I’m pretty lucky to be in the family that I’m in.
On the Fong side of the family (we don’t really see my mom’s side at all), we’re all pretty tight. There is about 70 of us that get together for Christmas every year (that isn’t in pandemic) and we all get along on the most part. My more immediate family tries to get together once a month for dinner, and there never really is any drama among us either. And of course my own small nuclear family see each other basically every day, and aside from your regular spat here and there like most family, we on the most part are doing ok.
So I’m pretty lucky.
Because I’ve seen families that aren’t so tight. Families that split and don’t talk to each other for whatever reason. Families that have it a lot harder than I do. The cause for families to go this route could be as numerous as there are people in the world. It isn’t planned, it usually isn’t wanted, but it continues to happen.
I know sometimes it can’t be fixed, as much as the family might want it to be. Sometimes those wounds can’t heal, as much as we might try. Sometimes families just stay divided forever.
But I don’t know if I could ever say that love is broken. We might not feel much for the estranged, but we are connected in ways that we don’t always see or understand. We might even think that never speaking to the other side again would be too soon, but I believe that love and community remain.
Somehow.
Here are the readings for next week:
Genesis 3:8-15
Psalm 130
2 Corinthians 4:13—5:1
Mark 3:20-35
So maybe after readings the texts for next week, you get why I was talking about family. It seems like all these texts talk about the brokenness and dysfunction that can happen in relationships, especially familial ones. That isn’t anything new, I mean all of us in families know that things just happen.
Then Jesus says a house being divided will render it unable to stand. A kingdom that goes against itself will fall. And in not so many words, a family that rejects itself will remain broken.
But I think there is hope in that. Because for us as a church, it isn’t our relationship that keeps us together, but it is the bond brought to us by the love of God that sticks. This community doesn’t stand together just when it agrees with itself, but because God lifts it up and holds it in grace. We as God’s people, as diverse and opinionated as we might be, can still live as the body of Christ because it is Christ who is the head.
Now I’m not saying that we should go around and break our relationship or that hurt feelings don’t matter, but what I’m saying is that our connection to God and each other might be stronger than we realise. And in that connection, perhaps we can also find reconciliation, forgiveness, and love.
That’s my prayer for us all, at least.
Thanks be to God. Have a great week, everyone.
Photo by Jeremy Bishop on Unsplash