When I was a child and my mother started thinking out loud about "going home," she meant driving to Grandma's house a thousand miles away. This trip from Ohio to Nebraska with two parents, five children, and sometimes a dog did not happen in our unairconditioned family sedan without considerable planning and effort. Just packing the car strained family cordiality and tested my father's training as an engineer. His plan was always the same: Be on the road shortly after midnight and drive all night so that the younger children would sleep through the first several hundred miles. Sometimes we would stop for sightseeing at such places as Lincoln's Tomb in Springfield, Illinois, or to admire the St. Louis Gateway Arch. Always we were struck with awe as we crossed the "big bridge" over the mighty Mississippi.
My favorite places were the diners and pancake houses where we took our meals. Sometimes we did not drive "straight through"; instead we stayed a night in a motel, one with a pool if we were lucky. Sleeping arrangements were always tenuous: who gets the beds, the roll away, and the floor? I didn't mind the floor, but the snoring chorus which would erupt without warning left this light sleeper pacing, pushing toilet tissue into his ears, and once attempting to sleep in the bath tub.
It was difficult to manage the pet over such a long trip. The year we took Fritz, our dachshund, we had our windows fully rolled down as we approached St. Louis, creating quite a breeze at seventy miles per hour. Why Fritz decided to jump at that particular moment I will never know, but he was one lucky dachshund that my sister had a good hold on his leash. I remember my father's frantic turn onto the berm, slowing the car, all the while my sister holding little Fritz by the leash, dangling outside the car above the speeding pavement until we stopped ... That dog always seemed a little longer to me after hanging out there like that.
And we always made it to the little town where my mother grew up. We always found a warm welcome; always good food, clean beds, good conversation, and many games of checkers. These were very pleasant times almost entirely except for the visits of a few in town who never seemed to understand how or why my mother could have moved so far away. They hoped someday she would come back to stay and implied strongly that somehow the world would have been a better place had my mother always remained a hometown girl. These discussions were painfully repetitive. They never seemed to go anywhere and they always made my mother uncomfortable.
Where Was Jesus' Home?
So far as we know, Jesus lived most of his life, thirty years or so, in Nazareth. Though settled early, the town had been abandoned for hundreds of years because of the exile to Babylon and resettled by a clan "of the davidic line" around 100 B.C. In Jesus' time the size of the clan-settlement Nazareth was 120 to 150 people. In other words, it was a small village, where Jesus lived surrounded by his extended family.
Did Jesus Have Strained Family Ties?
Though we know during his ministry Jesus' family ties became strained, this clearly was not always the case. Jesus traveled with his family to the wedding at Cana of Galilee and "after this (the wedding) he went down to Capernaum with his mother and his brothers and his disciples. There they stayed for a few days" (John 2:12). A family group also likely accompanied him when he went to be baptized by John, his cousin, in the Jordan.
But strained family ties did develop as Jesus began to locate his ministry more and more in Capernaum. One can only imagine how the hopes of Nazareth were placed on Jesus. The residents, who almost all were related to him, had seen him grow in wisdom and stature, until there was a sense of great expectancy. Jesus' family was of the davidic line, the line from which the prophets said the messiah would come. And just when he seemed to be coming to full flower, he went to live with some fishermen by the lake.
Jesus' Other Home
Jesus in fact did make Capernaum his home and through his ministry, as much as Jesus had one, he made his home with Peter. So imagine how his family felt when they showed up at Peter's house while Jesus was teaching, having made the trip from Nazareth -- Jesus' mother, brothers, and sisters. Some think they had come to bring him back to his real home -- Nazareth. They were concerned about him. They knew how the crowds were pressing upon him and that sometimes he was forgetting to eat. People were saying, "He is beside himself; he is out of his mind!" (Mark 3:21). And there had been controversy with the Pharisees!
So here in public, with a crowd seated about him, Jesus was told, "Your mother and your brothers are outside, asking for you." And Jesus asked, "Who are my mother and my brothers?" Then looking at the crowd seated about him he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother, and sister, and mother" (Mark 3:32-35). What a welcome! Imagine how his family felt.
So when he did return home to his kin in Nazareth and attended a synagogue service, a mixture of feelings about this young rabbi welcomed him. At first things went reasonably well. The service on that particular Sabbath was composed of the usual prayers and two readings. Jesus stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him: "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me," he read, "because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord" (Luke 4:18-19). What hopeful words from the prophet Isaiah and how pleasantly they fell on the ears of Jesus' kin. And then he said, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." And the townspeople spoke well of him and were astonished at the gracious words spoken by this son of Joseph the carpenter.
But then things began to turn. Jesus continued, "Doubtless you will quote to me this proverb, 'Physician, heal yourself ...'" and the discussion took up Capernaum and the desire of the people of Nazareth for Jesus to do at least as much for his clan in Nazareth as he has done for that other place. And Jesus continued, his words to family, friends, and townspeople no longer gracious:
Truly, I say to you, no prophet is acceptable in his own country. But in truth, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Eli'jah, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months, when there came a great famine over all the land; and Eli'jah was sent to none of them but only to Zar'ephath, in the land of Sidon, to a woman who was a widow. And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Eli'sha; and none of them was cleansed, but only Na'aman the Syrian.
By this time the faithful in the Nazareth synagogue had had just about enough of this upstart prophet who insisted on living elsewhere and thought he was too good for his own people. Their anger erupted into a small riot driving Jesus through town until they would have thrown him over a cliff ... but I suppose a dispute emerged among these angry relatives, maybe Jesus' brothers came to his defense. Somehow in the confusion Jesus walked right through the mob and went his way -- back to Caper'naum1 (Luke 4:21-30).
And when tempers had cooled in Nazareth they talked about the things Jesus had said to them and of how he bewildered them. "How could he have moved away?" They hoped sometime he would come back to stay. On one thing they could all agree: "The world would have been a better place had Jesus remained a hometown boy."
It appears that the tensions in Jesus' family centered around loyalty to Nazareth, the town of his upbringing, to his clan, and to his immediate family. After all, this was a family/clan/tribe which was of the davidic line from which the prophets said the next great king would come. "Jesus, don't forget the way home." Likewise, the apostle Paul is concerned about divisions in the church at Corinth being caused by confused loyalty. So he writes an appeal for agreement and unity. Paul has heard that there is quarreling among the brethren and that some are saying, "I belong to Paul," or "I belong to Apol'los," or "I belong to Cephas," or "I belong to Christ." "Is Christ divided?" asks Paul (1 Corinthians 1:10-13).
In the Corinthian church there was a controversy over allegiance. To whom will we be loyal; to whom will we pledge our energy, our creativity, our wealth, our love, our lives? There are always many to whom we could give our allegiance and there are always many voices trying to persuade us that they are worthy of our trust and loyalty. Paul helped the Corinthian Christians to refocus on Christ. A good lesson for us all. The tension in Jesus' family came because, after the synagogue education system of Nazareth had done a good job of bringing Jesus up in the faith, his family and friends wanted to dictate to him how he would practice his faith -- which is always dangerous. How can one know how God will choose powerfully to use one of our loved ones? They wanted him to stay in Nazareth! If he had, where would that leave us? Sometimes God calls us forth to do the difficult or the seemingly unwise, but who are we to discourage another when one has heard a call of God? Focus on Christ! And belong to him, says Paul.
Clergyman/songwriter Benjamin Hanby wrote the children's Christmas song, "Up On The Housetop"; the hymn, "Who Is He In Yonder Stall?"; and "Darling Nelly Gray," the pre-Civil War ballad which swept the nation advancing anti-slavery values. He was called the "Uncle Tom's Cabin" of song. And it is not surprising that Ben would turn his attention to anti-slavery concerns, because his father, William Hanby, was a leader in the Underground Railroad. In 1850 the Fugitive Slave Law was passed, making it easier for Southern slave owners to recover runaway slaves. William Hanby hid slaves in his barn. Ben often helped with their food or secretly escorted them to wagons which would take them to the next stop north on the Underground Railroad.
William Hanby was an outspoken critic of the Fugitive Slave Law, heaping ridicule on a law that would make it a felony to feed a starving slave. William Hanby was ready when asked how he could knowingly break this law. He replied: ... when a law keeps a people from humanity, it is no longer the voice of God; it is a counterfeit and must not be obeyed. When a manmade law is in conflict with God's law, there is no compromise....2
And he would quote Saint Peter: "We ought to obey God rather than men" (Acts 5:29). William Hanby was a vigorous critic of the Fugitive Slave Law and well he should have been. William was the child of an indentured servant, and his mother had William bound over for service after her husband died and she could no longer take care of her five young children. He received brutal treatment, and his master required him to lie and cheat in business, so William escaped. He later described his flight:
... on the night of Wednesday the 24th of March, 1828, about 12 o'clock at night I bade farewell to Beallsville and bent my course towards the beautiful state of Ohio. No one can describe the anguish of my heart that night and for the days afterwards. Leaving a poor and dependent mother behind, very poorly clad, my spirits crushed by the treatment I had received, and every moment dreading the footsteps of my hated master in pursuit of me, who had already declared repeatedly that he would follow me to Hell if I ever attempted to run away.3
William Hanby was a vigorous critic of the Fugitive Slave Law and well he should have been, because he hated what the law was doing to some of God's children, and he knew their pain and fear and suffering. So he knew where his loyalty belonged; he knew to whom he would give his allegiance. "Choose this day whom you will serve ... but as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." Joshua 24:15 was a foundation of William Hanby's life.
Paul heard that there was quarreling among the brethren and wrote an appeal for agreement and unity. In the Corinthian church there was a controversy over allegiance. To whom will we be loyal; to whom will we pledge our energy, our creativity, our wealth, our love, our lives? Paul helped the Corinthian Christians to refocus on Christ.
The family of Jesus helped him to learn and grow in the faith but then wanted to tell him how to live his faith and where to place his allegiance. It was hard for them to let him go; they could see the many challenges he would face, and sometimes they did not understand him or his mission. Certainly they were not early followers of Jesus, but in the end they did come around and chose who they would serve. For in the book of Acts, Jesus' family is seen as very much a part of the fellowship of believers, and Jesus' brother James oversees the church in Jerusalem. Jesus said, "Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends." -- John 15:13James, brother of our Lord, saw this love in Jesus and later circa 62 AD. Jesus saw this love in James, when James was stoned by
1. For an interesting treatment of Jesus' relationship with his family, see Bargil Pixner, With Jesus Through Galilee According to the Fifth Gospel (Israel: Corazin, 1992), pp. 49 ff.
2. Dacie Custer Shoemaker, Choose You This Day: The Legacy of the Hanbys (Westerville, OH: The Westerville Historical Society, 1983), p. 28.
3. William Hanby, "Autobiography" (Library, The Ohio Historical Society). Manuscript in the handwriting of William Hanby concerning his early life, religious experiences and travels up to 1857. Originally written at the request of John Lawrence, editor of Unity Magazine.