Preached at Croydon Minster on the Fourth Sunday of Lent (Mothering Sunday). Readings Colossians 3.12-17; John 19.25b-27
And
from that hour the disciple took [Mary] into his own home. John 19.27b
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One
particular family has been very much in the news these past few days.
The
pain, misunderstanding and hurt within the Royal Family has led the news
bulletins and been the subject of a tremendous amount of speculation,
misinformation and judgement.
I
do not propose to add to that. Like all of us, I am not on the inside and
cannot judge different claims to the truth being articulated. What we can all
do is pray for those at the heart of this very public storm, whether we
associate ourselves with one side or the other.
On
this Mothering Sunday we might usefully reflect on the nature of family, not
just the royals, and also a word that sounded quite old-fashioned until the
last twelve months and that is ‘household’.
The
New Testament has a word that can be translated as ‘family’ or as ‘household’
depending on the context. The Greek word is οἶκος (oikos). From that comes
the word οἰκουμένη (oikoumene), from which we get the word
‘ecumenical’, which is about life in the global household or family of the church.
So
let’s look at the two words.
Talk
of family can sound quite nostalgic. For some it evokes warm feelings of
comfort, safety and belonging where one is most free to be oneself; for others,
it evokes feelings of fear, abuse or trauma where one is totally trapped.
That
means if we talk about the church ‘family’ it will trigger in different people
different associations. For some to know the church as family is profoundly
reassuring, and for others profoundly frightening and potentially excluding.
The
model of family that the church offers to us is as a place of mutual love,
compassion, forgiveness, reconciliation, united in prayer and service of one
another.
This
is a generous vision; and it is a challenge! The Christian family, at all
levels, is a community where children and
adults are nurtured in the ways of faith, hope and love.
And
that can be hard as personalities grow and assert themselves. How that is
handled is what family life is about, and doing it well shapes the wider
community.
The
word ‘household’ has come back into more widespread use in the pandemic, when
rules have been applied about what ‘households’ can and can’t do. I realise I
rarely used the word before the pandemic, except perhaps in reference to ‘The
Royal Household’, which sounds very grand.
That
said, in the Ordinal, the form of service to ordain priests the person to be
ordained priest is asked, ‘Will you endeavour to fashion your own life and that
of your household according to the
way of Christ, that you may be a pattern and example to Christ’s people?
A
household implies a gathering of people who may, or may not, be related
biologically, but share a life in common and almost certainly at the heart of
it eat together as companions.
In
that way the church is also well described as the ‘household of faith’
(Galatians 6.10); people drawn together to live a life in common, as family or
community of prayer and breaking bread together.
Just
read the letters to the young churches in the New Testament and all the time the
likes of St Paul are sometimes encouraging, sometimes cajoling, them to be
households of reconciliation, mutual love and service. As St Paul puts it to
the Colossians in our first reading today,
Clothe
yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bear
with one another and, if anyone has a complaint against another, forgive each
other; just as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. (Colossians
3.12-13)
That
is what the Christian οἶκος
is all about. This is the vision Christian families and households, churches
and communities draw from. Sometimes we get it all spectacularly wrong; and
sometimes gloriously right.
This
began with the formation of an οἶκος
by Jesus himself from the cross. His blessed Mother Mary and the Beloved
Disciple were not blood relatives or biologically connected, but they are
invited into a relationship that forms the first οἶκος of faith. Their life comes from
the water and blood flowing from the side of Christ.
To
Mary he says, ‘here is your son’ and to the Beloved Disciple he says ‘here is the mother’ (cf Greek text Ἴδε ἡ μήτηρ σου). Mary becomes the mother of the
Christian family, the Christian household, to shape us as servants of the will
of God as she is. And today we give thanks and pray for mothers who mirror that
life of Mary in Nazareth and later with the Beloved Disciple shaping a
household and family of faith.
The
Christian οἶκος
is most itself when it stands patiently with each other, brothers and sisters,
at the foot of the Cross of Christ. It is best revealed when people of every
tribe, language and nation stand together and dwell together within the same
household, the household of faith, into which we are baptised.
May
our life together, as the household of faith in this place, be an example of reconciling
love, mutual trust, ‘devoted to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the
breaking of bread and the prayers’. (cf Acts 2.42)
