Jesus's Dysfunctional Family

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, is commonly held up as a model of what a family should be. Back in Catholic school, we were instructed to inscribe “JMJ” at the top of every new copybook page.

I believe the evidence is plain that it was in fact a dysfunctional family. 

We we know this from the only evidence we have of Jesus’s childhood or youth. Luke 2:

‘When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. 48When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”

“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them.’

Jesus was, in effect, saying to Joseph “You’re not my real father.” A rebellious son—but surely, being who he was, not a rebel without a cause.

More striking is the fact that his parents did not notice his absence for a full day. They were, at best, careless parents—care being the essential duty of a parent.

Just as Jesus disowns his father here, he later disowns his mother. At Cana, when she asks him to perform a miracle, he responds, “Woman, what have I to do with thee?”

He also disowns her at Matthew 12:46:

‘While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers.”’

At Mark 6:4, Jesus says “A prophet is not without honor except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” 

He is saying that he has not received honour in his family or in his home.

Later, he says his followers must despise (or love less, depending on the translation) their father and their mother for his sake.

So much for family values, and for the happy happy joy joy Holy Family.

It also stands to reason that Jesus must have grown up in an at least somewhat dysfunctional family. That, after all, is the human condition; that is what original sin is about. All the families of the prophets of the Old Testament are clearly dysfunctional. Beginning with Adam, running through Abraham, who abandoned one son in the desert and was prepared to kill the other; Noah, who cursed his son Ham, and for what seems a trivial matter; Lot, who had sex with both his daughters; David, who killed a man to take his wife; Solomon, who took his many alien wives; Isaac or Jacob, both of whom played favourites shamelessly; and so on. It is a persistent theme: the sins of the fathers are visited on the sons. Why would Jesus’s case be different from all the other prophets? Indeed, as the point of his incarnation was to take on himself all the sufferings of mankind, the mission would not be complete if he did not experience a dysfunctional family, did not encounter original sin. This obvious truth has been whitewashed out of our conception of the Holy Family to support the common prejudice in favour of “family values.” Which, like tribalism or nationalism or racism, is a dangerous idolatry.

Now for the second half of the puzzle. If the family was dysfunctional, how does Mary avoid any responsibility? How does she remain without sin, as is the teaching of the Catholic church?

This is possible only if you accept the Biblical duty of women. See Ephesians 5:22:

“Wives, submit yourselves to your own husbands as you do to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, his body, of which he is the Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit to their husbands in everything.”

Mary remains free of blame so long as she was following her husband’s guidance. Which, presumably, Mary did. “Let it be done unto me according to your word.” Any guilt for family dysfunction then falls on Joseph. When Mary later seems to oppose Jesus and his mission, Joseph is not present. But she appears “with his brothers.” So she is again, presumably, simply accepting and supporting his male relatives, to whom proper authority falls on the death of her husband. The blame is theirs.

This might be argued to put women in a secondary place. In a sense true, but it also makes it much easier for them to enter heaven. Their moral path is much easier, their burden light.

This does not lead to the conclusion that Joseph is not a saint in heaven, either. Saints are not without sin. Witness the prophets listed above. Only Mary is without sin. We know Joseph did, at least at one point, on hearing God’s command, demonstrate heroic virtue: in accepting Mary to wife although she was pregnant, and not by him.

I would presume he had his time in purgatory; but that should have earned his salvation.