I may not have kids, but I love the Disney Pixar films. What’s not to love about Dori, the fish with no short term memory voiced by Ellen Degeneres in Finding Nemo? Though other movies have had better tie-ins and marketing, I believe Meet the Robinsons is the real masterpiece of the series. And what’s not to love about Dori, the fish with no short term memory voiced by Ellen Degeneres in Finding Nemo?
As much as I love Pixar, I find it just a tiny bit tragic that for future generations, the words “Hey, Boo†will only be heard in the voice of John Goodman as Sully, the furry blue beast of Monsters Inc. For me, and for several generations of Americans who were educated before the tyranny of standardized testing, “Hey, Boo†is meant to be heard in the Southern accent of one Jean Louise Finch, sometimes called Scout. She is, of course, the narrator of Harper Lee’s American classic To Kill a Mockingbird. Most of us have read it, and if you haven’t, well, I can’t recommend it highly enough.
Though Gregory Peck’s performance in the film version is legendary, the limits of that medium and our own fragile memories have for many of us reduced the narrative to the trial of Tom Robinson, an innocent black man that could not receive a fair trial in the Jim Crow South. But that affair does not begin until the second part of the book, the third summer. To Kill a Mockingbird is a classic bildungsroman, a coming-of-age tale. And it is a story of families, for you cannot write the story of a small Southern town without writing about families. Scout, our narrator, daughter of the novel’s protagonist, is a little girl with a father who married late and a mother who died young. The antagonist presides over another motherless clan, the Ewells, ruling his tribe from the other side of the town dump. Dill Harris, drawn from the real life visits of the boy Truman Capote, is from a broken family, and he is sent to stay with a spinster aunt during the summer. The stories of the families may be played out in the courage and righteousness of Atticus, in the cantankerous Miss Dubose, but they are family stories, every bit as much as those of Faulkner or Salinger.
Or scripture. For family is at the heart of the Hebrew understanding of self. The ancient Hebrews were a people who viewed themselves as several tribes descended from one tribe. Like the residents of Maycomb, Alabama in Harper Lee’s novel, the residents of the Biblical narrative are all kin. And what kin they are. There is nothing you could put on the few soap operas that are left that cannot be found in the Hebrew scriptures. Let us start with today’s scripture reading. The ability of mothers to inflict guilt on their children is well known, but I have it on good authority that this is because mothers spend much of their time stewing in their own guilt, like the prohibited suckling in its mother’s milk. Mothers apparently are convinced that they failed somewhere, somehow, and that is why their child is sick, got a divorce, drinks too much, etc. Well ladies, no matter what you might think you have done or failed to do, you look great compared to Rebekah. She has twin boys, Esau and Jacob, but they are not identical, and she prefers Jacob, the prettier one. When they are grown, and their blind father is preparing to pass on the rights of property and authority to Esau, the firstborn twin, she convinces Jacob to steal that blessing. She lies and cheats and deprives one of her own children of what is rightfully his… With a mother like this…
Of course, scripture also gives us bad fathers and bad children. David’s household was a wreck, but then, given his behavior, who could be surprised? This is the great leader who entered a special covenant with God? This is the source of the Christian claim that Jesus is king? And he cried out “Absalom, Absalom, my son!â€
And speaking of Jesus, he’s no help when it comes to how to run our families. He is so urgent in his task to announce the in-breaking of the kingdom of God that he advises his followers to abandon their families, and makes clear that his message will cause families to split. Thanks pal!
We have biblical rules of course. Some aren’t very helpful. For example, scripture describes the conditions under which a child can be taken out into the street and stoned. Few would live past puberty if that was still the prevailing practice. Scripture provides instructions on selling your daughter. Even the rule we’d like to agree on, honor your parents, which is lifted to the status of commandment, misses the mark when the parents are abusive.
Our news is filled with screwed up families. We may never know if Woody Allen is a child molester, but we can say with certainty that from his son Ronan’s perspective, his father left his mother to marry his sister. That is if we believe Ronan is his son. Then there is Donald Sterling. Yes, he’s a racist, but that’s not exactly news given he and his wive’s discriminatory practices as landlords. So his girlfriend recorded him making racist statements? So what?
Now wait a cotton-picking minute. Sterling’s girlfriend? Who his wife is suing? Who, it turns out, is the second younger female companion the Sterlings have sued. I am as outraged as everyone else that he is a racist owner of an entertainment company that derives much of its employees and customers from the African-American community. But where is the outrage that he is an unrepentant adulterer?
So, you know, maybe your family doesn’t suck quite as much as you might think. There may be fights and splits, but hey, you look good next to Rebekah, king David, Woody Allen…
The problem is, families are made up of humans, and we know we are imperfect creatures, cauldrons of fear and lust and love and transcendence. And when we get together, the awesome is squared, but so is the oops. And families have all of these messy people in them. Oops to the fifth power. So you’re family probably not Ozzie and Harriet, or Mike and Carol, or even Mitchell and Cam. So get over it already. Stop judging yourself by the absurd models of feel-good sitcoms.
Your family of origin is a matter of luck, be it good or bad. We assemble other families along the way. Like that brother-in-law that has told the same inappropriate story in front of the kids every New Year’s Eve for 17 years in a row. And speaking of kids, partners and kids are family of our making. Many LGBT folks, shunned by their families of origin, do their best to create substitute families. But who are we kidding? That voice you hear in your head is mom or dad, and that judgment that haunts you is whether you measure up to the expectations that were woven into you while you were still half-grown.
What is your relationship with your family? Love? Hate? Both? Probably. And what would Jesus have us do about it? We’re going to have to look past the “Kingdom is coming!†Jesus to get an answer. And it turns out not to be so complicated.
Jesus says forgive if you wish God to forgive you. Now, forgiving doesn’t mean turning yourself into a victim. It does not mean staying in an abusive relationship because the abuser has apologized. We can debate what Jesus meant when he said turn the other cheek, but I’m not sure it means choose masochism. But it does mean that you cannot carry the poison of anger, hatred and resentment in your heart, for it will eat you alive. No one will be served by dwelling on old hurts. They’ll just take new forms and hurt the innocent ones you love, a guarantee that the sins of the fathers and mothers will indeed be passed to the daughters and sons. It has to stop somewhere.
So you must first forgive. And for some of you, that means forgiving someone who is dead. Not easy, but you still have to do it.
You also are obligated to provide care for the vulnerable. Many of you do. Some of you will have to. Some have turned the corner and need the care of others. That circle of care usually starts and ends with family. Jesus says feed them if they are hungry. Bathe their wounds. Give them shelter. And, again, it isn’t always easy. My father may have been feeble, but he still knew how to push my buttons. After all, he installed them. Jesus tells us there is even more reward in caring for strangers, that even sinners care for their own families. But this is the “plus one†built into Jesus’ teachings. Jesus always starts with the presumed and then expands it. And though he gives us that whole “ditch your family and announce the good news†spiel, he still makes provisions for his mother’s care as he is dying on the cross…
Love, the greatest commandment. Forgive. Care. That’s it. Not complicated. Families are sometimes hurtful, sometimes crazy, sometimes an amazing blessing, just like everything in this life. Everything in this messy, blessed life. Sometimes, to save your son, you’ll have to face sharks with your forgetful fish pal. Sometimes you’ll have to travel through time. Sometimes you’ll have to do the right thing, as hard as it is, as unpopular as it is, because it will build a better world for your family. And sometimes you’ll have to face sharks with your forgetful fish pal. May it ever be so.