Seeing Church as Family

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Years ago, a young work colleague told me she had stopped going to church and no longer considered herself a Catholic.

She wasn’t very specific about her objections to her former faith. She simply didn’t see the need and was disenchanted with the church, which was under siege because of the revelations about priests who abused minors and bishops who covered it up.

When I asked if she had ever considered the church as family, she looked puzzled. I mentioned that I had begun to think of it that way after the embarrassment and disgust I felt about the priest revelations.

Tension, Disagreement, Conflicts

I told her I thought about a typical American family and the interactions among its members, the tension, disagreements and conflicts as well as the mechanisms many families have for holding the family together.

Those dynamics are different from those we use when dealing with non-family members. In most cases, at least when families are “functional,” we cut much more slack for family members with whom we disagree or who in some way don’t conform to expectations.

It’s still one of the ways I like to think of the church, and she seemed to take to the idea. How some families deal with problems is remarkable.

I’m thinking of parents who try to impose their values on unwelcoming adult children; adult children who struggle to have empathy for difficult parents; the eye-rolling when talking about the weird uncle you wouldn’t leave with your kids; the aunt who has an unusual lifestyle or the brother or sister who always seem to be in trouble.

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Some families hold together despite these great differences, disagreements, tension and conflict. Sometimes, I believe, it requires one or two family members who act as mediators or who counsel family members about tolerance. Sometimes, perhaps, there is an underlying love – maybe not felt by all the members - that is the glue needed to repair damage to family relations. Sometimes, that glue may be religious faith.

I think the family is a good metaphor for church.

I believe few members of the church – speaking of it in its broadest meaning – are totally satisfied, or totally compliant with the church’s teachings and practices. And that applies to clergy as well as lay people. We may believe the church is divinely founded and guided by the Holy Spirit, but its members and leaders are human. And some of us mess up; some seriously. Why is that surprising?

Not to minimize difficulties people have with the church – especially regarding abusive priests and bishops - but I believe our attitude toward the church should include the kind of slack given to family members. The church may have been founded by Jesus, and he promised to be with us always, but its members, including clergy members, often fail to live up to Jesus’ standards.

Often Didn't Measure Up

He still loves us all just as he loved his disciples, who often didn’t measure up. For him, they were “family,” which I think is what was meant by his disturbing statement in the gospel of Matthew.

“While he was still speaking to the people, behold, his mother and his brothers stood outside, asking to speak to him. But he replied to the man who told him, ‘Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?’ And stretching out his hand toward his disciples, he said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother, and sister, and mother.”

Attending church in these times is not like it was even a decade ago. Besides the usual suspects – the elderly, the pious, the scrupulous – there are young people and families, people of color in what used to be white churches, the marginalized, people with tattoos and unusual clothing, the wealthy, the poor - all searching for God, like us.

Doesn’t this look like the modern family?