The Christian Family 10/12/41
Scripture: Proverbs 4: 10 - 5: 2.
For the purpose of an emphasis that we wish to carry out in this church this month, we have called this second Sunday in October “Family Sunday.” Many of you in this congregation today have acted upon the suggestion that whole families attend this morning’s service, in so far as possible, by family groups. And we are here to think for a few minutes about “The Christian Family.”
Families of today are not always like families of fifty, or a hundred and fifty, years ago. Family life of today has to meet a great deal of tension and change. This we must understand. There was a time when the family was largely a productive unit in the matter of living. Crafts were practiced by whole families. Every member of the family, according to his age or experience, had a share in the family occupation. The tanning of leather, for instance, and cutting it and building it into shoes might be the business of an entire family as they worked away at it in their own homes.
Do you remember the story of the young soldier of the American Revolution who was to leave for his duty with the army on the following day? The family decided that he ought not to leave in his old clothes. He really should have a new suit. So they proceeded to get him one: - not by purchasing it at the store. (Probably the store did not have suits, and they couldn’t have paid for it anyway.) The old father and the boys went out and corralled a few sheep on their farm place. They sheared the wool from the sheep and cleaned that wool and prepared it for the mother’s spinning wheel. Mother and the girls spent most of the night spinning the wool into thread by candle light, and in the weaving that thread into cloth on the hand loom. Toward morning, enough cloth had been woven so that they could cut out the woolen pieces for a suit. And by the time the young Revolutionary left they had finished the warm woolen suit that he was able to wear away with him! The growing, spinning, and weaving of materials for clothing used to be a function of the whole family.
It is not so now. The family is no longer the productive unit in our society. The father earns the family living at a job which he usually does away from his family. The children have no part in it and spend their time out of school at play or following their own amusement. The mother is engaged in making a home for husband and children. But she usually has no part in the particular kind of productive work done by her husband.
The family is no longer the productive unit that it once was. When more than one member of the family works they usually work away from home, often at different places, usually at different jobs.
The tendency now is for the family even to take its recreation in differing ways. Recreation is on the one hand a matter for individual tastes and appeals, or on the other hand, a matter handled by school or civic or even governmental initiative.
But the family still has two important functions left which belong to it alone. Here in the family are expressed (1) the affection of husband and wife for each other, and (2) here the children find their psychological security. It is impossible to over-emphasize the importance of these two family functions.
And, in order that there may be free expression of affection between husband and wife and between parents and children, there must be a certain degree of privacy for the home. It is not possible for family life and loyalty to develop properly when young couples try to set up housekeeping in rooming houses or when children are crowded into small apartments or tenements. That is why the people of the entire nation must always be concerned over the proper housing of the families of every community.
The family is by far the most important unit of people in a civilization - more fundamental to the way people develop than the church, the school, the countless associations and organizations which offer help but are less important. It is essentially in the family that the strength of civilized citizens is lost or made!
The home has the children long enough each day, and for enough years, to create the impressions that last permanently, throughout life. This is simply a statement of fact. Here in the home is the greatest opportunity for Christian nurture, for learning the basic truths of the Bible, and Christian experience. The home ought to compete aggressively for the time and interest of its members against the countless other interests crowding in upon the attention of the family.
Now what are some of the reasons why the church should be concerned with the life of its families and of other families in a community?
Because, first of all, religion is the church’s business; and religion is fundamentally important to any civilization - hence to the basic unit of civilization. Ernest Fremont Tittle says, “Religion divorced from civilization goes to seed; civilization divorced from religion goes to hell.”
Have you ever noticed the numerous references of Jesus to the family? “Let the little children come unto me and forbid them not.” [Matthew 19: 14]. “Despise not one of these little ones.” [Matthew 18: 10]. One of his most effective stories was the parable of a rebellious son who at length returned to his father. Other parables are based on the life of the household and field.
The very life of the Christian Church is based on family metaphor. The fatherhood of God derives its meaning from the family. I feel sure that God is much more real to one who has grown up knowing the kindness and wisdom and understanding of a good father. How tragic is the comment of a young man who once said bitterly to a teacher, “I can’t say ‘Our Father’ in the Lord’s Prayer because when I do I always think of my father.”
The family is the only unit in society which is based on the ethics of Christian brotherhood. In the family (that is any kind of household at all) we do find that the one who is greatest is the greatest servant of all. In the family we do go the second mile; we do forgive - not seven times seven but seventy times seven; we do find our life by losing - by giving - it.
When we pass beyond the limits of the family we limit the number of times we are willing to forgive. We will give some, but not too much; and so on.
The Christian family can do more for the growth of religion than any other unit, even the church. A strong church is one in which families provide the foundation upon which to build. When whole families attend public worship at the church, give to the church’s support, work for its effectiveness, you have a strong church, ready to reach out with religious influence throughout the community.
There are so many ways in which religion can be developed within the family - by doing things together, singing around the piano, going to the woods or talking over the experience of the children at Sunday School - together. A religious paper among the magazines, wise selection of pictures, the careful reading of the Bible, develop the religious life of the family. Grace at table is a repeated reminder of the consciousness of the heavenly Father.
Yesterday and Friday some of us were at Oshkosh attending the annual meeting of the Wisconsin State Conference of Congregational Churches. I was given lodging Friday night and breakfast Saturday morning together with another minister in the home of a doctor and his wife who are active members of a church in Oshkosh. When we sat down together at breakfast, the doctor, without asking either minister to say grace, bowed his head and in a few simple sincere sentences asked the blessing of God on the food before them, and upon the conference sessions of the day. There was nothing artificial or unusual about it. As the head of his household, he was accustomed to leading the attention of his entire family to the goodness of God as often as they sat down to a meal together.
Human nature grows in the home as it grows nowhere else. There is no opportunity found anywhere, comparable to that in the Christian home for explaining the unfolding mysteries of living, and of God’s care.
Before I finish, let me say that men must take a large, responsible share in the making of a Christian home. It is not fair to leave that to our wives and mothers. Men can make, or very nearly break, the spiritual effectiveness of their homes. No Christian man can shirk the responsibility for protecting the purity and ideals of the home. If a man is head of his household, his is the responsibility for grace at meals; for leading in the family custom of church attendance. The best defense of our American home life is in the rededicated Christian initiative of men - of husbands and fathers and those who will be, one day, husbands and fathers.
Let us thank God for our freedom to be Christian families. And let us leave no stone unturned in order to preserve, and deserve that freedom.
-------------
Dates and places delivered:
Wisconsin Rapids, October 12, 1941