A newspaper article on family values said that while everyone wants strong family values few can agree on what they are. Soon after this article came out, Roger Rosenblatt was on public radio being cynical about family values. Rosenblatt said that there are plenty of perfect families around like yours and mine. But, there are so many others that fall short, families like the Walker spy family or the Medicis in Italy or the Macbeths of Scotland or the Oedipus Rexes of Greece. Rosenblatt's point was that there is no perfect family and that family values have become so generalized they are meaningless. He said what is valuable in families is that they are normal people struggling to do good and be good, strengthening themselves by listening to each other, paying attention to other families, and encouraging each other to be fair, honest, and kind. Sounds like a decent list of family values to me, and even a single parent can do those things.

Some of us, when we think of family, think of more ordinary things, like clusters of dog hair on clothes and hot dogs with everything smushed in the glove compartment and peanut butter on the television screen and aging grease on the hood over the stove. Whatever your view of the family and its values might be, Jesus wrecks it all. Jesus' words are like answering the doorbell and getting a bucket of ice water in the face.