Sermon notes, Third Sunday of Lent

INTRODUCTION
Scripture demands that we honor our fathers and mothers, the past of our family. But families only exist because of a break with the past. To form a family, a man and woman leave their families and cleave to one another to form a new family for the future. Families have to work out tensions between honoring the past and aiming for the future.

THE TEXT
“And the LORD God said, ‘It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.’ Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to Adam to see what he would call them . . . .” (Genesis 2:18-25).

ADAM’S LEAVING
Adam was given a calling to cultivate and guard the garden (2:15), and then was given a woman as a “helper suitable to him” (2:18). Eve was created for Adam, to support and assist him in his calling. But the creation of Eve also brought something new into Adam’s life, and required that he break with the past. Even Adam had to “leave” and cleave to his wife. Adam was created as the “image” or son of his heavenly father, and God was his original family of origin. When Yahweh created Eve, Adam had, in a sense, to “leave” his father and cleave to his wife in love. Jesus, the Greater Adam, does the same: He leaves His father’s house to give Himself for His bride. Love is always a disruptive power. It always divides in order to reunite differently.

ADULT CHILDREN AND INLAWS
One of the main places this breaks down is in the relationship between adult children on the one hand and parents and inlaws on the other. The problem can come from either direction. Some parents can’t let go of their children, but try to control them even after they are settled in families of their own. Parents need to be ready for their children to move out of the house, out of town, out of the country, if that’s where the Lord calls them. Expecting, or forcing, children to remain close by forever contradicts God’s purposes of them: They are to “leave father and mother.” Some children can’t break away from close relations with parents, and depend on their parents when they should be depending on their husband or wife. There is a real “death” here: Parents have to die to their old relationship with their children, and children have to die to their dependency on parents. Only by faith in the cross of Jesus can we recognize that these “deaths” are not only endings but beginnings, enriching rather than destroying life.

CHILDREN AND THE FUTURE
While parents should expect their children to respect and honor the past, they should also begin early to train their children for the future. Parents are sometimes tempted to coddle their children, and to raise them as if they were going to be children forever. We should instead leading them to maturity, so that we can eventually let them go with confidence that they will remain faithful. Yahweh did this with Israel: He kept them close in their infancy, gave them very clear commandments and exercised strict discipline; eventually, he pushed them out the door, dispersed them among the Gentiles, where they had to witness faithfully.