January 29, 2012

Glynn Cardy

Epiphany 4

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

I’ve been involved recently in a discussion about ‘family values’, a phrase popular amongst conservative Christians and the US electorate. Although many of us have received nurture from a monogamous heterosexual relationship, the desire by both politicians and preachers to give it a divine imprimatur is thwarted by the Bible.

Polygamy was normative, as were patriarchal relationships. The Bible does not know of equality between husbands and wives. The husband, unlike his wife, was quite free to have sex with any woman not belonging to another man. The husband, unlike his wife, had the power to allow life or bring death to his children, and to his slaves.

The two main characters of the New Testament, Jesus and Paul, were as far as we know unmarried; unusual for rabbis. Some wonder if they were gay. Regardless, they do not offer us models of a love, heterosexual or homosexual, grounded in mutuality and fidelity. Neither do any of the disciples, or any of the New Testament characters.

This is not to say that the ideas of mutual affection, equality in decision-making, and fidelity to one another, are opposed by the teachings of the Jesus movement. To the contrary, I see Jesus’ radical egalitarian practice and politics as highly critical and destructive of the power of the male-dominated family and society, and therefore laying the groundwork for relationships outside of patriarchy to emerge and flourish, including same-gender relationships. 

If ‘family values’ is code for ‘the man is the head of the house’, and ‘all relationships except those proscribed by a heterosexual hierarchy are damned’, then I think Jesus wouldn’t have wanted anything to do with it. His concern, indeed his vision, was around how power is used and abused, how people are marginalized by the elites on the basis of wealth, class, gender and race, and how these elites project their agenda onto God.

A key word in the New Testament is basileia, usually translated as ‘Kingdom’. It’s problematic for two reasons – king makes assumptions about the gender of the ruler, and dom assumes a geographical location. However Jesus used basileia to talk about how God exercises power, and wishes us to exercise power. Basileia is not about a person or a place, but about the processes of power.

It is difficult to read the New Testament without being aware of Jesus’ almost savage attack on family values. Consider Mark 3:31-35: “[Jesus said] Who are my mother and my brothers?... Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” Luke 11:27-28: [a woman said] “How fortunate is the womb that bore you…” But [Jesus] said, “How fortunate are those who listen to God’s teaching”. Luke 12:51-53: [Jesus said] “Do you think I come to bring peace? No… but rather division… [the family] will be divided: father against son… mother against daughter…” 

The family group, defined by bloodlines, is rejected in favour of a group that is open to all. A woman declares Mary, Jesus’ mother, blessed, presuming a woman’s greatness derives from mothering a famous son. But Jesus rejects this in favour of a blessedness open to anyone who wants it, regardless of sex, gender, infertility or maternity.

Jesus says he will bring division to families. The usual explanation of this text is that families will be divided as some accept and others refuse faith in Jesus. But notice how the separation is along generational lines – father against son, son against father, mother against daughter, etc. This attack on the family has nothing to with faith but everything to do with how power is exercised.

The family is society in miniature involving, as well as love and nurture, power and control. In 1st century Palestine power was exercised in a hierarchical, male-dominant fashion. Jesus, contrary to this, visualises a Kingdom which is open equally and accessible to all under God – breaking boundaries of class, gender, and race. It was not only the openness of this Kingdom that was important, but about how power was wielded within it. The privileges one could expect being wealthy or male, for example, did not apply. It was to be a just and equal world.

In 1893 an Italian peasant woman articulated a similar vision during the peasant uprising:

‘We want everyone to work, as we work. There should no longer be either rich or poor. All should have bread for themselves and their children. We should all be equal. I have five small children and only one little room, where we have to eat and sleep and do everything, while so many lords have ten or twelve rooms, entire palaces… It will be enough to put all in common, and share with justice what is produced." [i]

It was in the practice of dining together that Jesus and his followers exemplified this new Kingdom, and its new power arrangements. 

Consider the Maundy Thursday reading of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet [John 13:1-17]. Although it is usually expounded as an example of Jesus’ humility, it is better understood as indicating the egalitarian power relationships expected within the community of believers, and by inference the vision for the exercise of power in society as a whole. In this text Jesus, their teacher and leader, takes the role of a servant, and by doing so criticises the class divisions in both the emergent church and society generally. A task does not and should not define a person. The inherent equality of our common humanity, and humanity’s status as beloved of God, is what ultimately defines us, not the roles that we undertake or ruling elites prescribe for us.

Consider too the well-known parable of the banquet [Matt 22:1-13, Luke 14:15-24] where a person gives a presumably unannounced feast, sends a servant to invite friends, but finds late in the day that each friend has an excuse. A dinner is ready and the room is empty. So the host replaces the absent guests with anyone off the streets. But if one actually brought in anyone off the street, then classes, sexes and ranks would all be mixed up together. Dom Crossan [ii] refers to the work of anthropologists to describe the nightmare this would produce:

‘Sharing food is a transaction which involves a series of mutual obligations and which initiates an interconnected complex of mutuality and reciprocity. Eating is a behaviour which symbolizes relationships, mediates social status and power, and expresses the boundaries of group identity.’

Jesus preached by word and example equality around the table – the table exemplifying in miniature the power structure of society. Is it any wonder that his critics accused him of being a glutton and drunkard, the friend of tax-collectors and sinners, for he made no appropriate distinctions and discriminations? And since women were present, especially unmarried women, the accusation was that he ate with ‘prostitutes’ – the standard denigrating label for any woman outside of appropriate male control. Those labels of tax-collectors, sinners, prostitutes were for those, in the opinion of his critics, people with whom open and free association should be avoided.

For the poor, the ill, those ostracized and rejected by so-called ‘decent’ society this open and egalitarian vision was immensely attractive, just as it was repulsive for most that benefited from the prevailing patriarchal ‘family values’. For the ostracized and rejected the Jesus vision promised a new ‘family’, where everyone, rich or poor, male or female, slave or free, were equal siblings under God. The Jesus movement redefined ‘family’ just as it sought to redefine both power and God. Mutual affection, equality in decision-making, and fidelity to one another were worked out in the context of the new family, the community of what would be called the Church. [iii]

Unfortunately within a short space of time patriarchy found ways to subvert the Jesus vision and reclaim its power. By the time some of the epistles were being written, it was well on its way to making a come-back and the leadership of women, the critique of slavery, and the priority of redistributing wealth was under threat of being written out of the collective Christian memory.

Today we need to be careful never to sanctify any religious, social, familial or political arrangement. Church structures – like bishops, vicars, and parishes – are institutional arrangements, reflecting the desire of individuals to serve the God known in Jesus. So let’s not pretend they are in themselves holy, construed and sanctified by God. Family structures – marriages, civil unions – are societal arrangements, reflecting our culture at this time, and the desire of many to live in mutual affectionate relationships. So let’s not pretend they are envisaged and blessed in the Bible, and sanctified by God. For too long God has insidiously been used as a rubber stamp by the powerful to order society and maintain their hold on power.

Rather it is the love as defined by Jesus – radically egalitarian, mutual and loyal, hospitable and humble, threatening to hierarchical power – that is known in Scripture, and which we try to live out. It is that love which is the very nature of God.

[i] J.D. Crossan Jesus: a revolutionary biography p.78

[ii] J.D. Crossan Jesus: a revolutionary biography p.68

[iii] 1 Corinthians 13, commonly read at weddings, is in context about the love and mutual affection within the Jesus community.