Follow-up Archive

January 17, 2007

Sharing the Faith with Family Members
by Rev. Joe Cox

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Eclectic? Yea, you could say that. If the members of my extended family were to each place a religious symbol on the family Christmas tree, eclectic would be one way to describe it. I would have to contribute my Luther's Seal Christmas bulb-straight from Bronner's CHRISTmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Michigan. Perhaps that's a bit parochial, but not necessarily strange. Surely there would be some Santa Clauses from the agnostics in the family. Perhaps envelopes of money would be donated by those whose God dresses in the color green. And no doubt I would even find a tiny pyramid and even a Native American dream catcher dangling on the tree from the New Agers in our midst. If you think the family tree would look strange-just imagine the conversations. During one Christmas the conversation turned toward the nature of salvation. Consensus was reached rather quickly that one need not be Lutheran to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. But then my uncle chimed in, ".or even Christian for that matter." To which a non-LCMS Lutheran family member readily agreed: "Well, yea right." There I was, lying on the couch; perhaps there had never before been such a prime moment to take up the question of the unique nature of the salvation offered by the Bethlehem Babe. After all, I was a seminarian; I had studied this stuff and I knew all the correct theological responses about Jesus and the salvation offered through Him alone. Promptly I sat up, placed both feet on the floor, and bolted for the next room to go get some hot apple cider. It took about a half hour to fill my cup and when I came back somebody had already slipped "It's a Wonderful Life" into the VCR. Maybe Clarence the soon-to-be-an-angel could set them straight.

It was early in Christ's ministry when he came to share the Torah with his own relatives and life-long friends in Nazareth. Though the Messiah stood before them with God's word in his hands, they couldn't see the truth. All they saw was Joseph and Mary's kid: "Isn't this the carpenter's son?" Eyebrows rose. "Isn't his mother's name Mary," the older women sucked in a little air remembering a certain unwed teenage mother from about thirty years ago. ".aren't his brothers James, Joseph, Simon and Judas? Aren't all his sisters with us?" Family members start shifting in their seats. "And they took offense at him." How Jesus' heart must've broken to look upon these people he'd known for a lifetime and see the rejection in their eyes. "But Jesus said to them, 'Only in his hometown and in his own house is a prophet without honor'" (Check out the whole story in Matthew 13: 53-58).

Christmas time, they say, is the time of holiday cheer and family stress. It's a paradoxical time when the line between a national holiday and a religious holy day are blurred from the lawn of the city hall to the greeter at Wal-Mart. It's a time when we look forward to family gatherings, all the while dreading spending time with the relatives. Christmas seems to be such a natural time for sharing the Gospel message of Jesus Christ with family members who don't really get "the reason for the season." But it's witnessing to those people whom you've known all your life that is oftentimes most difficult. Perhaps it is the very intensity of the relationships that makes evangelism within the family the most precarious. After all, these are the people who know you. perhaps a little too well. No matter how you strive to imitate the purity of the Christ child, they've seen you at your worst. They've seen you act foolish; would they dare listen to a sinner like you? Their rejection, even if you only experience it in their eyes, is an excruciating pain. Sometimes like the disciples, it's simply easier to run and hide oneself in a cup of hot cider than to be the cause of this year's Christmas edition of the Family Feud.

.Except we're called to more than fishing cinnamon sticks out of Grandma's snowman mugs. Paul encouraged young Timothy to not be ashamed of this message, but to suffer for it. "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline" (2 Timothy 2:7). So we brave the rejection; we risk a little alienation because in the grand scheme of things that banquet table in paradise is going to a lot lonelier without our brother or Uncle John than the extra seat at the kiddie table could ever be.

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