“I gave thanks to the Lord that I was separated from my father,” she said. “I was comforted by his absence.”

Perpetua was a young mother with a baby barely weaned. She was also a new Christian—or, rather, almost a Christian—soon to be baptized; it was a decision which, of course, brought her pain and torment and in a short time physical death. Just a few days after her baptism, thrown in prison, she said, “I was terrified, as I had never before been in such a dark hole.” Her father couldn’t understand what was going on. He couldn’t understand why his daughter had taken such foolish steps, getting into so much trouble for an apparently silly and subversive religion. “[M]y father was so angered by the word ‘Christian,’” she said.[1] So intensely angry, he tried to cajole and intimidate his daughter out of her new faith and into some self-preserving sense. She was a brand-new mother. “[T]hink of your child,” he said, “who will not be able to live once you are gone.”[2] What was she doing putting her life at risk like this? He couldn’t understand it. He couldn’t see what motivated her to keep the faith even when it so clearly meant death. “I cannot be called anything other than what I am, a Christian,” she said.[3] He couldn’t understand it. He thought she was destroying the family. She thought she had found new life.

It’s a famous story—a bestseller in its day—the story of Perpetua and Felicity and their companions, third century African martyrs. It’s a remarkable story of faith and vision and martyrdom. It’s a story of ancient Christianity, of a time when acts of faith were often acts of life or death. And it’s a story which reminds us of the historical and sociological fact that Christianity in its most original form was understood to be something destructive, utterly subversive of the structures and institutions of society. Christians refused to recognize Caesar as Lord, for example, only Jesus.[4] They refused to participate in the imperial cult. They refused to recognize the loyalties of race because in Christ there was neither Jew nor Greek.[5] And they refused to honor unduly the bonds of the family. In fact early Christians explicitly reduced the importance of family ties. Jesus himself (who, as the gospels suggest, wasn’t on the best terms with some in his family[6]) said that his followers should leave brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, and even children behind—“for my sake and for the sake of the gospel,” he said.[7] He said there will come a time when brothers will turn on each other, children against parents too.[8] His teaching, if you look at it from one angle, was not all together family friendly. Only later have we put his more radical teachings in the shadows, tamed them a bit.

Now today we celebrate the feast of the Holy Family—which seems odd in light of the antisocial roots of our religion. Today, Christianity is thought to be the defender of “traditional family values.” At the beginning, however, we weren’t so easily identified with the good of the family—quite the opposite in fact. Today, in an age of cultural devastation and moral rearrangement, Christianity is thought to be the refuge of this embattled and antique concept of the family—of the basic good of mother and father and children, united in virtue and in love for the good of the world—a fundamental, naturally lawful good which simply to stand up for it is today to risk being called a bigot; a good which we, nonetheless, unabashedly and unashamedly hold in trust—even in the face of the hatred of an entire epoch—even against all the Twitter accounts of the enlightened. In the ancient world, however, things were rather different. Christianity was viewed as a threat to the natural bonds of the family. Christianity was, in its essence, deeply hostile to the political and moral structures of ancient society, the institution of the family included. And so it’s curious, to say the least, that we celebrate the Holy Family and under this banner all families. It’s curious that we Christians, of all people, point to the family as something sacred, something socially critically valuable.

So what are we doing? The lesson, really, is simple. It’s hard to see, but it’s simple enough. And the lesson is this: The family isn’t an end in itself; rather, the family exists for the sake of the kingdom of God and (dare I say) for the sake of the Church. The Church doesn’t exist for the sake of the family, but the other way around. The family exists to make saints for God. This is the lesson of the Holy Family. God became flesh in a family, a child obedient to his parents. He was not only the Son of God but became a Son of man, not as an end in itself but for the sake of participating in the story of Israel and the story of salvation. That is, God entered into the story of one family in order to redeem all families, making all families one family in God. This is why Christianity was thought so subversive. It taught that there were commitments greater than the commitments of family and nation. The members of the Holy Family—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—gave themselves entirely to the greater purpose of redemption. They refused to idolize themselves. That’s the lesson. The family isn’t an end in itself. The family exists for the sake of the kingdom of God, for the sake of the Church.

Now, as I said, this is hard to see, but it’s so very important. Think of it this way: if we’re seeing things clearly, we take delight in our families. I take delight in my children. I cherish every moment—even those loud, exhausted moments. Even then I could simply sit and adore them. Now in one sense, I want my kids to be kids forever. I want them to stay cute and adorable. I dread the day I come home to find them grown and gone. I don’t really want them to grow up. I like them as they are. But I know that’s not right. I know that the greater purpose of our family, the greater purpose of fatherhood, is to see to it that my little boy becomes a man; my little girls, strong women. It belongs to the genius of the family not to idolize itself but rather to commit itself to a good beyond itself. That is, the reason we have families is because families make persons that contribute to the greater good. And this greater good for which the family exists is not primarily the nation, not economic development, not the good of the tribe or the race, but rather the good of the communion of saints, the Church, the kingdom of God—the very same good for which the Holy Family was formed. This is what Simeon and Anna saw in the family of Jesus: that he was destined for the rise and fall of many, the redemption of Jerusalem.[9]

So what does this mean for us? It means we need to remember our purpose. We need to remember why we have families, why we get married and have kids. And it means we need to act on that purpose. We don’t have families to prop up the nation or the economy or the family line, nor do we have children out of some desire for personal fulfillment—all of that thinking is frankly pagan. Rather we have families so that we can contribute to the building of a communion of love and mercy and truth and compassion, a communion which is in reality the body of Christ—a communion of universal love.

And this affects our priorities and the decisions about how we raise our children. Will Willimon, former Dean of Duke Chapel, used to talk about angry calls he would occasionally receive from parents, always with the same type of complaint. “We sent Suzy to Duke with her head on straight,” the angry parent would begin. “She was to major in economics and go on to law school. But she has become so involved in the Wesley Fellowship that she has now decided she is going to become a missionary to Honduras. How could you let this happen? You have ruined her life.”^[10] Christian people actually said that—“she is going to become a missionary…You have ruined her life.” Just like Perpetua’s father, sometimes we think giving our children to the Church signals failure and ruin. This is what I’m talking about—remembering our purpose, changing priorities. We weren’t given children for any other reason than to make them lovers of God and lovers of neighbor. What does the Holy Family mean for us? It means our families are to be holy too. Our families should be given over to the purposes of God too.

I say this as a family man myself: sometimes we idolize ourselves. Sometimes, because we are at bottom more sentimental materialists than actual Christians, we forget that the families we’ve been given were given us so that we may serve rather than be served. Of all the things we Christians should remember on this feast day, it’s this: our families should be instruments of God. We shouldn’t just be about taking from God. We should give ourselves back to him too. Have we consecrated our families to the will of God? For me, sometimes I give my family to God. Sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I think it would be great if my boy wanted to become a priest. Yet sometimes I think, “Sure, after a good career in finance.” I need to do better. We need to do better. How many soccer games and football games have you taken your kid to? How many times to Mass? These are the questions always to be asked: Do I really give my family to God? Or do I think it’s all about God giving me stuff? Is it okay to ignore the spiritual lives of our children? Is it okay that we give so little to God? What does that teach our children? What does that do to their souls?

Today is the feast of the Holy Family. And this is the meandering muttering of a dad as scared and confused as the rest of you. But may we remember together that God has ordained us all—families, those who are single, the widowed, the divorced, all of us—to be holy, to help each other become saints, to be a family called the Church, and to make children who know what love is—in this world still sadly filled with hate.

[1] The Martyrdom of Saints Perpetua and Felicitas 3

[2] Ibid., 5

[3] Ibid., 3

[4] Philippians 2:11

[5] Galatians 3:28 cf. Colossians 3:11

[6] Cf. Mark 3:31-35; John 7:1-3

[7] Mark 10:29

[8] Matthew 10:21

[9] Luke 2:34, 38

^[10] Stanley Hauerwas, “The Radical Hope in the Annunciation,” The Hauerwas Reader 511

© 2020 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield