God heard the cry of the child

The big event of this week in NZ was, as I see it, the People's Report of the Glenn Inquiry¹ into child abuse and domestic violence. We might appear a peaceful and civilised country, but I think we are all aware of the reality. Not only has our society been built on violent acts in the past, it is maintained by a culture of fear (or its cousin in camouflage anxiety) that has us seeking the security of powerful friends. But even deeper is the absence of peace and well-being in many homes. Too many children and adults think their experience is “normal”. This week the focus in the Bible readings just happens to be fair and square on the way this disease pervade family culture.

Talk “violence” and many of us likely pull back and think, that's not my experience. A majority feeling can pervade, even without us speaking our thoughts, and those who do know it get silenced. By the way, the report speaks of abuse and violence that is physical, sexual, emotional and psychological, and financial. Manipulation and control in many forms. We must not pull back from it, and let issues like Labour party leadership become more important until something else distracts us, because it concerns people among us. It is “us”, not just “them”. Even more so because at root there is a culture, an attitude that I'm not sure any of us can feel free of: the culture of blame. If something is wrong, the mainstream response is to go for the one who is to blame. That, apparently, is how you sort it. Really? Blame, then punish, and it's over?

No, do that and the cycle continues.

Today's Bible readings really can clarify our purpose – two readings about family. In them are human actions and consequences; God's response and God's way of dealing with issues; and the harder way Jesus leads us on to build life not on power and control but on kingdom values. Put bluntly, Jesus condemns the idolatry of family.

Family Conflict: an ancient example – the story in Genesis 21:8-21

In the background is the promise to Abraham that he, with his wife Sarah, will be tupuna for a great nation. They believe the promise but they are old, and Sarah has not been blessed with a child. So Sarah understandably thinks this is a situation to take initiative and arranges for a surrogate child by her maid, Hagar. Her son, Ishmael, grows strong and Sarah and Hagar's formerly close relationship is disturbed, as happens – you can't really blame anyone. Then Sarah herself carries a child to term and Isaac is born.

Trouble escalates. What if Hagar's son takes precedence as Abraham's first born? This must not happen, thinks Sarah, for God's promise is to her and Abraham. She has to do something (initiative again) to help keep things on track. So she asks Abraham to send Hagar and the child away, effectively a death sentence to be shut off from community support.

For Abraham it was no trouble to have both sons and both women in his life, but Sarah is his official wife, so he must do as she asks. He supplies Hagar with food and water and sends her into the wilderness.

When the water runs out, Hagar cannot bear to see her child suffer. She leaves him under a bush and sits down a distance away from him where “she lifts up her voice and weeps”.

God hears the boy's crying and sends a messenger to Hagar who tells her that God has heard the boy “where he is” – right there in worst suffering. She is to raise him with care, for through him also Abraham will be tupuna of a great nation. When she opens her eyes, she sees a spring: their life continues. As the text says: “God was with the boy...”

We say family is the basis of society. The wisdom of the Tanakh, which we so foolishly call the Old Testament, tells us that family is where violence and blame begin... Adam blames Eve. Cain kills Abel. And Lamech takes the violence further.... (Genesis 4:19-24) The violence escalates.

Andrew Prior, http://harestreetunitingchurch.org.au/the-work-of-easter-is-begun---matthew-10-24-39.html

Abraham's family is a continuation of this. The disharmony that had come into family life with the birth of one son and then of the second son was to be sorted by punishing the cause of the problem. If Hagar hadn't been so confident, blossoming in the role of motherhood, if she'd kept her place as a household slave, then there wouldn't have been a problem. She's to blame; send her away.

Abraham buys into that: he knows no option. Keep the peace of the family, keep the honour of the family, and don't show any weakness that will make the household vulnerable to others.

So much manipulation, control tactics, and bullying happens in the cause of keeping the peace. Focus on who's to blame; find a scapegoat for the problem and work from that. What we do next probably depends on our personality type: confront or withdraw, challenge or pacify, all to deal to the so-called “problem person” but ignoring the real sickness – the relationship between the people.

Not peace but a sword

In the Gospel reading for today we hear these challenging words from Jesus:

‘Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth; I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.
For I have come to set a man against his father,
and a daughter against her mother,
and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law;
and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household. 

Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. (Matthew 10:34-39)  

Eugene Peterson begins verse 34 of Matthew 10: “Don't think I've come to make life cozy.” Brokenness in relationships cannot be fixed by making things comfortable and nice. Like a broken leg, what's needed first is traction – pulling it apart. Jesus is speaking this hard truth about relationships, starting at the core in family relationships. And he is showing us how to do it.

In conventional terms, Jesus' society was held together by the dynamics of family honour and shame. In many ways that is still the same for us. “Family values”, “family first”, as a society we come close to treating family as our ultimate concern, our god. Jesus is saying, no, that's not the real ultimate concern. God is, and to be on track with that we need to commit to Jesus. What really holds life together is the way he shows us – the way of the cross.

Andrew Prior proposes an extra verse for our first song:

When the crowds at the cross have gone home
When the stone is rolled from the tomb
When the Lord has come among you and you have seen his wounds
The work of Easter is begun.

Prior continues:

Jesus' refusal to reply to our violence with violence, but replying with forgiveness, is the decisive breaking of such cycles. It is the work of Easter. Look again at the words in that song.

To find the lonely and the lost,
To heal their brokens soul with love,
To feed the hungry children with warmth and good food,
To feel the earth below the sky above!

To free the prisoner from all chains,
To make the powerful care,
To rebuild the nations with strength and goodwill,
To be at one with people everywhere.

Andrew Prior, http://harestreetunitingchurch.org.au/the-work-of-easter-is-begun---matthew-10-24-39.html

Section 2 of the People's Report, on what is working well in our country's government and non-government systems, documents things that fit well with these two verses, for example:

genuine, non-judgmental people

helpful services

agencies collaborating

teachers alert to troubled children and believing them

victim-focussed police response

“There is so much power in just being heard, listened to, believed, and not judged.”² There is so much damage in labelling, acting on assumptions, and overall ignorance of the nature and impact of child abuse and domestic violence.

The section on what is not working is much longer but ideas for change that follow give good direction. The way forward is whole system, whole country, change. All of us seeing things differently, all of us leaving behind the impulse to blame. To break the cycle of abuse, and at all times for us to break the cycle of troubled relationships, we need to break the habit of making blame and punishment the solution.

For us as Christians we have the pattern to follow to do this – the Light of the World. Remember Jesus' key word forgiveness. It is the perfect antidote to the blame impulse, which is my strongest argument for keeping working on it.

For the goal is well-being. The way forward to that is healing, not condemnation.

1https://glenninquiry.org.nz/the-peoples-report

2The People's Report, p.110