Your Own Kin

"Is not this the fast that I choose . . . not to hide yourself from your own kin?"

     - Isaiah 58

People avoid their own family. When you're finding extended kin: second and third cousins, the problem is even more pronounced. You plan a large family reunion, and the question is: "Will I know any of these people?" You find something interesting about a great-grandparent, or grand-aunt or uncle: "Oh I'm not interested in dead people."

And as a Christian this attitude always bothered me. I couldn't put my finger on just why. To me, Scripture is wrought with references to the need to care for family. I mean, if you are to take care of widows and orphans first, isn't that because something awful happened to them: a relative shunned them? (And what could be worse than that?)

But here is a clear Scripture in support of my position. God puts His finger right on it. Even more important than fasting . . . is not to hide from your own kin! He put them in our lives, so that we would care for them! And we may need them in return, some day!

Friends can bow out. And we know that even spouses certainly can, and do, make an exit. 

There is nothing in nature binding friends together. But the very DNA coursing through your veins ties you to your kin. And even if the fourth and fifth generation has gotten so watered down that the DNA is not that similar . . . well at least they have a common ancestor that they may even have met; or someone that they know met and has memories. Doesn't this tie people together . . . enough? If I have heard stories of my Great-Great Grandfather, and one day I show up at his home with distant cousins I have just met, that heard versions of the same stories . . . doesn't this count?

It's Fat Tuesday. And I shall call on people to take a fast from hiding from your own kin.