Do You Have Such A Family Likeness?
Good Morning Friends,
I touched on this last week and so did Pope Francis in Philadelphia on Sunday. I took the scripture from the position of the great diversity of expression of institutional churches but he instead takes it from the perspective of the manifestation of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and prophecy as part of the institution of marriage and the family. The issue is interesting. The Catholic approach to it is called subsidiarity. So this morning I am meditating on the building block of faith we call the family. And it prompts me to weave together the images of our physical body; connected to our blood relatives and the blood of Christ shed for our sins… drinking deep the distinguishing marks of a Christian… the Spirit of love. And it dawns on me just how radical this principle combined with love does to change the dynamic of our faith journey as a family that expresses the function of a church. For love connects the members of our family of faith to function in the unity of the Church; joined through Baptism and bound by a bond of bread… we eat the broken body of Jesus… the life of unconditional love. And as we mature in our faith and the mystery of it all, it connects our experience of God’s love to our extended family tree, so that we might bear spiritual fruits. We like Moses’ and Jesus’ followers in today’s scripture are to be chastised for failing to see the importance of not controlling the Spirit for it is in this expression of family we are saved. Yes, when faced with the desire of sin at the door, the only way we can rule over it is in this faith and fellowship that stretches us. Through love we Christians take on this distinguishing characteristic of Jesus filled love, and others take notice of the best fruit. The challenge is extending love beyond our current borders…not being narrow, petty and closed but actively growing. Do You Have Such A Family Likeness?
Scripture: Then the Lord God said, ‘It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.’
Genesis 2: 18 (NRSV)
If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’
Luke 11:13 (NRSV)
Then the Lord came down in the cloud and spoke to him, and took some of the spirit that was on him and put it on the seventy elders; and when the spirit rested upon them, they prophesied. But they did not do so again. Two men remained in the camp, one named Eldad, and the other named Medad, and the spirit rested on them; they were among those registered, but they had not gone out to the tent, and so they prophesied in the camp. And a young man ran and told Moses, ‘Eldad and Medad are prophesying in the camp.’ And Joshua son of Nun, the assistant of Moses, one of his chosen men, said, ‘My lord Moses, stop them!’ But Moses said to him, ‘Are you jealous for my sake? Would that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit on them!’
Numbers 11:25-29 (NRSV)
John said to him, ‘Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.’ But Jesus said, ‘Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterwards to speak evil of me. Whoever is not against us is for us. For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. ‘If any of you put a stumbling-block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell., And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched.
Mark 9:38-48 (NRSV)
And the king will answer them, “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.”
Matthew 25:40 (NRSV)
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
1 Corinthians 12:12-13 (NRSV)
I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.’
John 13:34-35 (NRSV)
Message: Pope Francis called faithful families of the world to unite and not be held back by the impression that those who are not like us can never be part of us. Maybe this was a message…a prophecy not just for Catholics. Interestingly I understand that there was an uptick in the attendance at Protestant Church this last Sunday. Call it the papal effect. It seems that faith grows when it is lived and shaped by love. That is why our families, our homes, are true domestic churches. Think about that for a moment. Yes focus on the family for a moment. Families are the place of church and with the right building blocks through acts of love where our faith in one another becomes our life, and this life becomes an expression of our faith. Here the very act of marriage is a prophetic act of faith. For it too mirrors the spiritual adoption into the Family of God we have in Jesus. Here love brings unity of our faith, unity of our fellowship, unity of our family so we might bear fruits in a Kingdom where love rules over sin. Friends, the good news is that the church is like a family. The bad news is that the church is like a family. We can overcome the bad news by focusing on the Good News. In that way we look more like love.
Pray we are open to the miracle of love for the sake of the family. Pray we encourage an openness to God’s prophecy of unity beyond borders. Pray our trust in the working of the Holy Spirit not be undermined by the scandal of petty differences that break down our unity. Pray we all be as a holy family in the eyes of God. Pray God reveal himself in and through the power of deciding to pass on the faith to children. Pray that we not only have a church family but that our family is a church. Pray we realize that to block conversion to the faith is a perversion of faith.
Blessings,
John Lawson
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