Family? Why Bother?

Recently one of my friends posted an update on facebook that went like this. “Bachelors know more about women than married men... if they didn’t they would be married too.” This update had a riotous response with many youths agreeing and liking it. If one does a small research, the domain of internet is flooded with jokes on marriages and family. In a small opinion poll done in one of the private channels in India, 93% youths believed that marriage and family are outdated institutions that have no contemporary relevance. This research is not representative of a trend but it definitely shows a growing disillusionment among the youths about family and marriage.

Today we live in an age of media explosion where we have a culture that believes what is spectacular, fast and furious, profitable and instant is the best. And so the concept of family seems ‘uncool’ and something that one wishes was extinct as the dinosaurs. Today we have much more profitable ideas like ‘live-ins’ and ‘open relationships’ that seems so profitable that the entire idea of family is tedious and constricting. Today it has become a cliché that this generation is ‘commitment phobic.’ But this is not without rationale. Mike Zagger, a family counsellor says that today’s generation gets its ideas about love and relationships from movies, novels, sitcoms and pornography. Love is about being perfect, looking attractive, being trendy, spectacular, and successful and being great and magical in the bed. Such expectations have only led to further disillusionment. One of my friends, who is a lawyer spoke something profound. He told me “You know today the divorce reasons are insane. 75% of divorce reasons these days explicitly or implicitly are sexual. I don’t know if marriage is made in heaven or not, but what I see, I am forced to believe that this generation believes that marriages are made in bed.” This may be a very crass observation but we cannot deny it. Media today has succeeded in making us sexualized objects and made us believe that we are worth it. Gratification of desires is more important than fellowship, sacrifice and companionship. The words of the bible about love look alien and archaic. Let’s look at it closely.  1 Corinthians 13: 4-8 says “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Why have we travelled so far as to become so muddled up and confused? Why has Love become such a used and abused and hollow word?

Text: Matthew 4: 1-11

Let us look at a very unusual passage to reflect on this. I would like to use Matthew 4: 1-11, that has the Temptations of Jesus. I would like to use the offers set by the devil to illustrate our trouble with relationships.

a)      “…tell these stones to become bread.” (Matthew 4:3b) this is the offer we have in our lives that has become central to how we approach family and relationships. The central line is, Devil is saying, “Jesus, you are hungry, tell these stones to become bread and satisfy your hunger.”  ‘Gratify your desires’ is the greatest Mantra we live by. ‘Everything that you desire can be fulfilled’ is the promise we love the most. The market throws up so many commodities in this direction, that human relations too have become commodified. One gets into a relation to gratify his or her desires. It is “I” who is important and so to satisfy my desires I need someone. This utilitarian principle of relationship wrecks the idea of relationship. I met a teenager who told me “I have had 18 girlfriends”. I looked at him in disbelief. He further said “I believe in the ‘Use and throw’ policy.” Sacrifice, companionship, growing together, sound ridiculous and outdated. If the basis of any relationship is gratification, then that relationship sure comes with a manufacturing date along with the expiry date. It is hardly shocking that the reasons for divorce are as trivial as “she used my toothbrush to brush.”

b)      “If you are the Son of God, jump off.......” (Matthew 4:6a) The grave desire that one needs to prove himself or herself. We live in times where proving yourself is mandatory. Doing something spectacular is compulsory. “Prove your love for me” is explicit and implicit in a relationship. I had a friend who came to college having shaved his head. Asking him the reason for this unfortunate spectacle he said “My Girlfriend wanted me to prove my love by doing this.” This may seem a very poor example but what I am trying to highlight is, repeated demands of proving oneself has become a key to our way of life. Doing the mundane has no joy. It is boring. Only things that are spectacular and catch the eye is worth it. a youth in Goa waved a banner “Michelle, I Love you, will you marry me?”, while doing bungee jumping and his girl was all teary eyed and told the local youth channel, ever ready to catch such trivias, “I am sure he loves me. I am so touched and he has proven his love for me.” I am not generalizing but there is a temptation to make your love a display. I have heard friends say that “My girl is a trophy, wherever we go, we turn heads.” Relationships have been reduced to become a display, so much so that values like nurturing a relationship, being patient, encouraging each other have become irrelevant.

c)      “……..if you will only kneel down and worship me.” Matthew 4:9b. Today God has vanished from the vocabulary and reality of youths. Seeking the Will of God in a relationship sounds queer. When elders advice “Pray that God gives u a good partner”, it sounds like a voice from the Stone-Age. The visible world today has become our object of worship. The offers of the market are tangible and we trust it to redeem us. We worship role models who are perfect and sculpted. Brangelina (I am sure that I do not need to explain it is a lingo for Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie) is the dream life one could lead. We are today sold the Dream of a “Perfect life.” We worship this dream and all that the world has to offer. But we realize that “Perfect life” is a just a lie, an advertisement that has cheated too many. As G.K. Chesterton said very well “The Problem of God going away from the centre of our life is not we do not believe. The problem is that we believe in anything and everything.” This statement could not be truer. Today, youths are sold anything and they believe it and worship it. As the Devil promised Jesus that “I will give it all to you… if you will only kneel down and worship me”, today the media, the movies, the ads, the novels are selling you the same offer about relationship. Beauty, sex, cars, mansions and a good life is offered only “……if you will only kneel down and worship me.”

We need to realize it is the purpose of God that creation discerns and worships its Creator, not in Isolation, but in relationships. As Genesis 1:27 says “So God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” And Genesis 2:18 says ‘Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.” Family is the microcosm of God’s purpose of salvation, and history is the macrocosm, and if family collapses, history collapses. We today are witnessing a dramatic collapse of family which is shocking. Marriage is very central to the vision of the Bible. Jesus is portrayed as a Bridegroom and the Church as the Bride. Even in the Mar Thoma marriage liturgy the over-riding metaphor is the metaphor stated above.

Let me explain with three passages that counters the temptations stated above.

a)      If anyone would come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me. Luke 9:23. When the World urges you to gratify your desires, Jesus is asking you to deny yourself. What does he mean by that? If we delude ourselves that we are the most important people and all our desires have to be fulfilled, we accept that we do not need a relationship. We are self sufficient and only our desires have to be fulfilled. Jesus is aware of this temptation of believing that the World means “I, me and Myself.” That is why he says if one wants to do the will of God he has to deny himself, go beyond his desires, and be ready for companionship and in a relationship of nurturing each other. Only if we deny ourselves would we look at a life beyond fulfilling desires and strive for something long lasting. God asked the first family not to be successful but “Be fruitful and multiply…..” (Gen 1:28). The key word here is fruitful life, where the tree itself never gets to taste its fruit but endures the weather so that people and birds enjoy the fruit. We are called to be in relationships so that we can be fruitful where we have to sacrifice our desires and ambitions, but the fruits of this relationship will be a blessing and witness to many.  Abraham and Sarah were called out of their comfort zones of a settled life of Ur to go out where God was leading them. Through them as a family God promised a great nation. Out of the barrenness of Sarah, got brought about a great nation. Family is very important to God’s plan and that is why in our churches we do not have individual membership, but we have family membership.

b)      “The Lord will fight for you, you need only to be still” (Exodus 14: 14). God asks us to be still. To be quiet, to be peaceful. In a world that asks us to prove ourselves, to display our worth, relationships that need extraordinary acts as a testimony to prove fidelity and love, God asks us to be Still. He is the one who ‘Out of the silence of Chaos, created the Music of creation.’ Prayer is integral to relationships and family life. This stillness is not about being passive, but waiting upon the Lord, being still. The moments of stillness in prayer prepares a family to be ready for the challenges of a society that has forgotten what is peace and harmony. In a world that says “Seeing is believing”, we need to affirm what Paul says to the Church of Corinth “because we look not at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen; for what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:18). This is a central biblical truth. We are chasing the wind after the ‘seen’, which is transient and temporary. Beauty, sex, social status and displays are the ‘seen’ that we chase after. Love, companionship, sacrifice, commitment, dedication are the ‘unseen’, that is eternal that needs the stillness of prayers, the willingness to wait upon the Will of God. As Rev Sam Koshy T. says “We, in the midst of noise and sound, need to expand our capacity for silence and stillness. Only our relation with God can help us to strive for the unseen and the eternal. Family and relationship is our journey towards Eternity.

c)      So Moses and Aaron were brought back to Pharaoh, and he said to them, “Go, worship the Lord your God! But which ones are to go?”  Moses said, “We will go with our young and our old; we will go with our sons and daughters and with our flocks and herds, because we have the Lord’s festival to celebrate.” (Exodus 10: 8,9). This statement of Moses is an answer to the offer of the World “……..if you will only kneel down and worship me.” Worship induces wonder and awe in our Life and this has to be done with the family. We may ask what do we get if we worship, why should we go to church? God is worthy of worship and worship induces wonder and awe in our lives that gives us perspective and a proper orientation to view relationships and life. A family is formed when everyone, young and old, sons and daughters go and Worship the Lord. The relationship with the Church is very integral to a family. As infants are Baptised in Mar Thoma Church, it believes that faith is not private and individual. Faith is formed in a community where family is the nucleus. So Worship has to be done in a community where the family is the nucleus. Family that compromises on worship risks in dealing with only the ‘seen’ and transient. Worship gives us the hope of waiting for the ‘Unseen and eternal.’ A family that worships will see life beyond just living pragmatically. In a world that fears to see a tomorrow, worship prepares us for eternity.

In a time when everybody around has started to celebrate the ‘Death of the family’, we have to rise and as youths challenge the values promoted by globalization and media. Are we ready to think beyond ourselves, to deny, building relations and family that God ordained as the nucleus of creation? In a restless world of displays and spectacles are we ready to be still, to pray, to wait for the ‘unseen’? In a world of demigods and self proclaimed saviours, a market that offers everything that we need if we worship it, are we ready to worship the Creator, with the young and old, with  sons and daughters, with devotion, and dedication? May the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit enable you to answer the questions life throws at you with reverence, awe, wonder and submission. May God Bless us all.