2152AFC122421 – It’s all in the family
Read it online here, please. And please – when you visit there – use one of the social media links at the bottom of the page to share this post. Thank you! And remember, we now have a READER VIEW available, so share this link or this email often.
1 Samuel 1:26-28 – 26 And she said, “Oh, my lord! As you live, my lord, I am the woman who was standing here in your presence, praying to the Lord. 27 For this child I prayed; and the Lord has granted me the petition that I made to him. 28 Therefore I have lent him to the Lord; as long as he lives, he is given to the Lord.”
She left him there for the Lord.
Luke 2:51-52 – 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart. 52 And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Romans 15:13 Aloha nui loa, ʻŌmea! And Merry Christmas leading to a Happy New Year – or, as we say around here, Mele Kalikimaka me ka Hauʽoli Makahiki Hou, ʻŌmea! This coming Sunday – December 26, 2021 – we celebrate The Holy Family. And what a family it was! Today we will look at a few ways we can and cannot be like them.
Let’s start with the most obvious: Joseph, Mary, and Jesus were not ordinary people. Joseph was a construction worker – perhaps primarily in carpentry – in a small village in Northern Israel called Nazareth, a community in Lower 
Galilee. Mary was a teenager, a young woman pledged to Joseph and planning on being his wife when God revealed to her that she was to be the Mother of HIS SON. Her child would be called Jesus – Yeshua – the Son of God. Jesus came into this world fully-human and fully-divine, certainly no ordinary child with that kind of family background! Joseph took on the role of protector and Prophet by being the foster father for Jesus and confirming Mary’s fiat to raise God’s only begotten Son. Only God and his angels knew this part of the story. The rest of the World did not, and that is because of all of the ways their family was like ouR families – at least, how our families should be.
One of the attributes of the Holy Family which we rarely discuss is HONOR. Mary honored God’s Sovereignty and request with her fiat. Just as a refresher, that Latin word means and immediate compliance and acknowledgment of an authoritative command or request. Mary’s reply was “Let it be done with me according to your word.” Her compliance was complete and unreserved; she held nothing back from God but rather surrendered every aspect of her life to his Will. Joseph honored God’s request to be the protector for Mary and Jesus and to live a productive life doing the work he was trained to do to provide for his small family. Mary reared and weaned her baby, washed him, changed his diapers, sang to him, taught him stories, and – together with Joseph, her chaste spouse – she Loved Jesus and showed him how to show love to others. Joseph provided food, shelter, and protection for his family. Mary cooked and cleaned for her family. Jesus learned and grew for his family, and he was obedient to his parents.
Obedience is another way we see the Holy Family is like our families. Children are to obey their parents. You’ll recall we discussed Ephesians 6:1 – 1 Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. That is echoed in Colossians 3:20 – 20 Children, obey your parents in everything, for this is your acceptable duty in the Lord. One of the earliest memories I have is of my first-grade Sunday School teacher, Mrs. Wright having us memorize Ephesians 6:1 Children, obey your parents (in the Lord), for this is right. My mom used to love to tell the story of the first time I recited this verse in her class. When I said it, it came out, “Children, obey your parents in the Lord for Mrs. Wright.”
Honor and obedience are clearly attributes that are important to God. Think of the Ten Commandments (Hebrew mitsvah commands, ordinances). The first three teach us how to love and respect God who reveals himself to us in the ways we commune with him. The Fourth Commandment begins a “package” of 7 additional commandments about how we are to live in ways that convey the virtue of charity – Love – in our relationships with others. Commandments 1 – 3 are about Loving and serving God while commandments 4 – 10 are about loving and serving one another. Looking back at Ephesians 6, verses 2-3 say 2 “Honor your father and mother”—this is the first commandment with a promise: 3 “so that it may be well with you and you may live long on the earth.” What does that mean, “the first commandment with a promise?” It refers back to Deuteronomy 5:16 – 16 Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God commanded you, so that your days may be long and that it may go well with you in the land that the Lord your God is giving you. There are actually three promises there – long life, success, and the Lands promised to Abraham for a permanent dwelling place. Ah, but there’s where things go a bit awry. The Hebrews – later knows as Israel – were to KEEP the Ten Commandments and to be “a light to the nations.” As we well know, they failed at that repeatedly; nonetheless God treated them fairly, with discipline and forgiveness.
Here we see another way God intends for us to live as families – fairly with discipline (which differs from punishment) and lovingly with forgiveness. I submit that it is impossible to be fair in discipline without honor and obedience from the children for their parents and honor and devotion from the parents for their children. A family cannot do the work of “being family” without those connections of respect, Love, honor, and obedience. Now, this brings us to what I hope will be a vast difference between the Holy Family and our families: Respect.
One of my pet peeves is the adage “Respect must be earned.” I vehemently object to that. If it were true that respect could be earned, that makes it a commodity that can be bought and sold, traded for or denied. “No,” I say, genuine respect must be a Gift that is always available to everyone we love (remember that included enemies and persecutors). If the Gift of Respect is received, it is automatically returned by the adage “Respect the Giver by Accepting the Gift.” In what way is that markedly different in the Holy Family? I don’t think anyone has ever pictured Jesus as a smart-mouthed teenager showing his parents disrespect by lying to them, stealing from them, deceiving them about his activities … well, you get the picture. I am constantly amazed by videos we see of little children – kids 2-6 years; old – asked by a parent or caregiver “Did you eat the candy?” (or use the lipstick, or shave the dog or sibling) and this supposedly innocent child lies while clearly covered in chocolate, lipstick, or dog hair! Where do kids learn that? From their parents? Probably not (although the “naughty words” kids know are most like from parents or older siblings). This is the result, I am convinced, of Original Sin, and even when a child has been baptized, that propensity for sin remains – in our families, but not in the Holy Family. They were AND ARE HOLY. We may aspire to be like Jesus, but we cannot be Jesus for our parents; and our parents cannot be Joseph and Mary. We are all imperfect. The Holy Family was not.
BUT WE CAN BE BETTER AS PARENTS AND CHILDREN! How do we start, and more importantly, how do we keep it going? Can we give our lives to God as completely as Mary did? (↔ Music Link)
Honor, Obedience, Respect, Trust, Discipline, and Knowledge. All of these traits, these Virtues, are learned. God teaches them to us through his Commandments, his Messengers the Prophets and Judges, and through his Word, the B.I.B.L.E. Parents need to learn and model these. Ideally, those who are parents now should have learned that from their parents. If you look around these days, that clearly has not happened as extensively as necessary. Parents have the responsibility of being the first teachers of their children and this cannot and should not be pawned off on school teachers, Sunday School teachers, Scout Masters, or even Priests and Religious. It is the PARENTS’ role, and that requires a Mom and a Dad in a traditional family who keep these virtues alive in their own hearts.
You see, it’s all in the family – as God has always intended!! These days we have substituted artificial virtues like “inclusion” and “love is always love.” I’ve spoken before about including unrepentant rebels in our fellowship as Church including people who are obviously, publicly, and unrepentantly living in grave sin. We have refused to humble ourselves, to love justice and mercy, and to serve one another, preferring instead to serve our selves. “Trust your heart,” we say. FALSE!! Trust Jesus!! The outcomes are much better!
It’s All In The Family because God created and ordained family life as part of the Natural Law that all earthlings can observe and accept – free will in action again. Check out 2148AFC120321 – Are. You. READY? again. Just click on that link and find the paragraph that starts with “God created everything.” The entirety of Creation follows ONE Law – God’s Law, and that’s a whole lot more than the Ten Commandments. It’s everything from quarks to strings to dark matter and black holes to stars and galaxies with solar systems that support planets and living creatures. That is the Glory of God! (↔ Music Link) In my mind I keep returning to that quote from C. S. Lewis – “A man can no more diminish God’s glory by refusing to worship Him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word, ‘darkness’ on the walls of his cell.” Saying that “love is always love,” and “inclusion'” extends to the flagrantly unrepentant professed Christians is in the same category: It is cuckoo. If you look at the mess our World is in right now, nearly all of it comes from failing to respect God and each other.
The “Human Family” is not the World Family. True Family is – we repeat – created and ordained by God. Any counterfeit model of God’s plan is simply a failure to live with Honor, Obedience, Respect, Trust, Discipline, and Knowledge. For that last objective in the goal of “Living As God Commands,” I refer you to the passage below which we have seen in parts throughout 2021. So, do we just give up on these people, abandon them? Of course we would never stop witnessing to them by living as God ordains, and we will always evangelize to them, but if they choose to ignore all the evidence, what do we do? We do what God does. I’d ask you to look at Romans 1:16-32. (↔ Click Link) The whole text will be in the online version of this post, but you can get there quickly by using this link. God has set an example for us. Honestly I’m too chicken to ignore that example because I can see where it leads. REPENT AND BELIEVE THE GOSPEL!
ʻŌmea, It’s All In The Family if the Family is ALL in God. Remember, “Where you sit depends on where you stand,” so Stand On The Promises! (↔ Music Link)
Whatever, whenever, wherever, whoever, however, if ever, forever —
at your service, Belovéd!
Please pray with us here at Share-a-Prayer.
Unless otherwise indicated, all scripture passages are from the New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE) New Revised Standard Version Bible: Catholic Edition, copyright © 1989, 1993 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Biblical languages inserts from Bible Hub (Bible Hub: Search, Read, Study the Bible in Many Languages) Visit at http://biblehub.com
Aloha Friday Messages by Charles O. Todd, III is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
Special information for online readers:
As Promised, here is the passage from Romans:
Romans 1:16-32 – The Power of the Gospel
16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel; it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who has faith, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. 17 For in it the righteousness of God is revealed through faith for faith; as it is written, “The one who is righteous will live by faith.”
The Guilt of Humankind
18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and wickedness of those who by their wickedness suppress the truth. 19 For what can be known about God is plain to them, because God has shown it to them. 20 Ever since the creation of the world his eternal power and divine nature, invisible though they are, have been understood and seen through the things he has made. So they are without excuse; 21 for though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their senseless minds were darkened. 22 Claiming to be wise, they became fools; 23 and they exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images resembling a mortal human being or birds or four-footed animals or reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the degrading of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.
26 For this reason God gave them up to degrading passions. Their women exchanged natural intercourse for unnatural, 27 and in the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind and to things that should not be done. 29 They were filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, craftiness, they are gossips, 30 slanderers, God-haters, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, rebellious toward parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 They know God’s decree, that those who practice such things deserve to die—yet they not only do them but even applaud others who practice them.
New Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (NRSVCE)
Scary stuff indeed!!
