The Law and The Land: Part Four

"Honor your father and your mother, so that your days may be long in the land that the Lord your God is giving you."

Exodus 20:12


When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, ‘Woman, here is your son.’ Then he said to the disciple, ‘Here is your mother.’ And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home.

John 19:26-27


Recap on the series: The Ten Commandments are not just for private morality. They're also an excellent tool to help people of faith start thinking and talking about justice and equality in our society.


The fourth commandment begins what many in the Christian tradition call the "second table" of the Ten Commandments: that is, the laws that govern human interactions with one another rather than our interactions with God.


To be honest, when I'm teaching middle school students, I spend the least amount of time by far on the Fourth Commandment, not because it isn't important, but because it's self-explanatory, and because dwelling on it too much seems to play into the (not entirely false) perception that pastors, teachers and parents have entered into a vast world-wide conspiracy against adolescents. I just don't feel like spending more than twenty minutes or so on "Hey, you whipper-snappers, you better mind your folks now, ya hear?"


But then...there's Jesus. See, Jesus had what most would call an unconventional view of family. Which is not to say he didn't love his family, or think family is important. It was just that Jesus saw the ethical laziness of which humankind was guilty: our impulse to put family first, getting twisted into an excuse not to care for the other. He saw how easily we rush to war against someone else's sons and daughters, to protect our own; how quick we are to cheat someone else's mother or father, if it's somehow on behalf of our own.


God made us with an incredibly strong bond with our family units. So strong that even if our families are really messed up, we will actually seek out messed up people to "love" us in the same dysfunctional way. What God placed in our hearts in order for us to protect and care for one another, can be twisted into just another excuse to hurt each other.


And yet, Jesus did not mean to throw the baby out with the bathwater. He didn't force his followers to cut all ties with their families. In fact, he criticized the Pharisees for doing just that: using their commitment to faith, as an excuse not to care for their earthly families. Our families should be training grounds for compassion. We should love our families, and we should take care of those whom God gives us, not because we're not responsible for anybody else, but to learn how to care for everybody else.


The social justice connection I see here is quite simple. From the cross, Jesus made a connection between two unrelated people: Mary, his mother, and the disciple whom he loves. They become family then and there, not through blood or birth, but by his word, and because they need each other. I believe Jesus says the same to us all. As we look at the millions of senior citizens living in poverty in our country, more than half of whom are women, Jesus says, "Here is your mother." When we consider the pay gap between women and men (still 78 cents on the dollar) that has barely budged in a decade, and that it's worse for women of color, Jesus says, "Here is your mother."


Your mother is poor. Your mother is a victim of discrimination. Your mother is an undocumented immigrant. Your mother is a senior citizen, living in quiet poverty. Your mother is homeless. Our family is not just those who look like us or live in our house. Our family is all the people whom we have the ability to care for, wherever we are, with little decisions we make. And yes, we can begin to honor them by honoring the family we grew up with. But in Christ, it never ends there.