Luke 12: 49-53

These are tough words from Jesus. “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I tell you, but rather division! --- Families will be divided: father against son and son against father,”

Is this just Jesus on a bad day? If it is, he had a few of them. Two chapters on in Luke, Jesus addresses large crowds that are following him. “Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, yes, and even life itself, cannot be my disciple.”

Is Jesus anti-family? Surely not! We would say that, as far as institutions go, family is pretty much up there at the top. But have we moved from belief in the family to exaltation of the family?

If you want to appeal to middle of the road, decent, good living citizens, then call your political party ‘Family first’. If you’re a mainline party then make sure you milk family values for all their worth. Just look at advertisements for and against ‘Work Choice’. They know that issues affecting families are the big-ticket items in an election campaign, not the issues affecting justice for all, the poverty gap or refugees.

Our self-centredness and selfishness can take many forms, including our exaltation of the family. Moving from a life centred on family may have to be a deliberate choice, not just an unfortunate consequence of a life centred on following the path first trod by Jesus.

Rev. Chris Howard
20th August, 2007