Christian Family and Contemporary Society

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• Publisher: T&T Clark
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9780567657404
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Christian Theology

This collection of essays integrates a broad spectrum of geographical, denominational, and interdisciplinary perspectives, and analyses the relationship between family and religion in its various contexts, both historical and contemporary. Divided into four key parts, the contributors address first the biblical and patristic background of the family construct, while the second part reveals denominational and ecumenical perspectives on marriage and the family. The third part sketches a sociological profile of the family in some European countries and addresses pastoral and sacramental issues connected with it. The final part places the Christian family in the context of contemporary society.

Part One

1

The Synoptic Gospels and Family: Fundaments to Restore Its Deteriorated Values

Daniel Alberto Ayuch

Introduction

There are very few gospel paragraphs dealing directly with the topic of family or defining it as a social institution. In spite of their reduced number, these texts are decisive for the practice of the Christian faith. The present article deals with gospel narratives, in order to offer a variant to the classical approach of referring mainly to the Epistles in essays about moral and ethical matters in the New Testament. Furthermore, the art of narrative has a peculiar way of transmitting a message to the Christian reader today. It is true that epistolary paraenetic follows the genre of ethical discourse; however, gospel narratives have a very effective way of teaching Christian behavior. They provide neither a systematic code of ethics nor a code of laws. What the gospels do is to teach wisdom of life based on the perspective of the Kingdom by giving clear examples and concrete sayings.

Those texts that generally underlie modern theological discourse about family are: 1 Corinthians 5–7; Ephesians 5.21–33; 6.14 and 2 Timothy 2.9–11. Otherwise, there are some references to the Old Testament books, and very rarely, to the gospels. The present article works on two texts that are rarely quoted in studies and documents about family in the New Testament, despite their relevance to this subject. These texts come from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. The chosen Matthean paragraph teaches about marriage, celibacy, and children (Mt. 19.1–15), while the Lucan one forms a diptych of miracles that restore a Gentile and a Jewish family (Lk. 7.1–17).

The present study highlights the transforming power of Jesus’ words, when he faces daily life and reveals the fulfillment of God’s promises for salvation of all flesh. Family is one of those human institutions that Jesus revisits and restructures based on the fundaments of love.

Family in the narrative of Matthew 19.1–15

The first part of Chapter 19 in Matthew deals with the issues of family from a very particular point of view. The way the text approaches this issue has little in common with the modern questions raised about family. Family is not considered as one of the many lifestyle choices such as single life, cohabitation, homosexual marriage and other forms that the post-modern world has reinvented in its ceaseless quest for natural satiety. Far from these concepts, family is understood in this text as the pattern of life desired by God since creation. This is particularly true in Matthew 19.1–15 and in its synoptic parallel of Mark 10.1–16. The coming paragraphs deal with the Matthean text in a synoptic comparison with Mark in order to understand better the purpose of these deeds and sayings of the Lord.

The narrative context of Matthew 19.1–15

The Matthean text to be interpreted in this article comes immediately after the Ecclesiastical Sermon of Chapter 18, and belongs to a long cycle in the gospel that deals with the institution of the Church (Mt. 16.13–20.34). The author chose this moment in the macronarrative to give the Lord’s instructions on how his disciples are expected to behave regarding family, church, and society (Mt. 19–20). The structure of this cycle can be summed up as follows:

16.13–20.34		The Fourth Cycle: the Institution of Christian Community
16.13–17.27		Peter’s Profession of Faith (narrative form)
18.1–35		The Ecclesiastical Sermon (rhetorical form)
19.1–20.28		Exhortations on Christian Life (narrative form)

The completion to this cycle is Jesus’ entrance to Jerusalem as a preparatory step to the Passion narrative. In other words, Jesus makes a last stop before his Passion to instruct his followers about the wisdom of the Basileia to come. In Chapters 19–20, Jesus brings up several issues related to the daily life of his disciples and followers. The first part of these two exemplary chapters is dedicated to family and personal possessions (19.1–29). In the central part Jesus refers several times to the reward waiting for his disciples (19.30–20.1–16), and in the last part (20.17–28) Jesus focuses on the coming passion and the consequences it will bring to the disciples.¹ This article works on the part dealing with family (19.1–15), which can be divided into three main thematic fields:

19.1–29		Family and Possessions
19.1–9		Marriage as a Love Institution^2
19.10–12		Voluntary Abstention of Marriage
19.13–15		Jesus and Children
19.16–29		Possessions
19.30–20.16		The Disciples’ Reward
20.17–28		The coming Passion and the consequences for the disciples

From this structure one can see that Chapters 19–20 offer an appropriate framework within which to talk about the essential nucleus of the Church, which was described in Matthew 18 as a community based on service, forgiveness, and mercy. The inclusion of the paragraph on the eunuchs (vv. 10–12) to the pericopes on marriage and children is very significant for its interpretation, as will be pointed out below. The three paragraphs together (vv. 1–15) give a general vision of how to behave in life and in attendance of the Kingdom to come.

Marriage based on love (19.1–9)

Most Christian writings that deal with this paragraph relate it to the third antithesis of the Sermon on the Mountain in Matthew 5.31–32 and to the law of divorce in Deuteronomy 24.1. As a matter of fact, Jesus develops his vision of marriage when people ask his opinion on divorce. Evidently divorce was a very widespread practice in first-century Judaism, and the schools of Hillel and Shammai used to have different points of view about how to interpret Deuteronomy 24.1. Hillel’s doctrine granted divorce easily, while Shammai’s only in exceptional cases.³ Jesus would have to give his own point of view on this issue. Far from focusing on the issue of divorce, what is really interesting for the present article is the paragraph midpoint in vv. 4–6, in which Jesus quotes twice from the book of Genesis (Gen. 1.27c and 2.24). Jesus insists in v. 4 that “from the beginning it was not so”, in order to affirm that divorce was far away from the divine will at the time of creation. The expression “from the beginning” (ἀπ᾽ἀρχῆς)⁴ appears twice in the text (19.4 and 8), at the beginning and at the end of his answer, showing the importance of Jesus’ answer, since it goes back directly to the knowledge of the Creator’s will and not merely to the knowledge of the law of Moses, whose interpretation can be contested. Jesus goes back not only to the oldest source but to the claim of knowing the divine will, something that must have provoked the astonishment of his interlocutors.⁵

Verse 4 begins with the typical question: “Have you not read?” This question has an accent of reproach for their incompetence to interpret Holy Scripture. Both narratives of creation are quoted here to make irrevocable the deduction he develops in v. 6. Joachim Gnilka maintains that both narratives do not support the insolubility of marriage, but explain the attraction between man and woman as part of the divine plan and as His will.⁶ Also, the Damascus Document from Qumran (4QSD 4.20–1) interprets Genesis 1.27 as a fundament to plead for monogamy:

The builders of the wall (the Hasmonean kings) […] are caught twice in fornication: by taking two wives in their lives, even though the principle of creation is “male and female he created them” (Gen. 1.27).⁷

One can see here the same argument given by Jesus when he quotes Genesis 1.27 to plead for monogamy and not only to talk about the androgynous origin of the primal human being. In this way, he sustains that the union of man and woman is necessary and according to the divine will since the times in paradise. The verb συζεύγνυμι, what God “joined together”, appears here in v. 6 and parallel Mark 10.9. This verb means to join by the yoke (ζυγός), which shows that this union represents for the couple a commitment to join efforts in order to form a family and bring up children. It also points out the unity of the two members joined by marriage.⁸ Jesus proposes a new reading of the Law in which he sees that Moses did not command divorce but only tolerated it because of the predominant hardness of heart among believers. This critical attitude towards the Law existed already in the famous verse from Ezekiel 20.25.⁹ However, Jesus consequently develops throughout the Gospel his attitude towards the Law to propose a new way of interpreting the word of God as it is revealed in the Law. This is a particular hermeneutical key that confirms the divine origin of marriage. In this sense, marriage is the complementing of man and woman to accompany each other during their lives and to respect each other unconditionally. This will be an essential stone for the constitution of a healthy Christian family.

Voluntary abstinence (Mt. 19.10–12)

Further on we have the text about the eunuchs¹⁰ in a paragraph of three examples in which the third one is decisive and where the term eunuch, which in principle represents a sad situation of infertility because of human cruelty, gets a positive and mysterious meaning, almost unexplained and left for the discernment of those who can understand.

Undoubtedly, this paragraph not only gives a solid answer to those men of v. 10, who are not satisfied with having only one wife forever and defend their right to marry and divorce as many times as they desire, but it also recalls certain well-known examples of people within the community, who opted for not marrying because of the Basileia (probably Paul would be among the most famous ones). Throughout the history of interpretation of this text in antiquity one can frequently read a refusal against any intent to opt for an exaggerated asceticism because of this saying of the Lord. The trend is to calm down any effusive passion for restraining sexual life.¹¹ In the early church Christians understood Matthew 19.12 as a recommendation rather than as a requirement to opt for virginity.¹² It is very likely that the main topic in this paragraph has still to do with marriage. If so, the text affirms that, for those who can and will, there is still the option for celibacy as a temporary or permanent way of life and as a sign of submission t...

Table of contents

• FC
• Ecclesiological Investigations
• Other titles in the series
• Title
• Contents
• Editor’s Preface
• Introduction: The “Great Mystery” of Marital Communion: Reimagining Orthodox Christian Foundations John A. McGuckin
• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Contributors
• Bibliography
• Index of Names
• Index of Subjects
• Copyright