The Papa Principle

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” (Romans 8.14-15)

Irreconcilable Differences

Not long ago I caught an hour or so of Irreconcilable Differences, a comedy about a young girl who “divorces” her parents after their careers take off and leave her in the dust. I’d not seen it since it opened in 1984 as a star vehicle for the irrepressibly precocious Drew Barrymore, who’d charmed the world as Gertie, the little sister in E.T. I was chagrined by how little of it I retained. More than anything, it’s a scathing satire of movie stardom with the daughter’s lawsuit functioning as a magnifier of Hollywood vanity. I’d forgot the story had any connection to the film industry whatsoever. And I’d wager a large portion of those who’ve not seen it in years would be no less surprised.

We recall Irreconcilable Differences as “the movie about the kid who takes her parents to court,” because the movie arrived when topics like upper/middle-class child abuse, latch-key kids, cyclical family dysfunction, and regressive therapy techniques to elicit suppressed memories of childhood rape and torment were coming to the fore. In LA, where I lived at the time, the nightly news led with the McMartin investigation of a local pre-school staff accused of molesting 360 toddlers. (The charges were dismissed.) Dozens of similar reports flared up coast-to-coast. Untold thousands from reputedly “nice homes” and “decent neighborhoods” broke decades of silence to describe inhuman brutality they endured as children. Irreconcilable Differences, silly as it was, struck a very raw, very real nerve.

Child abuse and atrocious parenting are nothing new. Indeed, family dysfunction and violence are recurrent problems in biblical narratives. Openly discussing, dealing with, and trying to prevent these calamities are, however, new. Only in the past 30 years have we started to address the fact that heinous crimes against children cut across every social class and category. Only recently have we begun to digest how many of us battle specters of physical, psychological, and spiritual havoc unleashed by abusive parents and parental figures. It's inconceivable that this scourge should be so widespread. And it's hard to cope with how little we can do prevent it, as it's typically discovered after the fact.

Opening a text like today’s reading from Romans, where God’s mercy and acceptance are equated with those of a father, my heart breaks. How can those of us who’ve never known a parent’s love and kindness possibly embrace God as our Parent? How can those of us longing to help child abuse victims find healing and restoration in God’s unconditional love convey it without diminishing the justified rage and distrust they harbor? And yet the unparalleled love and acceptance Paul describes in Romans 8.12-17 is, in many ways, the answer to restoring confidence and self-worth child abusers steal from their victims. How do we overcome these seemingly irreconcilable differences so that the truth of God’s love reaches our hearts and strengthens our faith to reach for God’s love?

Adoption

In verses 14-15, Paul writes, “For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’” The subject at hand is a Spirit-led life versus a carnal one. On a very subtle level, Paul appeals the Romans’ cosmopolitan sensibilities by framing faith as a lifestyle. Those who don’t believe act and think this way. Since you believe, you behave and think another way. But that premise only goes so far, because lifestyle inequities exist within the Roman faith community. It’s comprised of Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor, educated and illiterate, and citizens and slaves—in other words, people who share little in common outside their faith in Christ. Once he’s made his point that believers and non-believers don’t approach life in the same manner, Paul switches gears to discuss faith as a family dynamic. He says, “The Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship,” a legal phrase indicating the adopted child receives full right of inheritance equal to that of a natural-born heir. No one is a slave or stepchild. No one is excluded from the privileges granted by the riches of God’s love, grace, and acceptance.

The adoption metaphor ups the ante from conscious lifestyle to irrefutable right to belong. It’s not adaptive behavior, but total inclusion. “And by him [the Spirit] we cry, Abba, Father,” Paul adds, using cultural shorthand to emphasize his point. Then, like now, “father” is the legal term for a male parent whose primary responsibility is to provide food, clothing, and shelter for his natural and adopted offspring. Also like now, the term doesn’t intrinsically suggest anything about the nature of the parent-child relationship. It can be used affectionately, but affection isn’t assumed. Furthermore, in light of Rome’s fiercely patriarchal society, law endows the father with total authority to do with his children as he pleases. They’re his property. He can sell them into slavery. He can treat them like slaves. He can disown them if they disobey him. He can disinherit them if they displease him.

In contrast, “abba” has no legal implications. It’s an Aramaic word for “father” that’s gained cross-cultural popularity as an affectionate term. It is to the Romans what “dad” and “papa” are to us—an elective form of address that denotes mutual love, trust, and respect between parent and child. The difference between “abba” and “father” is the difference between covenant and contract. “Abba” suggests loving promise; “father” suggests legal obligation. Thus, Paul underscores his adoption metaphor for God’s unconditional acceptance by reassuring us God is both Papa and Parent. God honors both covenant and contract. God promises and provides. God offers and complies. As God’s children, adopted by choice and guaranteed full rights of inheritance, our faith in God’s love, grace, and acceptance cannot be shaken. It’s our divinely granted privilege to call our God, “Abba, Father.”

Abba, God

The Papa Principle sets God apart from every mortal parent, from best to worst, by perfectly balancing parenthood’s emotional and practical requirements. All human parents fail in one area or another in one way or another at one time or another. Parents who love too much tend to overlook their obligations to correct their children and teach them self-discipline. Parents who are overly concerned about their obligations tend to withhold love and break promises. Then, saddest of all, there are parents who fail entirely, giving love their child needs to others (often themselves) and ignoring their parental duties to provide and protect the child. How we grieve for children forced to grow up in loveless, lawless homes. And we grieve all the more when their childhood of abject sorrow urges them to distrust God’s covenant of love and contract of provision. Healing and recovery they seek abides in Abba, God, Who can’t be compared to any mortal parent because no mortal parent could possibly compare to God.

God loves you. God has adopted you by choice, entitling you to full rights as God’s child. As a voluntarily loving Papa, God honors the promise to be everything you desire in a caring and faithful parent. As a legally obligated Parent, God complies with the expectation to provide for and protect your wellbeing. “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God,” Paul writes. If struggles resulting from parental violence and abuse have thwarted your trust in God’s unconditional love and acceptance, I pray you’ll hear the Spirit’s call to follow Its lead. You are God’s child waiting to happen.

Abba, God, love us, hold us, and lift us from lifelong sorrow and suffering wrought at the hands of heartless abusers. God, our Parent, provide for us, protect us, and assure us of our inheritance as Your full and rightful heirs. Amen.

The most loving, faithful parent cannot be compared to God, because no parent could possibly equal the unconditional love and faithfulness of Abba,God.

Stepchild

A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. (Mark 3.32-33)

Awkward

Few situations are more awkward than getting dragged into another family’s conflicts. When I was in college, a family in my parents’ congregation invited me to Sunday dinner. At church, they were the Waltons—soft-spoken, precious people. At their table, they were closer to the family in Moonstruck. Everybody had issues with everybody else, and no one showed any self-restraint in front of their guest. It was amusing at first, but the novelty thinned as the volatility rose with each spat. It peaked when the entire family turned on the eldest daughter, a young woman my age, who had completed college in three years and was fast-tracking through a prestigious investment house. While I long ago forgot the nub of contention, I’ll never forget my panic when her father said, “Tim, talk to her. See if you can get through her thick skull.” They gave me no chance to decline tactfully or say anything at all. I suddenly became the quarrel’s focus, with everyone insisting I agreed with her or him. I felt like a shuttlecock in the world’s craziest badminton match. Thankfully, I knew not to let their behavior at home alter my respect for their faith’s sincerity. In a way, it verified their earnestness. That said, however, it really wasn’t necessary for me to know just how “earnest” they could be.

I’m reminded of that awkward afternoon whenever I read about Jesus rebuffing Mary and His brothers’ request to speak with Him. It’s a side of their family I’d rather not see. It’s clearly important, although why that is is not so clear. After it’s recorded in Mark, the oldest Gospel, Matthew and Luke also include it. Their discomfort with the episode surfaces when they tuck it much later in the narrative than Mark, who puts it right after Jesus calls the 12 disciples. What’s more, both discreetly skate past His family’s intentions, even though Mark 3.20 explicitly says after they hear Jesus is drawing crowds, “they went to take charge of him, for they said, ‘He is out of his mind.’” Believing Jesus is crazy, they want to keep Him out of trouble! There’s no mistaking the compassion in their motives. Yet their presumption also reveals how meagerly they understand Jesus. His response underscores their estranged awareness of His identity and calling. “Who are my mother and my brothers?” (v33) He asks. What He says next creates a very awkward moment for everyone around Him. Jesus looks at them and declares, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.” (v34-35)

Problem Child

The tense situation likewise underscores a fact about Jesus we seldom consider. He’s a Stepchild. He’s part of Mary and Joseph’s family without fully belonging to it. Naturally, we want to romanticize His upbringing. Once the drama of Jesus’s birth and infancy passes and His earthly parents return to Nazareth to settle down, we imagine He’s just one of the kids, loved and treated like the siblings who follow. We picture His family life as an ancient version of domestic bliss. And, to be fair, Jesus’s family definitely loves Him—especially Mary, who stands by Him to the end and remains faithful to His message after the Ascension. But it’s naïve to discount complications attached to parenting the Christ Child. There are legal matters like birthright and inheritance. There are pressures to provide Him the best education and training possible. There are concerns about guarding His identity to protect Him from political conspiracy and religious outrage. There’s deciding when and how to explain Jesus to His stepbrothers and sisters. Jesus is a special Child, more than any child ever born, and though we’re reluctant to say it, that makes Him a problem Child of a uniquely challenging sort.

Think about it: Mary and Joseph are charged with the Incarnate God’s nurture and survival! Can we reasonably assume they aren’t riddled with uncertainty and trepidation? The mere prospect paralyzes us, let alone actually doing it while we run a household and business, bring other children into the world, and navigate a maze of social and religious obligations. Does idealized hindsight deprive Mary and Joseph's freedom to fail, as all parents do? Is it really conceivable that Jesus’s family is so healthy and harmonious He escapes alienation and confusion that haunt the most emotionally secure of adolescents? The family’s attempt to save Jesus and His shockingly curt reaction suggests unresolved issues on both sides. They want to ensure His safety because they love Him. He knows what they’ve not learned: His safety can only be secured by doing God’s will. They don’t get it—not yet, at least—and that frustrates Him.

Our Reason for the Season

Jesus is a Stepchild, a special Child, a problem Child. That’s the ugly truth of it—and its amazing beauty as well, because each of us is also a stepchild, a special child, a problem child. With Jesus as our unabridged example, His life serves as our template. He’s born for a very unique purpose. So are we. God shapes Him by hand and designs His circumstances to do God’s will. God does the same for us. God places us in families and communities that take on the staggering duty to care for us and cope with our complexities. Like Mary and Joseph, even the finest of them sometimes fail. We must grant them that freedom—in hindsight, if necessary—realizing the healthiest home can’t shield us from alienation and confusion. When we embrace our God-given identity, placing God’s will above our family’s wishes, they may think we’ve lost our minds. They may try to save us from ourselves because they love us. We’ll miss that and wonder why they don’t get it. Perhaps, like Jesus’s family, they eventually will. Perhaps not.

These awkward moments are really about our nativity. Every one of us is born by design. Our presence in the world is a miracle all its own. God’s purpose is our reason for the season. Yes, Advent is about expectancy and desire for Christ’s birth. But it's also about expectancy and desire for our birth, our need to fulfill God’s purpose for us, as God wills, according to God’s plan. We have to get that, whether or not our families ever do.

Jesus is a special Child, which makes Him a problem Child. As Christ’s followers, Advent is also about our birth as special, problem children. God’s purpose is our reason for the season. (Tema Stauffer: “Teenage Boy.” All rights reserved.)

Postscript: “Ooh Child”

For all of us coming into the world to fulfill God’s purpose in our making, an unconventional Advent anthem: a masterfully optimistic remix of “Ooh Child” by Nina Simone. Some day, we’ll walk together in a beautiful sun…

Left Hanging

Now Absalom happened to meet David’s men. He was riding his mule, and as the mule went under the thick branches of a large oak, Absalom’s head got caught in the tree. He was left hanging in midair, while the mule he was riding kept on going. (2 Samuel 18.9)

A Regrettable Mistake

Nowhere in Scripture is a father’s grief more heartbreaking than when David wails, “O my son Absalom! My son, my son Absalom! If only I had died instead of you—O Absalom, my son, my son!” (2 Samuel 18.33) Word that his third son has been killed in a freak accident crushes Israel’s greatest king and warrior on such a profound level he never fully recovers from the loss. In the tragedy’s immediate context, David’s gut-wrenching sorrow comes as something of a surprise. The son he mourns is his arch-nemesis. At the time of his death, Absalom is leading a full-scale revolt against his father in his ultimate ploy to usurp the throne. This isn’t a political coup. It’s an extremely personal vendetta and Absalom’s sole objective in mounting an insurgency is assassinating his father. Were Absalom not David's son, news of his demise would be cause for rejoicing. But hearing his child died before they could reconcile their differences—and in such an undignified manner, getting himself tangled in the branches of an oak tree—is, for David, a fate worse than death.

David’s charisma on the battlefield and throne don’t surface at home. He’s a terrible father. Although he’ll correct this with his youngest son, Solomon, rampant neglect of his older children deals him disastrous results. His eldest son, Amnon, rapes his half-sister, Tamar. When David learns of it, he’s furious. But he does nothing to avenge Tamar and his irresponsibility provokes Absalom, her full brother, to take action. He kills Amnon. Absalom sees David’s grief as a sign the king cares nothing about Tamar and him. Fearing for his life, he flees the country, putting himself out of reach. It’s a regrettable mistake that results in a regrettable life. Once David recovers from his loss, 2 Samuel 13.39 tells us, “The spirit of the king longed to go to Absalom, for he was consoled concerning Amnon’s death.”

An Extraordinarily Charismatic Guy

Five years separate Amnon’s murder and Absalom’s reunion with David, with the son’s hatred for his father festering by the day. By the time he returns, Absalom is eaten up with venom and paranoia. His raison d’être focuses exclusively on David’s downfall. He never realizes he craves revenge for a crime David doesn’t commit. It’s he, Absalom, who severs their ties and wedges distance between them. He projects his own weaknesses on his father and judges him guilty before the fact, giving David no benefit of the doubt or chance to offer love and forgiveness to his son. Staying out of reach and remaining aloof after his return denies Absalom any glimpse into David’s change of heart. He’s stuck in the past, which deceives his sight at present, and feeds delusions about the future.

Absalom has no problem rallying allies, as he’s an extraordinarily charismatic guy, a master politician with incredibly good looks. We read in 2 Samuel 14.25: “In all Israel there was not a man so highly praised for his handsome appearance as Absalom. From the top of his head to the sole of his foot there was no blemish in him.” Long, thick hair is his defining feature; when it grows too heavy, he cuts it and the sheared weight totals five pounds. People support him to be seen with him. They’re the biblical equivalent of groupies, hangers-on eager to experience what sociologists call “the halo effect.” While he knows this, hatred goads Absalom to trade on their vanity. He tries to resolve his internal conflicts by waging actual war. Other than he, no one on either side has any gripes to settle. This is Absalom’s battle. One gasps to imagine the carnage and heartache that would have come of his engaging hundreds of troops to play it out. In one of the Bible’s most just reversals, however, Absalom’s crowning asset becomes a deadly liability. As he advances toward David’s troops, his hair twists around an oak’s branches. His mule rides out from under him and he’s left hanging. One of David’s captains finds him and finishes him off with three javelins. When the king hears of Absalom’s end, he’s overwrought—as any parent would be—by a sense of failure. What more could he have done to save his son?

A Tragedy We Can Avoid

When we look at Absalom, we ask a related question: how could someone so rightly outraged by abuse and neglect go so horribly wrong? Since he’s infamous for his bizarre death, it’s nigh unto impossible to view him sympathetically. Yet, for a moment, let’s forget how the tale ends and step into his place. (Otherwise, the story has no point.) Imagine David is our father—the most revered, best loved man in the land, God’s handpicked, anointed surrogate, and the greatest sacred poet of all time. Now let’s see him at home, when the crown comes off and the crowds go away. He’s an inveterate womanizer with kids by several wives, none of whom he pays much attention to. He only seems to care about our oldest half-brother, the heir, and when the scoundrel rapes our sister, all Dad does is get mad. He doesn’t punish him, nor does he show any concern for our sister. Basically, he ignores the problem to make it go away. Would we hate him? Absolutely. Could we resist the urge to retaliate? Absolutely not.

Absalom goes wrong where so many with deep-seated resentments go wrong. He removes himself, refuses to forgive, and rules out hope things will change. How often do we this? How often are we so obsessed with our side of the story we forget it’s not the whole story? We forget it doesn’t end when we decide we’re through. Other players continue to wrestle with it, for better or worse, while we’re stuck in the past, blind to the present, and deluded about the future. Instead of seeking peace, we fuel conflict, trading on our gifts to persuade people to rally to our cause. In growing bolder and more self-righteousness, we also grow more venomous and paranoid. We marshal troops and hoist flags, anticipating a decisive showdown when we’ll finally be vindicated. But confrontations seldom play out in life like in theory. As a rule, they deepen rifts and wound many innocents dragged into the fray. The very talents we employ to mount our campaigns serve our undoing. Our greatest pride gets tangled up in God’s mercy for those we’ll harm. The confidence we ride on vanishes beneath us. We’re left hanging, vulnerable for our enemies to finish off. Had Absalom let go his hatred and sought grace for healing, his relationship with David would have been restored and he likely would have reached the throne he tried to seize. His is a tragedy we can avoid.

Absalom teaches when we allow resentments—even those we can justify—to overtake our lives, gifts we use to fuel conflict may very well destroy us. (Albert Weisgerber: Absalom.)

Breaking Cycles

In those days people will no longer say, “The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.” Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—his own teeth will be set on edge. (Jeremiah 31.29-30)

A Toxic Notion

The rendering of Mosaic Law during Israel’s wilderness experience gave birth to a toxic notion we’ve yet to eliminate. It lives today as a proverb: “The parents' sins are visited on the children,” which we take to mean every generation must pay for its ancestors’ mistakes. There’s no getting past the fact God warns of this fate numerous times. It’s literally writ in stone, attached to the Second Commandment forbidding idols: “You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the fathers to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me.” (Exodus 20.5; emphasis added.) The italicized phrase, word-for-word, appears four more times in the Talmud, with several variants amounting the same thing.

Accepting it as-is startles us, because there’s also no getting past the fact it’s patently unjust and cruel. Why would God punish one’s children (let alone, their children and their children’s children) for parental disobedience? It’s a curse that defies reason and contradicts everything we know God to be. It also discourages us from overcoming our parents’ weaknesses. If we’re going to suffer for their sins, why resist the same impulses that led them astray? This is pretty much how Israel responds to God’s warning. In resigning themselves to bear the brunt of their forebears’ wrongdoing, they grant themselves license to perpetuate their errors. We live with this poisonous mentality even today: “I come from a long line of alcoholics.” “My dad was abusive, which is why I’m a mess.” “My mom has a bad temper, so naturally I fly off the handle.” “Because my family are hypocrites, I want nothing to do with religion.” The sins-of-the-parent script practically writes itself. Since it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy, its reliability is guaranteed.

The Parent Card

But there’s a problem with the formula—a big one that highlights how crazy and mixed-up such thinking is. It’s based on reading God’s warning backwards, from the kids’ angle, not the parents’, which blatantly distorts its purpose and meaning. When God says, “Don’t do this, or else the damage will live on for generations,” He’s issuing preventative policy, not punitive threat. What’s more, He isn’t speaking to children at all. He’s talking to parents. He’s stressing their duty to break cycles instead of repeating them. It’s backwards to read these warnings as ground rules for a blame-game, where dropping the Parent Card entitles us to a free pass for our misbehavior. And here’s why: our contribution to cyclical defeatism and disrespect casts us in parental roles. Whether or not we have biological offspring, embracing toxic ideas and behaviors conceives and nurtures a new generation of destructive tendencies. It’s no longer about what we’ve been saddled with. It’s the burden we’re saddling on future lives.

Israel never figures this out. Every time their story takes a terrible turn, they throw up their hands and say, “We knew this would happen, because our parents were so rebellious. It’s not our fault we’re just like them.” It never occurs to them they can break the cycle. It never crosses their minds they suffer because they prefer the blame-game to changing the game. This goes on for centuries, until God finally changes all of the rules. He raises a prophet, Jeremiah, to tell Israel: “We had covenant. We set down terms and conditions. Ever since, you’ve either ignored them or looked for loopholes to flout them. So I’m voiding the old covenant to issue a new one.” No surprise, one of the first loopholes God closes is the sins-of-the-parent excuse. Under the new paradigm, according Jeremiah 31.29-30, “people will no longer say, ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’ Instead, everyone will die for his own sin; whoever eats sour grapes—his own teeth will be set on edge.” God takes the Parent Card off the table. No more blame-game. But—and this is extremely important—He does not relax His expectation that each generation breaks its predecessors’ deadly cycles. Indeed, he ups the ante to ensure it doesn’t. “Everyone will die for his own sin.”

Sour Grapes

The English idiom “sour grapes” has no connection to this text. It comes from Aesop’s fable about a fox that sees a cluster of grapes. After repeated attempts to get them fail, he gives up, telling himself, “They’re probably not ripe anyway. What do I want with sour grapes?” Jeremiah’s usage of “sour grapes” infers much more than resentful equivocation—though that’s part of it. The person who plucks and eats unripe grapes exhibits a bounty of unhealthy traits: impatience, recklessness, lack of wisdom, distrust of others (who may steal his ripe harvest), poor foresight, and selfishness, along with its twin, self-loathing. The discomfort and embarrassment that come of his foolishness don’t faze him. He makes his own misery knowingly. That Jeremiah sets the statement about fathers eating sour grapes in quotes indicates it’s a popular proverb of his day—his readers’ version of “Like father, like son.” And when he smashes it with “whoever eats sour grapes—his own teeth will be set on edge,” he invokes another popular modern proverb: “Monkey see, monkey do.”

We are not obliged to embrace the fears, prejudices, presumptions, and myths of earlier generations. The onus rests on each of us to evaluate everything we’ve heard, learned, and seen in terms of how truly they reflect God’s expectations and Christ’s teaching. Our parents’ sins are theirs to account for. When we credence them by repeating them or exploit them to excuse our weaknesses, cycles that deeply hurt us will persist. We deserve better than sour grapes. So do those following us. We break cycles of bitterness and failure by claiming Christ’s promise in John 10.10: “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” Sweet life, rich life, abundant, healthy life—that’s what the new covenant offers. That’s what breaking destructive, defeatist cycles brings.

Embracing or blaming previous generations’ mistakes perpetuates destructive cycles. God calls us to break them. We do this by accepting Christ’s promise of abundant, healthy life.

Enoch and Enoch

Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away. (Genesis 5.24)

A Mismatched Set

Genesis gives us two men named Enoch, making it easy to confuse them and possibly even conflate them into a single person. It’s important to keep them separate, though, by getting to know both. They’re a mismatched set and distinguishing between them uncovers nuances we’d otherwise miss. The first Enoch is only remarkable for his background, while the second one definitely qualifies as a “seminal figure”—the academician’s pet name for someone who instinctively revolutionizes how future generations think and live.

Enoch 1: Never to Be Mentioned Again

Enoch 1 shows up in Genesis 4.17-18 and vanishes, never to be mentioned again: “Cain lay with his wife, and she became pregnant and gave birth to Enoch. Cain was then building a city, and he named it after his son Enoch. To Enoch was born Irad,” after which three subsequent father-son pairs are listed.

Mining this information yields much gold. 1.) He’s Adam’s first grandson, the earliest offspring of a mortally conceived man, and thus the primary link in humanity’s self-perpetuating chain. 2.) He comes from bad stock. His father’s an exiled murderer. To say his mother’s background is sketchy amounts to gross understatement; we have no idea where she and everyone else in Nod, Cain’s chosen abode, come from. 3.) In keeping with Jewish tradition, she’s a “foreigner,” making Enoch 1 a half-breed. Then, since Judaism defines ethnicity by maternal origins, Enoch 1 effectively is a “nobody” without any claim as Adam and Eve’s heir. 4.) The text hints that Cain names a city for his son to compensate for deficits passed down to him. Alas, Enoch 1 doesn’t accomplish anything worthy of a namesake city. Notable achievements don’t surface on this branch of Adam’s family until five generations later, when the first farmer appears, followed by his son’s musical talent, and the next son’s invention of metalworking. By then, nine generations down the line, Enoch 1 is a faded entry in the record.

Enoch 2: Mentioned Repeatedly and Often

While Cain struggles to establish his family, Adam and Eve have a new son, Seth, who becomes the de facto patriarch of the Jewish race. Ironically, Genesis 5 documents his lineage with no mention of anything inventive or productive. For six generations, all we’re told of each is: “He lived so long. He fathered an heir and other children. And then he died.” Then Enoch 2 appears seventh in line on Seth’s side and does something too spectacular to be ignored. He walks with God.

Like Enoch 1, his story briefly unfolds (four sentences) and then he vanishes. But he’s mentioned repeatedly and often because he vanishes. Genesis 5.24 reports, “Enoch walked with God; then he was no more, because God took him away.” He disappears never to return. While Enoch 1 and the city named for him turn to dust, Enoch 2 is forever remembered because not a speck of him exists on the planet. He breaks the then-he-died mold. He defies convention with something so simple it’s impossible to fathom: He walks with God and is no more. And in doing that, he radically alters humankind’s understanding of how it relates to God and what happens when He’s pleased. To this day, his instinctive drive to build a relationship with his Maker—not a city or a name for himself—influences all we believe God to be and all we hope to gain from Him.

Detachment

As with much in Genesis, the writer drops this bombshell about Enoch without answering many questions. Here’s all we know. When he’s 65, Enoch has his first son, Methuselah. (Yes, that Methuselah—the oldest human on record.) After his son’s birth, Enoch starts to walk with God. We’re not told what prompts his decision. But it's plainly suggested it's somehow tied to fatherhood. We do know engaging a close relationship with God doesn’t disrupt his life, because the writer tells us he continues to father children during the 300 years they walk together. So Enoch isn’t an ascetic who abandons his family to commune only with God in a cave or under a tree. Walking with God implies he moves in constant awareness he’s not alone. He remains present in God’s presence. He welcomes Him into every area of his life. This pleases God so much, when the time’s right, He skips the death process and assumes Enoch directly into His keeping.

Of course, we want to know how it works, particularly since the Bible’s other two assumptions—Elijah’s and Christ’s—include logistical details that go missing with Enoch. (A heavenly chariot whisks Elijah away, while Christ bodily ascends into Heaven.) The walking aspect invites us to imagine the day comes when Enoch defies gravity and climbs into eternal bliss. However we envision his transition, we don’t see him looking back, deeply conflicted about leaving. The devotion captured in three centuries of divine fellowship infers supreme detachment from relationships and possessions. Long before Enoch’s physical transformation, an inner change overtakes his heart and alters his views. He measures life in moments, not popularity and wealth (though we’re wise to suspect he’s well loved and well off, as that’s often typical of those who walk with God.) For Enoch, being lifted into God’s presence is simply the next step. He has no qualms about letting go. The letting-go happened so long ago, it’s possible he’s forgot how to hold on.

The Enoch Principle

What we might call “The Enoch Principle” permeates Christ’s ministry. Nearly everything He says in some shape or form points back to forging a constant, present relationship with God and detaching from people and possessions that hinder our walk with Him. It’s in the stories about risking great loss to achieve greater gain. It underpins the parables that warn against compromising our commitment out of fear of failure, as well as those about overvaluing what we own. Again and again, Jesus calls us to walk with God, from the tender beckoning of “Follow Me,” to the harsh demands we forsake family and fields for Him. And when we take to His road, He’s emphatically clear it doesn’t end. We turn a soft corner and, like Enoch, we are no more, because God takes us away. Walking with God leads to life.

We have a choice, it seems. Are we Enoch 1’s, daunted by circumstances beyond our control—misguided families, social stigmas, and anomalies no one can explain? Are we content to be associated with institutions constructed for our benefit without accomplishing anything of eternal value on our own? Are we OK with showing up, hanging around, and vanishing, never to be mentioned again? Or are we Enoch 2’s? Do we answer life’s challenges by seeking inner change? Do we walk with God? Are we present in His presence? Have we learned to honor our responsibilities without being hostages to them? Can we do the letting-go and train ourselves to forget how to hold on? Will it also be said of us, “They walked with God; then they were no more, because God took them away?”

What we do with what we've been given will determine whether we vanish, never be mentioned again, or vanish, never to return, always to be remembered. It’s our choice.

Walk with God.

Hagar and Her Children

The angel of God called to Hagar from heaven and said to her, “What is the matter, Hagar? Do not be afraid; God has heard the boy crying as he lies there. Lift the boy up and take him by the hand, for I will make him into a great nation." (Genesis 21.17)

Compare and Contrast

I’ve been pondering the controversy around the proposed Islamic cultural center near Ground Zero. As an American, denying any group’s freedom of religious expression and right to assemble is blasphemous to me. Every inch of our nation, coast-to-coast, is sacred ground baked with the blood of patriots. While the 9/11 site should be venerated for the lives lost there, the toll on that horrible day shrinks against millions of lives sacrificed so people of every race, creed, and color can live, learn, and worship where and as they choose within our borders. If Cordoba House—the center’s name—does not rise at its planned location, we’ve conceded every US soldier served, suffered, and died in vain.

But this firestorm sickens me for another, equally important reason. Cordoba House has been targeted because it’s a Muslim institution. This somehow brands it as a hotbed for extremists who commit atrocities in the name of Allah. With little nudging, the rhetoric digresses into a diatribe against Islam’s legitimacy as a faith and its adherents as people of faith. Now we’ve moved off the Bill of Rights to run roughshod over Scripture. Testing what anti-Arab zealots endorse as biblical fidelity against what the Bible actually teaches shows why attacking the people of Islam is especially wicked and dangerous. The Book of Genesis lays out the story of Hagar and Ishmael, inviting us to compare and contrast them with Sarah and Isaac. When we read it as it is (not what we want it to be), we may be shocked.

The Births of Two Nations

Most of us know the tale. To compensate for her infertility, Sarah offers Abraham an Egyptian slave, Hagar, as her surrogate. Hagar quickly conceives. This arouses resentment in Sarah, who begins to abuse her. Unable to bear it, Hagar runs away and God sends an angel to tell her, “Go back to your mistress and submit to her,” adding, “I will so increase your descendants that they will be too numerous to count.” (Genesis 16.9-10) She obeys and gives birth to Ishmael. In retaliation for her mistreatment, Hagar becomes arrogant, deepening the rift between Sarah and her. Flash forward 14 years. Sarah miraculously becomes pregnant and the tables turn again. Now that she has Isaac, she implores Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Genesis 21.11 tells us, “The matter distressed Abraham greatly.” In a tenderly rendered scene, he bids Hagar and Ishmael adieu, providing food and water for their desert travels. When the water runs out, Hagar lays Ishmael under a bush and walks away. “I cannot watch the boy die,” she sobs. (Genesis 21.15) Once again, God dispatches His angel. “What’s the matter, Hagar?” the angel asks. “Don’t be afraid. God has heard the boy’s cries. Don’t leave him to die. He will father a great nation.” Hagar spots a well of water and replenishes her supply. Ishmael survives to become the father of all Arabic people—and hence the wellspring of Islam.

Foreseeing conflicts bound to result from the births of two nations, Scripture presents Jews and Arabs as a divided family and leaves it at that. Thereafter, their squabbles for regional dominance are not unlike antagonisms common to two-child households. One envies what the other has. One feels superior to the other. Since the Bible marries Israel’s history to God’s evolving relationship with humanity, the Jews have an inherent advantage as the only monotheistic people in the region. Ishmael’s side of the family doesn’t forsake idolatry until the seventh century (AD), when One God is revealed to Mohammed. This is a difficult purchase for a people steeped in polytheism, so much so Islam takes its name from the Arabic verb “to surrender.” In contrast, Israel’s memory of life prior to Abraham is vague at best—perhaps even tidied up in biblical accounts to suggest it always worshiped One God.

“Infidels” and “Heathens”

Both nations, Isaac and Ishmael’s, are born with promises of greatness God indubitably has honored. That Jews (and Christians) claim their inheritance sooner doesn’t negate the Arabs’ claim. The Bible could not be clearer on this. Consequently, denigration of one another’s beliefs has no scriptural foundation. While inability to comprehend God’s purpose goads us to act like jealous siblings, it can’t be disputed He ordained two nations all along, choosing Abraham as His conduit to bring both to life. Common heritage as “children of promise” erases any rationale for regarding one another as “infidels” and “heathens.” Is either unfaithful to the One Who promised greatness? No. Does either doubt His existence, supremacy, and benevolence? No. So why are we constantly at each other’s throat?

Neither nation can rest before proving it's God’s favorite. Nor is it probable either will ever rest, as it’s obvious He won’t choose between us. This is why Genesis establishes the genetic link between Isaac and Ishmael without further comment. Comparing and contrasting their stories uncovers no difference between them. Both sons share one father, who loves them and lives in harmony with their mothers. The mothers resent one another and turn abusive when God blesses them with sons. The tables keep turning until Hagar and Ishmael spin off. The Bible doesn’t pursue them because its focus rests on God’s covenant with the Jews, not because the Arab covenant is invalid. That God won’t allow Hagar to let her son die refutes any presumption He abandons Ishmael. There's no cause to believe His promise to Isaac’s side of the family cancels Ishmael’s promise.

Inscrutable Yet True

God vowed to make Ishmael a great nation and rescued him to honor His covenant. If we so much as suspect He had no intention of standing by His promise, we have no reason to believe anything He says. If He were like us, our suspicions might be justified. But He's not like us and there's no reason to believe His promises are as devious and unreliable as many of ours can be. Numbers 23.19 states, “God is not a man, that he should lie, nor a son of man, that he should change his mind. Does he speak and then not act? Does he promise and not fulfill?” To dismiss a divine promise because it subverts our agenda confesses total absence of faith. Muslims who vilify non-Muslims as infidels are themselves infidels; they’re faithless to God’s will and plan. Jews and Christians who vilify non-Jews and non-Christians as heathens are themselves heathens; they don’t believe God’s Word.

God’s ways are inscrutable, yet His promises remain true. As an American, I can’t accept any rationale for blocking the Cordoba House construction near Ground Zero. But even if could, I couldn’t oppose the center’s right to be where it’s meant to be. The greatness of the people it celebrates and serves witnesses God’s covenant with Ishmael. I believe that because I believe God.

God has no intention of abandoning the great nation He promised to make of Ishmael. Christians who vilify Arabic people and Islam confess absence of faith in God’s word. (Giuseppe Bottani: Hagar and the Angel; c. 1776)

Family Matters

A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families, he leads forth the prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land. (Psalm 68.5-6)

Emotional Divides

Survivors of the “generation gap” era that spawned its own industry, family therapy, vividly remember pioneers in that field writing bestsellers and populating TV panels. After they dazzled the world with complex theories and diagrams of “the family dynamic,” their advice inevitably wrapped around two words: boundaries and communication. Members of functional families, they said, respected each other’s limits and maintained a healthy, two-way conversation between them. This was wisdom of the best sort—simple, obvious, and therefore simply, obviously true. What it lacked, though, were comparably simple and obvious strategies to deal with the parent, child, or sibling who had “boundary issues” or “poor communication skills.” Unless everyone worked at the paradigm, the paradigm didn’t work.

At first, communication became the sore spot. You couldn’t talk to someone who wasn’t available—literally available. By the time kids reached an age they could speak plainly about their feelings, many families had scattered. When Dad wasn’t working, he was relaxing on the golf course or somewhere else. Mom’s respite from responsibility also centered on getting out of the house. Teenagers threw themselves into extracurricular activities or killed hours at the mall. “Apart” meant out of touch, while together usually meant “at home,” behind bedroom doors or hunkered down in front of a TV, watching sitcoms about dysfunctional families and their creepy opposite, perfect ones, neither of which resembled real life. So one would think in this age of connectivity, with families tethered together by mobile phones, text messaging, email, and IM’s, a lot of the old gaps would have closed. We’d speak more freely together, know each other better, and be more comfortable with one another. I pray we are. But I’m not convinced of it, because connectivity isn’t communication. That requires availability of the emotional kind, which fosters a different breed of boundary issues—namely, removal rather than respect. We can’t communicate without first removing our emotional divides.

Widows and Orphans

The Bible typically calls out two groups when addressing familial isolation: widows and orphans. In our culture, people bereft of partners and parentless children are our first concerns, and we’re grateful for that. But this was not so for hardscrabble ancient existence, when drought or flood or marauders could destroy an entire family without notice. The harsh realities of life boiled down to this: if you brought nothing to the table, you weren’t welcome at the table. Since property rights were consigned to male side of the family, when a wife lost her husband, what he owned reverted to his closest male relative. Widows were at the mercy of sons and in-laws, who often heartlessly tossed them aside to provide for their immediate families. The most fortunate orphans got sold into slavery, which guaranteed their masters would house and feed the children to protect their investment. Most often, orphans were abandoned to fend for themselves. Relatively few of them reached adulthood.

“How could a society do this?” we ask. Our compassion for widows and orphans is so primal we can’t conceive any human deserting their own. Nearly everything we read in Scripture about these customs indicates this was learned behavior—a conscious stance of emotional unavailability toward family casualties. In Isaiah 1.16-17, the prophet rails at Israel: “Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.” Stop. Learn. Seek. Encourage. Defend. Plead. This goes beyond social reform. It’s a call for change of heart. Isaiah wants Israel to feel the plight of those they callously turn away in the interest of self-preservation. He’s urging them to be emotionally available in family matters. He stresses this because family matters.

When Families Fail

The extent to which family matters can be gauged by Psalm 68.5-6: “A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families.” (Emphasis added.) When families fail by isolating those most needful of their nurture and care, God intervenes. Yet note where intervention occurs—“in his holy dwelling.” Where might that haven of hope be? Before we scramble for directories of faith-based institutions, let’s revisit Christ’s teaching: “The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, nor will people say, ‘Here it is,’ or ‘There it is,’ because the kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17.20-21) We are God’s holy dwelling. It’s in us that orphans find parents, widows find care, and others cast aside by familial neglect find homes. That means authentic emotional availability—removal of all boundaries that might prevent us reaching them or them reaching us. Connectivity, keeping tabs on how they’re doing, isn’t enough. Communicating with them, listening and speaking from the heart, then backing up our conversation with action, is the only way we can demonstrate our boundaries are gone.

Consistently, when we’re urged to attend the most needy among us, a severe warning follows the admonition. Psalm 68 adheres to this pattern. Verse six concludes: God “leads forth prisoners with singing; but the rebellious live in a sun-scorched land.” Just as Israel justified its emotional isolation of widows and orphans as avoidance of taxing encumbrances, we often withhold emotional access to alienated people to guard against getting trapped in their mess. We even talk about being “held hostage” to their problems. And if we offer ourselves to them for any reason other than inviting them into God’s dwelling, we will find we’re captives. But when we open our arms to draw them into the Presence in us, God leads us forth with singing. On the other hand, if we close ourselves off from those in need, we’ll eventually find we’re isolated, living in a sun-scorched land. God sets the lonely in families. He places them with us, in us. Family matters.

We make ourselves emotionally available, opening our arms to those in need to draw them into God’s dwelling inside us.

Step Away

She got a papyrus basket for him and coated it with tar and pitch. Then she placed the child in it and put it among the reeds along the bank of the Nile. His sister stood at a distance to see what would happen to him. (Exodus 2.3-4)

Too Big to Hide

The virtual faith community is an extraordinary thing. Since plunging into this sea of witness, my life has been enriched beyond compare. Particularly during Advent and Lent, the ability to zoom around the planet without leaving my desk has blessed me to experience them through numerous perspectives. This Lent has been especially rich. Daily I’ve come on a thought that arrests my spirit in new and challenging ways. Last Monday, Fran’s blog There Will Be Bread lit up with her post, Making My Way to the Reeds. Referring to Moses’s mother placing her infant in a basket and hiding him in the Nile’s reeds, Fran wrote:

There are things that we can't toy with, adjust or fix. We just have to let them be, let them go, as it were. I tend to suck at this, but you never know. There's always a first time. In the meantime, I am down by the river's edge, making my way to the reeds.

I’ve not been able to shake this image all week. I keep returning to Exodus, reading the story again and again with new messages surfacing every time. It starts with a population explosion. The Jews are exponentially increasing, raising the likelihood of a slave rebellion. Pharaoh orders Egypt’s midwives to murder every Jewish boy-child at birth. But Hebrew women are hardy and self-sufficient. They deliver without assistance. After Moses is born, his mother conceals him for three months—until he’s too big to hide. His cries are too loud, his needs too great, to avoid drawing attention. His mother gradually accepts she must let him go. While there’s no promise this will spare his life, holding on to him all but guarantees he’ll be killed.

A Method to Stave Off Madness

Releasing her child no doubt rips this mother apart. Yet she’s canny enough to understand if her selfishness led to his murder, she would lose her mind to guilt and grief. She invents a method to stave off madness. She unseals the baby’s fate by giving him to God. She crafts a waterproof crib out of a basket, lays her son in it, and wedges it in the Nile’s reeds. Then she does a most amazing and wise thing. She steps away and leaves Moses’s sister to see what happens.

Any number of horrors could befall her child. He could topple out of the basket and drown. Crocodiles or other predators could devour the baby. An Egyptian could spot the child and kill him on the spot. A strong current could sweep him downriver. None of these is far-fetched; any of them is likely. Moses’s mother knows even if she’s standing by, she’ll never get to her child in time to save him. Once she lets go, she has no choice but to trust God. But given the kind of kids she raised—Aaron, Israel’s first great priest, and Miriam, the jubilant, faithful servant of God—something tells me this lady has every confidence her son’s life will be spared. After she lets go, she doesn’t hang around to get in the way of God’s plan. (She has no idea how grand and essential His plan for Moses is!) She retreats and waits for her daughter to tell her how God honors her trust.

For His Sake

Fran’s post and its Moses story dovetail with Jesus’s half-dozen or so “leave-it-all” statements looming in the back of my mind since Lent began. To be candid, I find them disturbing for their nasty slant. When Jesus says we can only follow Him by leaving parents, siblings, children, and holdings behind, the “them-or-Me” undertone feels contradictory to His character. Matthew 19.29 takes some of the edge off His vehemence with an incentive: “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life.” Yet even in this more positive setting, it seems like Jesus asks too much—until, like Moses’s mother, we make our way to the reeds.

Find an allegedly 100% functional family or relationship, and I’ll show you people stumbling over lumpy carpet. Conflicts and crimes are inescapable when we live together. Sooner or later problems that shouldn’t arise in the first place prove too big to hide. We’ve got three options: live with them until they consume us; pretend everything’s fine; or stave off madness by heading for the river. Placing our families in the reeds is basically the same as leaving them to follow Christ. Both require we let go and step away, trusting God for their safety and removing possibilities we’ll interfere with His plan for them.

Jesus never indicates we leave families and possessions behind for our good. We let go and step away for His sake. But we should know anything we do for Him benefits everyone. “Whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me,” He says in Matthew 25.40, telling us when we do this, He’s pleased to welcome us to His kingdom. We let families and friends, past, present, and future problems go for Him. Once they’re His, He does with them (and us) as He wills. May this Lent be a milestone for each of us, a season of letting go and stepping away.

Epilogue

The story of Moses’s mother ends with a marvelous twist. Pharaoh’s daughter discovers the child before any harm comes to him. She asks his sister if she knows whose child he is. The sister—showing early signs she inherited her mother’s wisdom—demurs, saying she knows a Hebrew woman who can nurse the baby. Moses is returned to his mother, who now plays a critical role in God’s plan for him, rather than bungling it by hanging on. Letting go and stepping away doesn’t mean all is lost. On the contrary, it places us where God can use us best.

Truly obeying Christ’s command to leave family behind for His sake entails a trip to the reeds. We let them go and step away, trusting God for their safety.

(Tomorrow: Heavier Uphill)

Postscript: Stepping Away = Total Surrender

Nothing I know is harder to let go and step away from than family, whom we can’t help but love and cling to despite how healthy or harmful our ties may be. I believe that’s why Christ asks this of us. Short of that, we’re not completely His. And until we do it, we’ll never experience the profound peace and joy of total surrender. Today’s Lent music selection: “I Surrender All” by The Isaacs.

Lent music suggestions are steadily coming in and we’ll be hearing them, starting tomorrow. If you’ve not yet recommended a song or video, please do!

I SURRENDER ALL

All to Jesus I surrender

All to Him I freely give

I will ever love and trust Him

In His presence daily live

I surrender all

I surrender all

All to Thee, my blessed Savior

I surrender all

All to Jesus I surrender

Humbly at His feet I bow

Worldly pleasures all forsaken

Take me, Jesus, take me now

I surrender all...

All to Jesus I surrender

Lord I give myself to Thee

Fill me with Thy love and power

Let Thy blessings fall on me

I surrender all...

Hand-Me-Down Faith

I have been reminded of your sincere faith, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also. (2 Timothy 1.5)

Clean Slates
We enter the world as handcrafted models of God, specifically molded by Him for His purpose. Yet our shaping doesn’t end there. Once He releases us to our keepers—parents, family, friends, pastors, teachers, et al.—we become clean slates on which they inscribe their virtues and vanities, certainties and fears. Much of this occurs before we’re sufficiently experienced to erase any unhealthy impressions, and we spend the rest of our lives either mindlessly complying or consciously resisting them. Racial prejudice is a classic case. Until a child “learns” skin color “means something,” race is insignificant. As Rogers and Hammerstein put it in “You’ve Got to Be Carefully Taught” (South Pacific; 1949):

You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made
And people whose skin is a different shade.
You've got to be carefully taught.

You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate.
You've got to be carefully taught!

Thankfully, young minds are equally receptive to positive ideals. When we teach them all that is right and good, that’s what they seek and recognize. Principles of faith, justice, and service become ingrained in them to such a degree that hateful, self-serving behaviors prove alien to their character. Proverbs 22.6 says, “Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it.” As they develop, they’ll likely dabble in unwholesome attitudes or fall in with undesirable crowds. We’re wrong to expect them to be better than we were at their ages. But when they mature, what we’ve taught them and exemplified remains. Paul finds this in Timothy. “I believe the sincere faith that lived in your grandmother, Lois, and your mother, Eunice, now lives in you also,” he writes.

Courageous Women of Heart and Mind
This is the only time Scripture mentions Lois and Eunice by name. The little we can piece together of their lives comes by extrapolation from what’s known about Timothy. Historians place his birth at 17 AD, making him an adolescent during Jesus’s ministry. It’s unlikely he and his family knew of Christ at the time, though, since Acts 16.1 indicates they live in Lystra, a village in Asia Minor. The Acts reference also confirms Timothy is the son of a mixed marriage, his mother being a Jew and his father a Greek. This and both women having Greek names suggest they’re fully assimilated into Gentile life. Acts 16.3 supports this by reporting Timothy isn’t circumcised until he meets Paul and the Apostle performs the rite to quell any controversy about the young man’s Jewish descent. Yet by this time, Lois and Eunice appear to have established themselves in the Lystra church and raised Timothy to be a devout believer. Indeed, 1 Timothy 1.18 and 4.14 note a prophecy in his youth that pre-ordains him as a prominent Early Church leader. Paul’s high regard for Lois and Eunice no doubt results from their concerted efforts to instill their faith in him and prepare him for service.

These clues whet our thirst to learn more about Lois and Eunice. Surely their lives were eventful, their influence significant, and their examples worthy of emulation. Yet despite our scarce knowledge, it’s obvious Lois and Eunice were courageous women of heart and mind—iconoclasts of the first order. Their integration into secular society speaks to a pragmatic faith-life balance, while their firm belief shielded them from harmful compromises. Social integrity leant dignity to their faith and vice-versa. And their commitment to imbed these values in Timothy steeled his confidence to fulfill his calling. While their personal histories have been lost, their impact survives in Paul’s counsel to Timothy and the young evangelist’s fervor. We are all Lois and Eunice’s children.

Keep Faith Alive
The teachings and promises of Christ survive exclusively on hand-me-down faith, with each generation conscientiously transmitting His gospel to succeeding ones. Some of us are fortunate to experience this in our biological families; belief in God and trust in His promises form the central threads of our heritage. Others of us are blessed to join ad hoc faith families, graced by the wisdom and strength of spiritual godparents. Yet whether the latest in a long line of believers or the first of our kin to live by faith, each of us belongs to the same family. Through Christ, Paul says in Galatians 4.5, we “receive the full rights of sons.” Preserving and perpetuating our legacy of faith is a critical part of exercising full rights as God’s children. We must take care the faith that lives in us gets planted, nurtured, and thrives in those who follow. In this sense, then, we are also parents. We are all Loises and Eunices.

The first lights of spiritual renewal are breaking in lives cruelly overshadowed by religious bigots and fearmongers. Every day our family grows larger as more people discern the lies and deceit of those who insist they don’t, can’t, and will never belong. Malnourished, severely stunted refugees are coming home in droves. New children are being born into God’s family by the hour. Reactionary prejudice against the Church—spawned by deep-seated prejudice within it—is lifting and the halls of faith are becoming full-blown nurseries. It’s our duty to keep faith alive—to impress its principles on our young and exemplify its beauty for their benefit. Faith is our most precious possession, the most precious gift we’ll ever hand down to future generations. We preserve it by teaching them to prize it.

We must take care the faith that lives in us gets planted, nurtured, and thrives in generations that follow. We are all Loises and Eunices.

(Next: Too Much for the Man)

Postscript: “Children Will Listen”
A search for video of “Carefully Taught” led me to Stephen Sondheim’s profound “Children Will Listen,” which embellishes the Rogers and Hammerstein message. It’s not surprising, though—Hammerstein served as Sondheim’s surrogate father and mentor after his natural father abandoned the family. In combination, the songs and their writers’ relationship speak volumes about hand-me-down faith and values. Take a moment to listen and consider how we transmit our faith to young believers of every age.