Family Trees
Preached by Jason Abbott
July 13, 2014
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In the last month, I have had the blessed privilege to officiate two weddings. In the coming months, I’ll have the privilege to officiate a few more, God willing. It’s an awesome thing to be a mouthpiece for the glorious work of God as he unites husband and wife—making of the two, one flesh.What’s also cool, then, is that, often times, this new family starts to multiply. And, so you get something like this: (e.g. image of Abbott and Neuenswander family trees together).This is where (to some extent) my little family of seven came from.This mess of different personalities at different times in history all linked by marriage is typically what we think about when we think about family connections. In Natalie and my case, the spicier Mexican-Danish-German side of her family came together with the much blander English-Scottish-German side of my family to create a new branch of the family tree.I don’t think it’s necessarily wrong to think of family connections this way; however, today I want to critique this larger family tree conception just a little bit. Rather than a new branch being formed each time I perform a marriage ceremony, I believe a truer biblical picture is that a new tree is being altogether planted.This is why Moses and Jesus and Paul all characterize marriage in this way:
[A] man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and they shall become one flesh (Genesis 2:24; Matthew 19:5; Ephesians 5:31).
Marriage, then, is really the business of making or creating a new family. When man and woman come together as husband and wife, they are a new family. Their primary family commitment is now to one another.Consequently, today we are going to look at this family unit specifically. What wisdom does the book of Proverbs give concerning husbands and wives, and, then, what wisdom does it give concerning parents and children?To do this, we’ll liken a husband-wife relationship to (1) the tree trunk, kids to (2) the tree branches, and lastly look at the importance of (3) the root of a tree.Well, let’s begin with a look at the husband-wife relationship:
1. The Trunk
As already seen above, the biblical picture is a picture of perfect unity. Husbands and wives are to be “one flesh” not two.While walking in the woods, you may have seen a tree with multiple trunks. But, did you know that such tree trunks are often prone to fall apart?1 It’s true! These trees are more likely to fracture.In a similar fashion, the book of Proverbs warns the reader of the real danger of a divided husband-wife relationship:
An excellent wife is the crown of her husband, / but she who brings shame is like rottenness in his bones (Proverbs 12:4).
It is better to live in a desert land / than with a quarrelsome and fretful woman (Proverbs 21:19).
It is better to live in a corner of the housetop / than in a house shared with a quarrelsome wife (Proverbs 21:9; 25:24).
At this point the guys are like: “Preach it brother!” while the ladies are like: “You know I never liked Jason. I’m not sure he’s even a Christian.”However, let me provide some biblical balance to this proverbial picture. Consider how difficult it must have been for Abigail to be “one flesh” with Nabal. Or, consider how hard it must have been for Esther to be united to King Xerxes. Both those dudes were serious idiots!You see, the blame for divisiveness in marriage isn’t gender specific at all. Ever since sin entered the world, all human relationships have been under stress—not the least of which is the husband-wife relationship.A friend of mine characterizes our mutual tendency, as husbands and wives, to form in our marriages two trunks (instead of one trunk) in this way. He writes:
[The] proper love of a woman for her husband can become possessive and overbearing and can diminish and even crush his personality. Or her love can turn into a passive acceptance of anything he might do or say, though that might bring pain and distress to her…. For his part, the man may use his physical strength and the dominant position society gives him, to treat his wife as an object to possess and use. He [may] no longer act as the head who recognizes his wife as an equal, sharing God’s image; [nor as] a partner to complement him and whom he must serve and love.2
Even this week, Natalie rightly confronted me for being just a bit of a tyrant. She pointed out that, without warning, I’d snap at her or the kids about small stuff. Maybe the right proverb for our situation would be:
Better for Natalie to live in a corner of the attic with our 5 kids than to share a house with a grouchy, quarrelsome Jason.
Yet, in all seriousness, it was good that she confronted me about my attitude. Since, by rebuking me, she was really saying: “We’re not going to be two trunks! We’re not going to be divided!” She was saying: “I love you!”If a husband and wife are a new family—grandparents and parents and brothers and sister and even children aside—then they must work at creating unity. For in God’s sight, they are no longer two but one (Matthew 19:6).How then can we foster unity in this most basic (husband-wife) family unit? How can we be one rather than two trunks?Well, Proverbs (I believe) points us in the right direction:
Whoever covers an offense seeks love, / but he who repeats a matter separates close friends (Proverbs 17:9).
How many times do our fights degenerate into digging up past grievances? Husbands and wives—do not do this; church family—do not do this.If we have given ourselves to Jesus Christ, God does not treat us this way! Therefore, we must not treat each other this way.The book of Proverbs also says that:
The beginning of strife is like letting out water, / so quit before the quarrel breaks out (Proverbs, 17:14).
How often do we have to have the last word when we’re beginning to fight? Why do we push the other’s buttons simply because we know how to push them? Rather, we must not unleash “more than [we] can predict, control or retrieve.”3Let me close here by saying that unity is not merely about avoiding a fight. In fact (husbands and wives), if you never fight, there is probably something seriously wrong with your tree trunk.Fighting is simply a specifically unpleasant form of communication, and thorough communication, in its many forms, is an essential part of being united as a married couple.The take away is this:If you want a deep and united relationship, then you have to communicate. So, shut off the television; turn off the computer; put away the smart phones; and, just sit on the couch and talk. Ask questions. Share dreams. Be vulnerable.If you’re not working to grow together then you will grow apart.Well, let’s now look at what happens to the husband-wife relationship when “the Lullaby League” and “Lollipop Guild” come onto the stage. Kids.
2. The Branches
In order to support its branches, a tree needs a solid and a strong trunk. Branches put a lot of strain on the trunk of a tree.In order to raise children well, a husband and wife need to parent in unity. So, consider the implications of this proverb:
Hear, my son, your father's instruction, / and forsake not your mother's teaching, / for they are a graceful garland for your head / and pendants for your neck (Proverbs 1:8-9).
Here, the father and mother’s instruction is likened to a beautiful ensemble. Their teaching is like a crown and jewelry which attractively adorn their child. These do not clash; they are not gaudy!The picture is of both parents, in unity, wisely guiding the child.Or, think about the implications of this proverb:
My son, keep your father's commandment, / and forsake not your mother's teaching (Proverbs 6:20).
Again, in this instance, the instruction of the parents is pictured as united. Their instructions cannot disagree with one another or move in different directions. For, if these parents were counseling their child to go in very opposite directions, then this proverb would be quite confusing for their son—to say the least.To illustrate, I once took a long road-trip with a friend and his grandparents. His grandfather drove the entire way—which would have been fine—except that he simultaneously had one foot on the gas pedal and one foot on the brake the whole stinking way.Worse still was that he evidently really favored going faster while his wife—who was sitting right next to him and regularly made sure he knew she was there— favored going slower.He was the gas while she was the brake!And, all the while, here were my friend and I literally being jerked back and forth between their two competing visions of how fast or slow our little journey should go.As parents, we must be careful not to put our children through something similar to my back and forth trip.
We must discipline them from the same page.
We must counsel them from the same page.
We must encourage them from the same page.
So, just as unity is an essential quality for building up a healthy marriage, unity is also an essential quality for fostering healthy parenting.Yet, at this point in the sermon, I’ve simply pointed you to a steep mountain and instructed you to climb it. I’ve placed unity before you—in your family relationships and your other relationships too—and said: “Now go get it! Thrive!” Don’t ever let me do that to you! Always ask me: How do we get there?The answer is that we get there through connection to:
3. The Root
In Colorado, when you look out over the mountains, amongst the cedar trees, you will see large clusters or groupings of aspen trees dotting the mountainside. The reason they are clustered together is that they are actually one giant organism. They are all birthed from and connected to the same root system.Consequently, when you see hundreds and hundreds of aspen trees together, you are actually looking at a unity of aspen trees all connected by the same root.Our family relationships, if they are to be united, are similar to the aspens. Without a connection to the root, the family trunk and the family branches will fall. They’ll be blown over and broken apart as the storms of life, in a fallen world, rage unless, of course, they are deeply rooted together.The Bible makes it clear that Jesus is precisely this type of unifying root.
Through our connection to him, ethnic divisiveness can disappear:
There is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all (Colossians 3:11).
Through our connection to him, gender divisiveness can disappear:
…there’s no male and female, for…all [are] one in Christ (Galatians 3:28).
And, through our connection to him, we can be united as families—husbands and wives and children—in order to bring God glory:
[For] we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love (Ephesians 4:15-16).
1
See this article from the University of California, Davis:
anrcatalog.ucdavis.edu/pdf/8365.pdf
2
Jerram Barrs,
The Great Rescue
, 45.
3
Derek Kidner,
Proverbs
, 118.
