The Family Caravan to Bethlehem
EJ McGaughy
Day 1 of 5: (no) Normalcy & Norms
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah[a] took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
—Matthew 1:18-21
There is no such thing as a normal family.
There is no such thing as a normal family.
There is no such thing as a normal family.
Read it again. Read it aloud. Read it as many times as you need to for it to get inside your heart. Read it until it stays in your heart. Read it until it becomes your own heart’s cry.
There is no such thing as a normal family.
When I think about the unnecessary suffering too many people experience as a result of conservative Christianity’s role in shaping notions of normal family, I can’t help but feel resounding rage. And here’s the ironic, and deeply tragic, kicker: “normal” families aren’t biblical. They literally aren’t there. As a tradition, we have profound reckoning to do, in confronting this textual, historical, cultural, unnecessary, unfaithful legacy.
There is no such thing as a normal family. But there are such things as family norms. The difference between the two is worthy of attention, and if there was only one prayer I was allowed to lift in this season as Christian clergy, it’d be this—that we forsake expectations of family normalcy and focus instead on shaping family norms.
Look at Joseph. The text tells us in Chapter 1v19 of Matthew that Joseph was righteous—which in this context means “law abiding.” And yet — First thing in the Gospel of Matthew, the unwed companion of Mary, breaks the law. For all intents and purposes, as a “righteous” man, Joseph “should have” had Mary stoned to death. That’s what he “should have” done to his fiancee who’d gotten pregnant out of wedlock according to the mandates in Deuteronomy 22.
And yet, even before the Angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream, Joseph resolved to “dismiss her quietly.” He of course does no such thing once he realizes who Jesus is. But let’s not lose sight of the fact that even before the revelation, he was resolved to break the law in order to avoid “exposing her to public disgrace.”
Joseph was not the only righteous man in our tradition to break rank. Check out Jesus in Mark 2:23-3:6 (cw: ableism). Check out St. Augustine and Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s words on unjust laws and moral responsibility. Perhaps being Christian inherently involves grappling with expectations, laws, and creating new norms. This means something for those of us who are Christian parents.
Dwyane Wade recently went on record defending his son who’d been the target of anti-LBTQ+ hate. On Thanksgiving, Wade’s wife—the angel Gabrielle Union—who is also a major supporters of LGBTQ+ liberation, posted a picture of their family together in which their child wore a crop top and acrylic nails. I’m not one to follow celebrities, but I do watch how LGBTQ+ young people are being treated in the larger culture, so this one caught my eye.
What caught my heart though, was Wade’s shaping of what parental norms could/should be in our society. He said, “As a parent my only goal is that my kids feel that I see them, love them and support them,” and went on to say, “Once you bring kids into this world, you become unselfish.”
What I see in these two fathers—Joseph and Dwayne—is a willingness to be unselfish; a willingness to step into the rigors of parenthood, which include being child-centered; a willingness to be changed, to chart a new course because of the arrival of a child; a willingness to break with conventional/traditional/lawful notions of family and live into the calling of unconditional love. If that isn’t faithful parenting, I don’t know what is.
Dear God,
may we
like our rebel ancestors in faith
be willing to drop what’s “normal,” what’s traditional, what’s expected
in order to reach for what’s faithfully exceptional,
in order to touch that which is love unconditional.
May we regard the children in our lives for what they are:
images of you, in their full humanity,
needing to be seen, loved, and supported.
In your Holy name we ask it, Lord Jesus,
Amen.
Rev. EJ McGaughy