In biblical times, marriage was first and foremost a contractual business exchange aimed at providing material security and ensuring lineage. Families were extended and patriarchal, with marriages arranged to forge alliances, consolidate wealth, and secure social status. Love was not the primary focus; rather, the benefits to both families were paramount. Throughout history, this view persisted, with dowries and bride prices common practices to solidify these exchanges. Women were more or less property, a step above livestock, to be traded between fathers and men for social influence.
In the modern era, particularly from the 1700s and more and more afterwards, the notion of marriage began to shift towards romantic love as the central reason for union. Humanist ideals emphasized individual happiness and mutual affection which had a transformative effect on the understanding of family. Today, spousal and parental relationships are ideally rooted in love, emotional support, and mutual respect, and this reflects a significant cultural shift from the transactional nature of ancient and medieval marital arrangements. We do well to keep this in mind as we go forward today and consider what God is saying to us about one of our most important relationships…our family.
Let us pray. May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer. Amen.
Pillars are load-bearing. In a structure, they provide the essential support needed to maintain stability and integrity. They ensure that the entire structure stands with integrity, with stability. Just as physical pillars uphold buildings, certain institutions serve as the foundational supports of society. In sociology, the field of study that looks at how people interact together with each other from one-on-one to the entire planet as a human race, there are five pillar institutions—the government, the economy, education, religion, and family.
These five societal institutions support, they hold up our social structure likes pillars holding up a bridge or roof of a temple. When they’re working well, they maintain order, guide our behavior, and fulfill collective needs, so that our relationships with each other thrive and evolve. Understanding these pillars is crucial to comprehending how society functions and maintains its stability amidst change.
The first pillar of society is the government. The government is responsible for creating and maintaining order. As part of that, it provides public services and defense. It plays a crucial role in regulating interactions between both individuals under its jurisdiction and also with groups under the jurisdiction of other governments.
The second pillar of society is the economy. The economy is all about the production, distribution, and consumption of “stuff”—both physical things, called goods, and things done for other people, called services. How we decide how we will divvy up stuff among ourselves is the basis of the economy.
The third pillar of society is education. Education passed on knowledge, skills, values, and norms from one generation to the next. It prepares us to participate in the workforce and civic life and, when working well, fosters critical thinking and personal development. Educational institutions also contribute to social integration and personal and societal advancement and actualization.
The fourth pillar of society is religion. Religion, crudely speaking, gives us a moral framework, a sense of meaning, and a connection between material and spiritual realities. It reinforces good social behavior for the sake of social cohesion, offers comfort in the face of difficulty, influences societal values and customs, and plays a significant role in cultural identity.
But perhaps the most fundamental social pillar is the family, the fifth pillar of society. Family shapes individuals from birth through intimate, emotional bonds. It is the primary place for nurturing and caring for children, providing them with initial education, values, and a sense of identity. Families can vary widely in structure, including nuclear families, extended families, single-parent households, each with unique dynamics and roles.
Archeological evidence for family structures in prehistory primarily comes from burial sites, dwellings, and artifacts. Burial sites often reveal family ties through the positioning of bodies, grave goods, and genetic analysis. For instance, the discovery of a 4600-year-old burial site in Germany revealed a family group, confirmed through DNA testing, buried together. Even in prehistoric times, family was crucial for social organization.
The concept of family is always evolving. Nowadays, family includes diverse forms—not just mothers and fathers, but also gay and lesbian families, with and without children, and chosen families. Despite these changes, family remains a pillar of societal structure. It, often indelibly, impacts both individual well-being and therefore, broader social cohesion. Family plays a critical role, both by providing or by withholding, in emotional support, financial stability, and caregiving. It influences social status, cultural heritage, and can affect our access to resources and opportunities.
Today’s first reading and gospel deal with family, and in particular what it means for us as faithful disciples of Jesus. Family, like for us, was important in the time of Abraham and Jesus—maybe even more so. Family was most definitely protection against hardship, socially and materially. Belonging to a family, quite literally, was a matter of death or life. That’s why the Bible is littered with commands to remember orphans and widows…because they were without the support of family and quite literally faced real death. And so it’s against this backdrop today that we hear the story of Abraham, commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, and Jesus, confronted with the worry of his own family and his response to that concern. At its heart, though, these two stories are about how we fulfill God’s will in light of our family commitments.
Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac demonstrates profound faith and obedience to God’s command, even when it seems to contradict God’s promise regarding a family, particularly through Isaac. The situation reshapes the understanding of relationships by placing absolute trust and obedience to God above all else, even familial bonds. God’s command to Abraham serves as a test of faith and demonstrates his authority and the faithfulness required from his followers. The command to sacrifice Isaac tests Abraham’s limits and shows ultimate submission to God’s will. Abraham’s obedience affects not just him but his descendants. It underscores the communal implications of relationship with God. God’s provision of the ram as a substitute for Isaac prefigures God’s faithfulness in the cross of Christ, and his provision for our needs—even those so fundamental as our family can give.
Jesus highlights the familial obedience of Abraham. He redefines family as those who do the will of God. He emphasizes obedience to God’s commands over biological ties as the true marker of family. Jesus asserts his divine authority by challenging the religious leaders’ accusations and emphasizing the necessity of recognizing the Holy Spirit’s work. Jesus’ family and the religious leaders struggle to understand his mission, but true obedience is highlighted by Jesus’ followers who accept and do God’s will despite societal and familial pressures. Jesus forms a new spiritual community. He redefines family by faith, by relationship with God and commitment to doing the will of God. He makes patently clear how the faith community transcends traditional familial structures. Jesus, as the ultimate fulfillment of God’s provision, teaches about the unforgivable sin against the Holy Spirit and in doing so, highlights the seriousness of recognizing and accepting God’s redemptive work. Doing the will of God—that is, responding to the call of the Holy Spirit— is more important than fulfilling commitments to our family. Jesus really ups the ante on what it takes to be his faithful disciple!
Yet—what does it mean to do God’s will?
At its most fundamental, it means to live into what the prophet Micah tells us—“to do righteousness, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.” But what does that look like today? And what does it mean for those who find that their relationship with God, their desire to do God’s will, is in conflict with their family commitments? After all, the fourth commandment makes it abundantly clear that honoring our family commitments is extremely important, to say nothing of all the other ways the scriptures call us to care for and treat others like family. What does doing the will of God—doing righteousness, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God—what does that look like today in our world with a very different understanding of family from the time of Abraham and the time of Jesus?
First, it means being honest, acknowledging the truth, especially where there is difficulty and pain in the conflict between family commitments and faithfulness to God’s expectations. We have to be honest about our own emotions and the emotions of our family. Likewise, without judgment or condemnation, we have to recognize the pain that especially parents experience when they’ve been faithful to the best of their ability to raise their children according to God’s will and yet those same children, for whatever reason, fall away. We have to recognize the deep sorrow, disappointment, and even guilt they feel and provide loving support, not condemnation. It’s of uttermost importance as Christians who love one another to validate these feelings rather than dismiss them.
We are likewise called to remind each other, and especially those in the family of faith, of God’s ultimate authority. God’s ultimate sovereignty and his deep love for all people, including those who have fallen away, whether our children, brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, mothers or fathers—that love isn’t contingent on them. It’s a matter of God’s faithfulness, which endures no matter what—not even death can defeat it. Trusting God’s plan and timing must always remain a source of hope in the face of such worry.
To that end, we must encourage each other to continue praying for family, those who participate in the life of God’s faithful people and those who have fallen away. Prayer is a powerful act of faith and love, even when the outcome seems uncertain. Love must be our bond, here in the family of faith, and for those who for whatever reason don’t come together with us. Showing unconditional love and support regardless of someone else’s faithfulness mirrors Jesus’ own love for those he came to reconcile to God, his own love for us.
We must also listen…listen to perspectives and struggles without immediate judgment or attempts to persuade. Listening leads to understanding and understanding leads to compassion and trust. And we must also always, trusting the Holy Spirit to guide us, strive to live into our relationship with God authentically and joyfully. An authentic, lived-out faith is the most powerful witness for the hope that is within us, and it will bear much more fruit than attempts to persuade or convince.
And lastly, we must be a family for one another, providing support to strengthen and encourage one another, especially for those whose family aren’t wholly engaged with the life of the church. We must pray for one another, listen to one another, and love one another. Our prayers and shared experiences uplift us during difficult times. God continues to work in our hearts and the hearts of our loved ones, even if unseen. Trusting that’s true is a source of peace.
Family is a pillar of our life together as people, supporting us and providing foundational integrity to the structure of society. And it’s for that reason that God creates a new family for us, with Jesus at the center, called and charged to do the will of God. God welcomes us into his family who do righteousness, love kindness, and walk humbly with him—not relying on our own understanding or strength, but relying on each other and on God as our support and security, relying on the faithfulness of the Holy Spirit to work in, with, and through us. And in doing his will, we don’t condemn those who have yet to join the family or who’ve become estranged, for whatever reason; instead, we remain steadfast in our own faithfulness to them, as God remains steadfast in his faithfulness to us. We remain steadfast in our love for them and continue to do the will of God—to do righteousness, love kindness, and walk humbly with God—loving one another and the world as Jesus first loved us.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
The Rev'd Daniel W. Spigelmyer, Jr. 