Sermon by Dr. George Bryant Wirth
November 18, 2007
THE WAY WE NEVER WERE
Scripture:
Genesis 25 and 27 (Selected Verses)
Text: This is my commandment, that you love one
another as I have loved you (John 15:12)
INTRODUCTION
In the summer of 1942, Norman
Rockwell, already one of
When I first saw those
paintings at the
This painting depicts a
perfect-looking family, and although it is one of my favorites in the Rockwell
collection, it is also one of the most difficult pictures to live up to –
because this image of perfection in any family just doesn’t measure up in
reality.
I
I am holding in my hand the
Christmas card from the Wirth family in 1962.
My father had just been called as the preacher of an old historic
Presbyterian church in Bucks County outside of Philadelphia, and that same
year, I went off (actually was sent off) to The Stony Brook School in Long
Island as a boarding student.
Our Christmas family photo
shows my father Robert sitting in the living room chair holding his Bible, with
my mother Emily next to him and my brother Paul standing behind them. Nearby are my sisters Rebecca and Priscilla
and out grandmother, Lettie Morrison, whom we called Gammy, but I am not in the
picture.
Why? Well, I had gotten into some trouble during
my first semester away at school – nothing serious like arson or armed
robbery. But I had broken some of the
rules and played a few pranks, including putting an alarm clock in the pulpit
of our chapel one Sunday morning, which turned out to be a bit mistake!
I accumulated so many
demerits that I had to stay on campus for detention and work projects, making
it impossible to get home for the family photograph just before
Thanksgiving. My parents (rest their
souls) gave me their forgiveness, but it was hard to explain why their
first-born son was not included in the Christmas card picture.
And we weren’t the only
family in
A great deal of research has
been done since then, including two books written by Stephanie Coontz, who
teaches history and family studies at the Evergreen State University in
Olympia, Washington. One is entitled “The
Way We Never Were: American Families and the Nostalgia Trap” (1992, Revised in
2000, Basic Books), and the other is “The Way We Really Are: Coming to Terms
With America’s Changing Families” (1997, Basic Books).
In summary, this insightful
author describes the painful realities of family life behind the scenes and
gradually emerging publicly during those decades – the rising divorce rate,
alcohol abuse, economic disparity, racial inequality, domestic violence, the
myth of self-reliance – and in the 1960’s, a surge in teenage drug addiction,
the pervasive fear of communism, a growing inclination toward materialism, and
the deaths and disabilities that touched far too many families during the Viet
Nam War – all of which has left a legacy behind for us to deal with today.
To be sure, there were many
good things, meaningful moments and joyful times that happened in our families
across this country forty, fifty, sixty years ago. That Norman Rockwell painting shows people
who wanted to be happy, loving, faithful, forgiving and kind. But “Freedom from Want” was not the reality
for everyone, and most of us needed more support and stability in our families
than we were able to find.
So to idealize and idolize
those “golden years” of days gone by is going to leave us short of what we
really want and need today and in the days that are yet to be.
II
Some people say, “Why can’t
we go back to the way it used to be, to the family values in the Bible?” In fact, one person in great frustration with
what’s going on in this country today, said that to me just a couple of weeks
ago.
I wanted to agree, but what I
know is that the families in the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, fall far
short of the expectations that we modern day folks put on them.
Take for example the family
described in Genesis, chapter 25, beginning with verse 19. When Isaac, the son of Abraham and Sarah and
the child of the covenant God made with them for the future of all generations
– when Isaac and his wife Rebekah were barren, he prayed to the Lord and she
conceived. But the Bible says that God
told her:
Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples, born of
you, shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, and the elder
shall serve the younger (Genesis
25:22-23).
There is no record that
Rebekah revealed those words to Isaac, and sure enough, when the two brothers
Essau and Jacob were born, one was favored over the other.
At the end of Genesis 25,
Jacob winds up with the birthright, and if you read on into chapter 27, he and
his mother trick both the father Isaac and the brother Essau out of the
blessing which was due to the older son.
Then in verse 41 we read these tragic and traumatic words: Essau hated Jacob because of the blessing
with which his father had blessed him, and Essau said to himself, The days of mourning for my father are
approaching. Then I will kill my brother
Jacob, which cast fear into the heart of Rebekah, who sent her son Jacob
off to the Land of Haran to live with her brother Laban (Genesis 27:42-45).
Craig Barnes who teaches at
Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, has written many books, including “Hustling
God,” about Jacob and Essau and their relatives in the Book of Genesis. He writes this about the family we are being
re-introduced to today:
“This family doesn’t look like a
blessing. Jacob and Essau had struggled
with each other from before the day they were born. Their parent’s marriage has been reduced to
trying to outwit each other in giving advantages to their favorite sons and
resentment is breeding among all of them.
This family is as dysfunctional as they come in the Bible.” (From “Hustling God” by Craig Barnes, Pages
33-34)
Now that doesn’t sound like
the family values that most people think are found in the Bible. And the truth is that no Biblical family,
from Genesis to Revelation, lives up completely to the expectation of
perfection that we have laid on them, especially in the midst of the political
battles and culture wars that we have been waging across this nation.
Our friend Barbara Brown
Taylor, the Episcopal priest and author who teaches at
“Those of us who listen to television
talk shows hear a lot about ‘family values,’ especially during an election season. More and more, people blame the breakdown of
the family for the growing list of our social problems: for crime and
unemployment, for moral lassitude and mental illness. The family is where children learn values,
people say. If children do not learn
about honesty, hard work, responsibility and faith from their mothers and
fathers, chances are that no one else will be able to teach them those
things. When families break down, values
break down. When values break down,
families break down. So everyone is all
for ‘family values,’ although no one can say what that means exactly.” (From “Gospel Medicine” by Barbara Brown
Taylor, Cowley Publications, 1995)
It seems to me that we are
searching for that meaning today. And as
another presidential election year is beginning to escalate, I am reminded of
what Dr. Donald Browning said in the Stone Lectures delivered at Princeton
Seminary more than 15 years ago: “The
family is and will continue to be the cultural hot potato in this decade of the
1990’s and beyond.”
That may be so, but no
government official, no lobby group, no religious organization, no legislative
act and no presidential candidate will have more of an impact on family values
than we ourselves in our own homes.
Because the real responsibility for relationships in the family depends
on you and on me as we live together and love one another just as the Lord
Jesus instructed us to: Love one another as I have loved you He
said, and He meant it (John 15:12).
CONCLUSION
Now if the responsibility of
family life were left to us alone, we would make a mess of it, and so we have
in so many ways. But if we believe as
Christians that the love of God and the life-changing power of Jesus Christ is
available to us in our hearts and homes, then and only then can we become the
kind of family that the Lord has called us to be.
So let me tell you one final
story about the family that I grew up in, a story that you’ve heard
before. It’s my own story and it has
shaped me more than almost anything else.
When I finally got home for Thanksgiving, our family would sit around
the table together, but there was always an extension on the table because my
mother invited others to come join us, and I didn’t like it because they made
me uncomfortable.
One was named Cora. She was in her sixties and she suffered from
mental illness. My mother loved her and
invited her every Thanksgiving. Another
was named John. He was the dog catcher
and he was an alcoholic trying to go straight.
He called my mother Auntie Em. Somebody
had punched him in the mouth and knocked his teeth out, and I was embarrassed
sitting at the table with him. There was
another named Jean who came with her mother Harriet. Jean had muscular dystrophy; she was in a
wheelchair and was spasmodic. I tried to
stay clear of her. And there was a man
named Big Jim who had been released from prison. We were never told what he had done, and he
was kind of quiet and didn’t say much. I
was embarrassed, being there with all of them.
They made me uncomfortable, and I didn’t like it – every Thanksgiving.
And then sadly, my mother at
the age of 51, died of cancer. The
family had moved to
So as we come to
Thanksgiving, and prepare to sit around the table with family members and
friends, let me leave you with three suggestions which I hope and pray are not
only Biblical but will be helpful to all of us, and the first is to
Look and Discern – Look with open eyes as you recognize the family
members and friends as those people in our lives whom God has given to us there
around the table, and remember that we belong to them and they belong to us,
just as Jesus said it should be when two or three (or more) gather together in
His name. Look and discern who they are,
and then…
Listen and Learn – Pay attention to those who we say are supposed to
be closest to us – find out what is happening in their lives and celebrate the
good times…but also be prepared to discover the pain and despair that will
require something more from you than just a hug or a handshake that says hello.
And finally…
Love and Return – Show your love, share your love with them and as
you return thanks to God for them, offer to them what they need the most –
acceptance and affirmation, forgiveness and reconciliation, and the joyful
celebration of relationships that are meant to last a lifetime.
You see, God is giving us the
opportunity this Thanksgiving to love one another as He, through Jesus Christ,
loves us. Time is too short, and people
are too precious to miss that opportunity.
So don’t miss it – don’t miss it!
And if anybody is going to take a photograph, please make sure that
everybody is included in the picture.
In the name of the Father and
the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.