛ When the messenger notifies Jesus that His mother and brothers are waiting to see Him, Jesus’ response is very interesting.It must have shocked the messenger! He or she must have wondered how He could ignore His mother and brothers. But Jesus was a teacher, and He was using something that the people understood to teach them something they needed to learn. He seemed to do this a lot! He would catch people at a moment they least expected and rattle their thinking to help them change their thinking about God and His ways. In this case, Jesus wanted to help the people see that what creates intimate relationship with Him is one thing only: hearing God’s word and putting it into practice. It is not by any other means. Who had greater right to intimacy with Jesus than His mother and brothers? Yet He is saying that this privilege belongs to those hearing God’s word and putting it into practice. He is saying to the people listening, ‚You understand the close relationship my mother and brothers have with me. You can have that, too, because intimacy with me is not based on flesh and blood. It is based on hearing God’s word and putting it into practice. ‛ Jesus really cuts to the chase. He doesn’t have to teach them how not to have intimacy with Him. For example, at this point, He doesn’t warn them not to pray as the pagans do. He doesn’t caution them about not to try to find intimacy with Him through religious methods. He simply says that the one way to have an intimate, mother/sibling quality of relationship with Him is by hearing God’s word and putting it into practice. In this passage, Jesus not only uses our natural understanding of family to help change our thinking; He also disrupts the normal definition of family somewhat through His questioning of what it is to be His ‚mother‛ and ‚brother.‛ This is a good thing in that it blurs the social expectations and restrictions imposed by the roles defined by words like ‚mother‛ and ‚brother. ‛ He says that real motherhood and real brotherhood—the highest quality ‚family‛ relationships—come from Him and are not defined by social expectations of roles found in human culture. Society is not to define what we do and when, why, and how we do it. His word is to do that. We must let Him define our roles in this life because He has expectations and jobs for us that differ from or exceed those placed on us by our culture, our family, and our religion. Jesus Himself experienced this in Nazareth, where people had social expectations and restrictions for Him based on His role as a carpenter, a son, and a local boy with brothers and sisters (Mk. 6:3).As a result, He could do no mighty works there (Mk. 6:5). This is the restricting power of socially defined roles, and it is a power that Jesus wants to break. Can we grasp this? Finally, in this passage, it must be noted that Jesus is not dishonoring or diminishing family! Instead, He is highlighting a principle that supersedes natural family ties and socially governed roles. He is using family as a picture that we already have to show us a picture of God and God’s way of looking at relationship. In God’s system, it seems that roles as we understand them are replaced by relationship with Him through His Word. This is the one defining relationship that preempts all others. This—not socially-imposed roles with implicit expectations—is what is to define our lives as His people. We are to let God define us, and that happens through hearing God’s word and putting it into practice. In most societies, including Christian circles, the female mandate is to function exclusively—or almost so—in the prescribed wife and child-bearing roles. Adherence to this mandate carries with it honor and recognition, but it is all within something called ‚woman’s place,‛ which is lower on the social ladder than the man’s place. For example, Medieval society saw women’s proper roles as being that of ‚wombs and workers. And in England, King James established the model of the home as a little kingdom, with the man as king, even as he was King of the nation. He also defined the home as a little church, with the man as the high priest and head of the home, even as he was the spiritual head of the church in England. ‛ Unfortunately,these concepts have crowded out what Jesus taught and have become the paradigm of family values promoted by the church. Jesus is telling us that as we seek to connect with Him, the governing priority is always and only to be hearing and putting into practice the Word of God. In all of this, He is not diminishing the need to show respect to mothers and brothers. Instead, He is saying that the honor due family members is the honor we are to extend to every person. God is no respecter of persons, and we are to treat others as He would treat them. God’s Family Values. What an awesome idea!