Taking a "Family Vacation"

Some random albeit not entirely unrelated thoughts about family from the HATbox:

This morning, I heard a sermon about redefining family. Well, actually, the homily raised many important questions and touched upon plenty of hard issues for us to deal with -- not just family. However, I focused on the redefinition of family b/c the sermon I heard this past Sunday asked me to think about (re)defining Community. (What are the different kinds of communities that we can think of...? Someone mentioned Facebook!)

And, the seminary where I work and the Church (universal) that I belong to seem to think this whole "community" thing is a good idea. Plus, the church where I worship and serve has been (re)envisioning and grappling with how to be in community with one another.

The scripture for this morning's homily was taken from the Gospel according to Luke -- the one where Jesus's mother and brothers sent a messenger to Jesus asking to be let into the 'in' crowd and Jesus rebuffs them by saying those who follow his word are his family.

Radical shift in definition of family here. The definition is not one man, one woman, 1.5 child. It's not two men or two women and 2 adopted children. It's not even grandma, grandpa, grandchildren. Not even auntie, uncle and a horde of kids. So what is family? How do we define it? How do we shift our current definitions of family?

During the sermon, we were asked to consider the story from the perspective of Jesus' mother and brothers. How would we feel if we were suddenly left out of the elite crowd? Suddenly we don't have the backstage passes anymore. We don't have "family only" access to the Star of the show. So what happens when we feel short-shrifted? How do we blur the boundaries to make the "family circles" a bit more permeable?

Here's the thing, though. Jesus' mother and brothers wanted in. What if I don't want in? Sometimes, I just plain don't want to be in community. Certain days, I'm not ready or willing to "commune" with anyone. Makes it even harder when I have constant reminders of how we are all a part of Christ's extended family.

Sometimes, the need to be a part becomes a request to become apart. In those moments, those permeable boundaries seem absolutely necessary.

But, careful. Otherwise we endanger ourselves. We run the risk of creating irreparable chasms and schisms in Christ's family.

Last Thursday, I had a tough conversation with several friends. We tackled some Big Questions, with a lot of passion, about church, faith, and God. I'm not quite sure that we "settled" anything, or if anything can be settled, and as we parted ways I felt as if we left with some lingering uneasiness still in the air. That evening was difficult. I think we pushed the boundaries quite a bit and we discovered certain things about each other that forced us to consider "are we family?"

In the end though, I feel that we are still OK. That is, we still break bread together because we still share core values and believe in one God and do serve faithfully our Great Commission. We live out our baptismal covenants. We believe in one another and trust in one God.

It's just that sometimes, we really, really need that "family" vacation.