Focus On The Family, 'Sopranos'-Style
Focus On The Family, 'Sopranos'-Style
What does the Bible - not the "Christian Right" - say about "family values"?
The call of duty of every young man in this world is also a rite of passage.
One in which they willfully deny everything they observe with their eyes and ears about this world - its absolute wickedness, corruption and sin - and choose instead to make a conscious and active decision to proceed with life in a way that no longer responds to those observations in a human manner.
Meaning the corruption, crimes against humanity, the worst we see on the global scale, those things are now presupposed, taken for granted, as we enter what is laughably called “adulthood”.
They can then wink at those horrors and say “Oh yes, how sad!” and go on to pursue a life of fantasy, total unreality, directly adjacent to absolute wickedness.
Think suburban tract homes down the street from child trafficking rings.
Think churches silenced and shut down while abortion clinics stay open.
Think facial coverings for the employees and free breathing for the employer.
Think statues of America’s founders being torn down while statues of Baphomet and Satan are erected.
This is what adulthood in the new American Century really is about.
I began to think deeply about this phenomenon, oddly enough, while re-watching (binge re-watching, technically) HBO’s “The Sopranos”.
And so in an episode entitled “The Second Coming” when young AJ Soprano, the patriarch’s only son, tries to commit suicide in his family’s pool, it’s a seemingly natural response to what he suddenly learns with his own eyes and ears.
For his entire life he went about in complete ignorance, turning a blind eye to the sick realities of this world, and happily doing so.
But upon realizing the world is bigger than his little nest, that his father isn’t any better than any villain he’s seen on TV, that all he grew up believing and hoping for were merely the distilled desires of a culture that does not care about him in the slightest, AJ comes to the realization that any of us who are awake have come to:
We are drowning in a sea of human depravity that, despite our deepest longings and best efforts, marches on from one generation to the next with no apparent end in sight.
This rite of passage is real, and we are all undergoing it, some stage of it, but to return to it in your mid-40s as I am is to understand that, no matter what the future may hold, I don’t ever want my kids to be desensitized to its reality.
But at the same time, I have to strengthen them to endure and persevere and to be wise to evil, and beyond that, to trust a God who I know is not only real but active in all this, allowing it and yes, even saving through it.
It’s a very tall order for any parent.
In American Christianity, there’s a lot of focus on the importance of family and with good reason - the Bible has much to say on the subject.
But to the surprise of many steeped in contemporary “Churchianity”, the Bible also says there are no families in heaven.
Weird, right?
Jesus Christ echoed that same sentiment during his time here on Earth.
The God-Man said if anyone wanted to follow him, they had to subjugate any ties they had to family and anything else under the Lordship of Christ.
“If anyone comes to me and does not hate father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters—yes, even their own life—such a person cannot be my disciple. - Luke 14:26
As He spoke to a large crowd that had gathered, He was told, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to see You.”
Did Jesus drop everything? Did He have them wait until He was finished?
No.
In Matthew’s Gospel, He says, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”
Luke records it another way, a more cutting version of his words:
But He replied, “My mother and brothers are those who hear the word of God and carry it out.” - Luke 8:21
His words convey an unchanging truth: there is a spiritual reality that supersedes our physical reality and it’s time we stopped living as though the temporal will ever supersede the eternal.
Just a taste of the distinction between the two realms:
no marriage in heaven (Matt. 22:30)
former things will be remembered no more (Isa. 65:17)
no day or night (Rev. 2:25)
no tears (Rev. 21:4)
no curse (Rev. 22:3)
Reread that last one. No curse. No sin. Nothing that is corrupted or corruptible in any way.
No you. No me. Not without the righteousness found only in Christ Jesus.
Wow.
And so, here’s the takeaway: everything is dispensable.
If it's not, then you are not free.
I mean everything.
Friends.
Family.
House.
Career.
The breath in your own lungs.
Utterly throwaway-able.
It has to be.
If you can't live without something or someone- then that thing or person owns you.
You are not free.
But if you can say with Job "though God slay me", if you can say with Solomon that every thing in this life is as meaningless as chasing the wind, if you can say with the Apostle Paul, "I die daily"?
Then you are walking in liberty.
Then you can safely say the Spirit of Christ dwells in you.
Why?
Because if anyone loves the things of this world- fame, fortune, friends and yes even family over truth - the love of God is not in him.
"But the Bible says honor your father and mother and love your enemies... isn't this another Bible contradiction?"
No, you're just confusing contradiction with paradox.
When the disciples told Jesus His mom and his brothers needed him, what was His response?
"Who?"
He clarified that those He was with - his disciples - were his true family.
Did Jesus sin by denying his mother? Impossible. God cannot lie or sin.
The only possible deduction is that His blood family wasn't the priority. His spiritual family was.
What else did the Creator of heaven and earth say?
"If any man loves father or mother more than me, he cannot be my disciple."
Or a similar statement in another of the Gospels:
"If any man comes to me and does not hate his father and mother and yes, even his own life, he cannot be my disciple."
Yikes.
So - back to dispensable.
Who or what in your life is indispensable?
Kill that.
Not in the Tony Soprano sense of the word, of course.
But with the very same ruthlessness.