I am in the middle of watching a documentary called Fair Play. The title of the documentary comes from the book written by Eve Rodsky called Fair Play. I have not read the book, but my friend at Baremarriage.com did a complete series on this topic including Eve’s book about 5 years ago. Here is the link to that series if you have interest: Why The daily Grind Needs To Be Shared

Here is the quick summary of Eve’s book:

Eve was sitting with 10 of her friends one day for 30 minutes after they had gathered for a Breast Cancer Awareness March. During that 30-minute period, between the 10 of them, they received something ridiculous in the neighborhood of 46 text messages and 10 phone calls from their husbands about how to care for their kids why they were with their friends. They were questions like this:

• Where is the gift for the party I need to get him to?
• Where is Hudson’s soccer bag?
• When are you coming home from the parade?

Here is the best one: Do the kids need to eat lunch?

In addition to another event she calls the “blueberry breakdown”, this moment was when she realized that not only, she was doing two thirds of all the housework and childcare while working full time, but so were her friends. She set out on a research project to collect data to find out what was going on and ended up writing the book called Fair Play.

The documentary opens up with interviews of couples asking them to tell how the division of workload is broken up in the house. There was much laughter by the wives as the men gave their answers. The best answer by one couple? The man: I do 70% of the domestic work. The woman: I do 70% of the domestic work. It was found in Eve’s data, that men typically over report and women typically under report the amount of domestic work they actually do.

Summary of the book? Gender roles is a culturally created concept. Women and men are equal and should share domestic work such as household chores and childcare equally, regardless of their job and income input. Please keep in mind: This may look differently for each family.

Now let’s look at the Profound Words of Jesus and how this applies to our topic:

Mathew 12:46-50

⁴⁶ While Jesus was still talking to the crowd, his mother and brothers stood outside, wanting to speak to him. ⁴⁷ Someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.”

⁴⁸ He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” ⁴⁹ Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. ⁵⁰ For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Many years ago, I was teaching as a substitute in our adult Sunday school class of around 40 people. Our pastor attended that class and was present for my lesson. In my message I posed the question. What if God was not just our Father? What if it was God our Mother? In church that day, there didn’t seem to be any irony that in our Pastor’s message was the use of God Our Father more than once. It felt like a correction. Maybe it was just irony? Or was it?  

Of course, I believe God is Our Father. That is God’s Word in scripture.

The Words of Jesus in the Gospel of Mathew are, however, quite profound and certainly dance around my question.

The reply of Jesus in this scripture is commonly interpreted as, those who are His family are not just family by biology, but His family are those are who are following the will of God.

So, what other messages of the words of Jesus can we discern from Mathew 12:46-50?

I believe that this is yet another place in the Bible where we can interpret that the will of God is that we strive to become more like Jesus. A key factor in these words of Jesus, is that Jesus did not differentiate gender or title. The family of Jesus is clearly anyone who is doing the will of God regardless, of their gender or title. This scripture provides us further evidence that Jesus treated ALL equal, regardless of gender or title. Further, Jesus is teaching Solidarity.

When we apply this to marriage the questions then become:

How do you view your wife or husband in your marriage? What do the roles in your marriage look like and why? Are they your mother and your brother? Are they your brother and sister and mother? Are you being more like Jesus in your marriage? Would you both answer that question the same?

I hope you can answer these questions Together, Equally.

It is quite simple, but yet quite Profound – The Words of Jesus.