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Funerals and Family Relationships

The gravestone of my 2nd Great Grandfather Robert White with my 2nd Great Grandmother’s behind it at our family’s ancestral cemetery in Russellville, KY
Much of modern life is geared around avoiding the aging process and not thinking about death. The Christian message is rooted in the reality of death. “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

It challenges everyone to consider their own standing before God and to be ready to meet Him on the day of their death. It also offers comfort in the face of death through the death, life, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Consider as an illustration the first question in the Heidelberg Catechism, a series of questions and answers explaining the Biblical faith written in the 16th century and adopted and loved by millions of Christians since: “What is your only comfort in life and death?”

Notice, however, that the focus is on the individual. The problem with this perspective is that an individual’s death is not only about that individual. It is about the family and those closely connected with that person.

The Bible answers the question of how an individual ought to face his or her own death. Does it have anything to say to the family about dealing with death?

I was wondering about this a few months ago. I was thinking, does God have anything to say about funerals? I quickly remembered that the Bible was full of examples of funerals.

Recently, I have been studying the book of Genesis. This is a book about families, and, not surprisingly, it records several funerals and describes in detail what happened.

The first thing you observe is that these funerals bring families together. For example, Isaac and Ishmael, who did not seem to be on best of terms, came together to bury their father Abraham (see also 35:29 and 49:1).

Second, the families take time to mourn. This is most clearly seen in Genesis 50. Joseph’s sons take 70 days to mourn for Jacob in Canaan, and they take a journey together to mourn him and bury him in the land of Canaan.

Third, when these funerals are done well, they allow the family to heal. Genesis 47–50 record Jacob’s preparations for death, his death, and what followed after. The conclusion of this series of events is Joseph’s firm declaration of his forgiveness of his brothers and his determination to take leadership in providing for the family in Egypt.

Most of the funerals in Genesis allow people to mourn the loss of a key person from the family system, deal with unresolved issues, and allow a new structure to form.

By way of contrast, consider the death of Rachel. Rachel was in a cold war against her sister and their servants (who had also served as Jacob’s wives) over Jacob’s affection and devotion. She died immediately after giving birth to her son. She was so full of frustration that she named her son “Son of my Affliction”!

Jacob took the child and said, “I don’t think so. We’ll call him ‘Son of my Strength.'”

Rachel’s death was unforeseen, and it was not handled with same care that the other funerals were. One result was that things got worse. Jacob looked to Rachel’s son to comfort him. This choice exacerbated the already tense situation with the sons of his other wives, and they eventually kidnapped their brother and sold him as a slave.

In light of this, I think there are several important lessons to consider about funerals and family relationships from the Bible.

The presence of funerals in the Bible indicates that God is interested in the key events of our family life. He takes an interest in these exits from our family system. God made the family, loves it, and is involved with it.

We need to take the time to mourn losses. This is true of all losses: opportunities, jobs, friendships, and death. It is especially true of funerals. No one has the right to demand that we put a period on our mourning, but when we take the time to mourn, we provide opportunity for healing.

Death and funerals are opportunities as well as losses. We can speak into people’s lives, we can call people together who might not have spoken for a while, we can testify to God’s grace, and we can recognize that there is hope for the future.

At the end of his life, Jacob gave Joseph’s children, Ephraim and Manasseh, the status of his own sons. Then he blessed them. He spoke into their lives and encouraged them in regards to the future:

May the God before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked faithfully, the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day, the Angel who has delivered me from all harm—may he bless these boys. May they be called by my name and the names of my fathers Abraham and Isaac, and may they increase greatly on the earth.

This blessing embodies the grieving and the opportunity for the family in times of loss, death, and funerals.

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Why Did Joseph Test His Brothers?

In Genesis 42, Joseph’s brothers who had sold him into slavery arrived in Egypt and appeared before him, the ruler of Egypt. They obviously did not expect to see him there and so did not recognize him. Joseph recognized his brothers, but he did not reveal his true identity to them. Instead, he treated them with harshness. Why?

Commentators are not agreed on the reason. Perhaps my favorite suggestion is one we might call the “Hey y’all, watch this!” explanation. Picture Joseph talking to his friends at his office in Egypt. His brothers come in, and he says, “Hey y’all, remember my brothers I was telling y’all about. There they are. Watch this! Hold my beer!”

Unfortunately, this fruitful way of interpreting the Scripture has not been widely accepted by scholars.

One thing that scholars seem to agree on is that Joseph was not trying to get revenge. As one example, Matthew Henry says: “Now why was Joseph thus hard upon his brethren? We may be sure it was not from a spirit of revenge, that he might now trample upon those who had formerly trampled upon him he was not a man of that temper.”

This might be hard to believe in light of the fact that Joseph put all of the brothers in prison for three days. Then, he kept the oldest, Simeon, in prison, telling them that he would only release him if they came back with their youngest brother Benjamin. After all, when people start taking hostages, it’s not funny anymore.

There are two solid reasons to think that this is not revenge. First, Joseph could have done much worse. He could have made them slaves. He chose not to. Second, his own explanation of the situation indicates a long reflection on the meaning of his sufferings that excludes a desire for revenge: “And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you” (Genesis 45:5).

So, what was Joseph doing? It seems most likely that he was trying to determine if they had changed. Forgiveness allows people a fresh start, but relationships are built on the basis of people’s character. If someone has been abusive in the past, forgiveness allows a fresh start. However, a real relationship can only flourish if the abuser can let go of their abusive ways.

So it was with Joseph. Happily, in this case, Joseph saw that their hearts had changed. His pretend harshness culminated with a situation where he was going to take Benjamin as his slave. Judah stood up and said:

So now, if the boy is not with us when I go back to your servant my father, and if my father, whose life is closely bound up with the boy’s life, sees that the boy isn’t there, he will die. . . . Now then, please let your servant remain here as my lord’s slave in place of the boy, and let the boy return with his brothers.

At this point, Joseph could bare it no longer. He broke down and wept before his brothers. Reconciliation had begun.

Is there an application to us today? When we don’t feel safe because of past hurts, we can approach those who have hurt us to see if they have changed. If they have, then we should be willing to be reconciled without demanding anything else in return.

This may be hard, but it is the way of King Jesus. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

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Judah & Tamar

When people haven’t read the Bible, they tend to think that the families of the Bible look something like this:

But when they read the Bible, they discover that the families of the Bible are more like this:

One of the best examples of this is the story of Judah and Tamar in Genesis 38.

Judah’s family of origin was a mess. There were multiple wives who were fighting for the favor of Judah’s father Jacob. This led to sibling rivalry. The brothers of three of the wives hated the sons of the favorite wife and eventually sold the oldest of those two, Joseph, into slavery.

It’s not surprising in this toxic environment that Judah decided to bail. “Judah left his brothers…” (38:1).

Judah sought out his own identity. He aligned himself with a Canaanite named Hirah and married a Canaanite woman. He had three children with her: Er, Onan, and Shelah.

And do you know what happens? Sibling rivalry. We often think that we can escape our family’s legacy by simply moving away. We can’t. As one author writes, “Time and distance cannot fool an emotional system.” They may provide temporary relief, but you have to confront the underlying emotional and relationship issues in order to really grow.

Judah’s firstborn, Er, married Tamar. He follows his own path and is a wicked man, so God sends judgment upon him. He dies without having any child.

In those days, the law was that if a husband died childless, then the next younger brother would marry the widowed woman and have a child for the deceased husband. It was called the law of the Levirate.

So, Judah’s second son Onan married Tamar, but he refused to impregnate her. He knew the child would be his brother’s, so he married her but refused to have a child with her. God was not pleased, and so Onan died as well.

Judah had one more son: Shelah. Judah was scared. He thought that marrying Tamar was the issue, so he held Shelah back, and he had a good excuse. Shelah was too young.

Tamar returned to her father’s home, and time passed. Tamar realized that Judah was not going to let Shelah marry her.

So, she came up with a plan to get pregnant. She dressed up as a shrine prostitute, and came out while Judah was on his way to shear sheep. Sure enough, he asked if he could sleep with her, and she said, “What will you give me?”

He said, “I will give you a young goat, but I don’t have it with me.”

She replied, “Give me your seal, cord, and staff as surety.” He did so, and they made love.

Later, Judah sent the goat so he could get his seal, cord, and staff, but the prostitute was gone. Nobody even knew who she was.

And . . . Tamar was pregnant.

Judah was furious, and he said: “Burn her!”

She was then brought out to be executed according to Judah’s hypocritical standards of sexual (im)morality.

Then, she held out Judah’s seal, cord, and staff. “I’m pregnant by the man whose seal, cord, and staff these are.”

Caught! Judah was deeply humbled. “She is more righteous than I,” he said, “for I did not give her my youngest son.”

Judah’s statement may not seem remarkable at first glance, but if you look at the rest of the book of Genesis, you will see that this was extremely rare in the book of Genesis. Adam blamed Eve. Eve blamed the serpent. Cain blamed Abel. Cain killed Abel. Sarah told Abraham, “You are responsible for the wrong I am suffering!” This was the way of things in those days and ours (see my article on this here).

But Judah took responsibility for his actions and confessed his sin.

This is always what opens the door to family healing. When one person takes responsibility for his or her action, the family has hope for change.

Judah was a changed man, and he symbolically received his family identity back by receiving his seal, cord, and staff. He was ready to go back to his family again and be the agent for change that he became when the brothers met Joseph again.

Taking responsibility for one’s own failings opens the door to family healing, no matter how messed up your family may be.

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Depolarizing the Polarized Community

Polarization is the process of a group or family dividing into two camps that are mutually opposed to one another. Anxiety is high, and the only options the participants can see are victory or defeat. It’s what some call “either/or” thinking.

This is often the state of families when they come to counseling. Thus, the job of the counselor is to reduce anxiety and help the family to see more options.

A good example of this state of polarization in the Bible is the family of Jacob. Tension had been building for generations in this family. When Jacob ended up with children by four different wives, there was constant maneuvering between the wives for Jacob’s favor. Leah especially resented Rachel’s place of favor in Jacob’s heart and bed. In spite of her position of favor, Rachel felt threatened by the other wives and their children.

This tension played itself out in the next generation. It was the children of Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah against the children of Rachel, especially Joseph, Rachel’s eldest. The Bible tells us, “When his brothers saw that their father loved him more than any of them, they hated him and could not speak a kind word to him” (Genesis 37:4). Eventually, it came to a point where the only option they saw to this intolerable state of affaris was the elimination of Joseph.

Notice in this story that the brothers always tended to act together. They all herd the flock. They all hate Joseph. They all go to Jacob. They all go down to Egypt. They had trouble being different from one another. This is also a characteristic of polarization. You have to act in conformity with your “side.”

It is hard to act out of principle and thinking in a state of polarization. When the brothers wanted to kill Joseph, Reuben actually felt that he should act differently. He desired to save Joseph, but he feared taking a stand against his brothers’ strong opinion. So, he ended up trying to act secretly and the result was that he acted ineffectively. Meanwhile Judah did make a suggestion to Joseph into slavery rather than killing him. The herd of brothers moved quickly in that direction together.

Was there any way out? Were there any other options?

Yes. Virtually innumerable options.

Polarization makes us think that our choices are limited, but they almost never are.

Let me just give you a few examples. They could have left the tension between Jacob and his wives between Jacob and his wives. The children of the wives could have refused to take sides with their mothers against Rachel and by extension Jacob. One person could have reached out to Joseph. One person could have said that he was not going to listen to the gossip about Joseph. One person could have stated a different opinion about Joseph. Joseph could have refused the coat. The brothers could have accepted the fact that their father had a favorite and decided to be OK with it. And on and on.

There are always more options than one thinks. One just has to step back from the emotional intensity of the situation, use a little imagination to see those options, and then act on them.

That’s how one person can begin to depolarize a polarized situation.

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Hope for the Family

I remember one woman in a small group who said, “I struggle so much. I look at all of you, and it seems like you all have got it all together.”

I responded, “Trust me. As a Pastor, I can say without a doubt that if you just scratch below the surface a little bit, you will find that things aren’t as good as they seem.”

In fact, there is nothing like family to produce emotional distress. Hardly any family goes unscathed. There is almost always conflict or distance in one form of the other. We like to present a good face, but struggles with family are very real.

Is there any hope?

I believe that there is hope for the family because of God’s blessing on the family (Gen. 1:26–28). Some may ask, isn’t that before the fall? Yes, but God renews the blessing after the fall even though the thoughts of man’s heart are only evil from his youth up (see Gen. 8:20–9:7). God still stands behind the family and offers His blessing.

In addition, when evil and family disharmony were introduced into the world, God promised that it wouldn’t go on forever. Through a future child of the family, a descendant of the woman, God would crush the head of the serpent and turn back the effects of evil (see Gen. 3:15). When God announced that this person would come through Abraham, He said that all the families of the earth would be blessed through him! (Gen. 12:1–3).

We all have difficulties and trials that we face as families. Some our own responsibility. Others are not. How we respond to these trials and stresses determines the shape of our family problems. In my last post, I explained that blaming others freezes or intensifies family problems. As long as we blame others, there is no hope for family healing.

The flip side is also true. God heals families, but He does it by empowering one individual to stop blaming and claim responsibility for his or her own actions. When that happens, family dynamics can change, and the door opens for family healing.

What does this look like?

  1. When one person takes responsibility to do what is right. It’s amazing how often we float around wondering what’s the right course of action, unsure of what to do. If we just stop and think through what God wants us to do and then do it (irrespective of people’s reactions), we can make a difference.

    This is obvious from the book of Genesis. Abraham passes on some unhealthy patterns to his children such as favoritism and passivity. However, he also passes on a legacy of faith that continues to flower in the generations to come by following God’s commands and committing to the regular public worship of God (see for example, Gen. 26:23–26 and 35:1–4, 7). Note also that the actions of parents are a much greater influence over our children than we tend to believe, as this article illustrates.

  2. When one person is willing to be vulnerable, things can change. When Judah volunteered to take Benjamin’s place as Joseph’s slave out of concern for his father, Joseph broke down and wept, and the family began a process of healing.
  3. When one person is willing to listen rather than defending or attacking, the family can begin the process of change. Often times, people are so caught up in defending their position that they cannot really “hear” the others.
  4. When one person takes responsibility to confess their sins, the family can begin to change. As I wrote in my last post, Adam, Cain, Sarah, and many others blame others and miss their own responsibility. What if they had started by confessing their own sin?
  5. When one person takes responsibility to extend forgiveness without demanding anything from anyone else, the family can heal. Joseph is a beautiful example of this. He learned to say that he would let go of the physical and emotional abuse he had experienced at the hand of his brothers. He said it was evil, but he also let it go. This opened the door for family healing.

God is at work bring blessing instead of curse to the families of the earth through Jesus. He invites each one of us to be a part of it, not by changing others but by taking responsibility for our own actions and role in the family. By His grace, there is hope for the family.

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