Your Family Dynamics in COVID
This COVID19 time-out that most people are doing right now is putting a lot of strange pressure on families. I mean, what could go wrong when people who know each other’s buttons and personality flaws are forced to be cooped up in the same small space, day in and day out, under the stress and pressure of—oh, I don’t know, let’s say—a worldwide pandemic and economic crisis unlike anything anyone alive has ever seen. And then on top of that, let’s make everyone learn a completely different way to work, go to school, go to church, shop for the things we need—oh, and then make the whole thing a political powder keg. What’s the worst that could happen?
Families are under a lot of stress. They always are but this quarantine is turning a lot of homes into an episode of COPS.
I was talking to my brother, Jeff, the other day, he’s a commander for the department of justice in Illinois, he said domestic violence has quadrupled in the last three weeks alone. And it’s all over the dumbest stuff.
Like a twenty-two-year-old girl lives with her mom and she has her boyfriend staying with them. They’re all hanging out at the house and quarantined—One day she was looking at some video on her phone and she’s laughing. Her boyfriend wanted to know what was so funny and apparently she didn’t stop enjoying herself and tell him fast enough because he grabbed the phone out of her hand—breaking two of her fingers. She clearly didn’t appreciate that and expressed her displeasure to him in no uncertain terms. Which hurt his feelings, so he got on top of her and proceeded to punch her in the face until her mom called the police.
Cell phones are actually at the center of a lot of family conflict.
When I was talking to my brother Jeff on Thursday, I said, “I’m writing a sermon on family stress and conflict during this quarantine, do you have any recent stories I could use as an illustration for the sermon?”
He said, “It’s funny you should call right now and ask that question because I’m just this minute finishing up a warrant on a domestic battery case.” He said, “It’s the third one this week. Over a cell phone.”
In this one, a guy’s girlfriend gets a new phone, he asks to see it, he really likes it and won’t give it back to her. She grabs for it so he punches her in the eye—breaking her glasses, smashes them into her face. Then he throws the phone on the floor and smashes it with his foot. ‘Cause that’s what you do. This was on a Friday. But she doesn’t call the cops.
On Monday she gets another new phone. Same exact thing happens again. But this time he hits her in the face twice and gives her a wedgie before taking her phone and leaving in his car. She does call the police this time and when they arrive, they ask about the “glasses shaped” bruise on her face—from Friday’s fight. They wanted to know why she didn’t call them the first time. She kinda laughs a little and says, “Love makes us do crazy things, I guess.”
This quarantine has locked a lot of people in a cage with the monsters.
But I know most of us don’t have it quite that bad. We’re just faced with all the little irritations and minor annoyances that we can usually deal with just fine. We normally have enough time and space away from the people we love that we’re able to enjoy them when we’re together—instead of having all our little quirks and idiosyncrasies grate on each other like… I don’t know, what are the most irritating things in the world? A jagged spot on your tooth that you can’t stop playing with? One of those little dangly things you get on the roof of your mouth after eating something too hot? A pebble in your shoe? An eye twitch? Whatever it is, it’s the kind of thing that once you notice it you can’t ignore it and it drives you nuts. And during this COVID quarantine, for a lot of us, there’s no escape.
When we spend too much time with the same people, things tend to start getting sideways.
Familiarity breeds contempt. Cliche´s are cliche’ for a reason. It’s like the old saying, “How can I miss you if you won’t go away?”
During this lock down, it’s like the people in our family are the only human beings in the entire cursed world.
So imagine what it would have been like when that was actually the case. Adam, and his wife Eve, their two darling boys, Cain and Abel. The first family. They didn’t need social distancing because there was no society to distance from. You know when it was just Adam and his wife—but they got kicked out of their first place for HOA violations. I’ll bet they never let each other live that down.
And the brothers. Cain the firstborn, the special one. And little brother Abel.
Seriously, if you ever want to feel better about your family, just read Genesis chapters 3 and 4 again. In chapter three, Adam and Eve turn on each other and literally ruin the entire world. In chapter four, older brother is jealous of younger brother and kills him in cold blood.
Genesis chapter four:
Now Adam had sexual relations with his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant. When she gave birth to Cain, she said, “With the Lord’s help, I have produced a man!” Later she gave birth to his brother and named him Abel.
When they grew up, Abel became a shepherd, while Cain cultivated the ground. When it was time for the harvest, Cain presented some of his crops as a gift to the Lord. Abel also brought a gift—the best portions of the firstborn lambs from his flock. The Lord accepted Abel and his gift, but he did not accept Cain and his gift. This made Cain very angry, and he looked dejected.
“Why are you so angry?” the Lord asked Cain. “Why do you look so dejected? You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”
One day Cain suggested to his brother, “Let’s go out into the fields.” And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother, Abel, and killed him.
Afterward the Lord asked Cain, “Where is your brother? Where is Abel?”
“I don’t know,” Cain responded. “Am I my brother’s keeper?”
But the Lord said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground! Now you are cursed and banished from the ground, which has swallowed your brother’s blood. No longer will the ground yield good crops for you, no matter how hard you work! From now on you will be a homeless wanderer on the earth.”
Cain replied to the Lord, “My punishment is too great for me to bear! You have banished me from the land and from your presence; you have made me a homeless wanderer. Anyone who finds me will kill me!”
The Lord replied, “No, for I will give a seven-fold punishment to anyone who kills you.” Then the Lord put a mark on Cain to warn anyone who might try to kill him. So Cain left the Lord’s presence and settled in the land of Nod, east of Eden.
Seriously, don’t your family problems suddenly seem a lot less dramatic?
Cain kills his brother because he gets his feelings hurt and then God comes to him like a patient, loving father and leads him to repentance.
Think about this: Adam and Eve disobeyed God. They ate the forbidden fruit. You would think mankind would slowly become more and more wicked and sinful until eventually someone would do something really evil and violent like this. Nope. Right away. Brother kills brother. That escalated real quick.
So God comes to the murderer, comes to Cain and says, “Where’s your brother? Where’s Abel?”
This happens over and over in the Bible, the way God comes to Cain. Jesus did this kind of thing all the time. God comes to people and asks them questions. He doesn’t usually come out swinging. He leads us patiently to a place of confession. If you confess your sins, He is merciful and forgives your sins.
But Cain is disrespectful. Like a little punk.
“I don’t know. Am I my brother’s keeper?” I’m not his babysitter. It’s not my job. It’s not my problem.” The word for “keeper” is the word for a guardian, a protector. Cain is saying it’s not his job to take care of his brother.
This is called making a bad situation worse. Because his own words are going to be the judgement against him. He most certainly is supposed to protect and care for his brother. That was his job.
Why’d it made sense to him to kill the only brother he had. Break his mother’s heart, to be such a disappointment to his dad, fail his God. How could Cain be so dumb?
As if we’d never fail the people we love. As if we never fail God. You only have the friends and family that God has given you, too. They’re all you’ve got.
So don’t be like Cain who compared his offering with Abel’s offering, compared how God received Abel’s offering but didn’t accept his. Comparing your situation with other people, that’s always going to be poison.
Don’t compare your phone with other people’s phones. Don’t compare your family to other people’s families. Don’t compare your kids with other people’s kids. Or your husband with other husbands. Or your wife with other wives. Or friends with other people’s friends—especially the ones on TV and in movies, or Instagram and Facebook where everything is so perfect.
Their house is always going to look nicer and more tidy on Zoom. Comparing yourself to other people just makes you unhappy with what you’ve been given. It robs you of joy. Keeps you from being thankful. And that’s especially true when it comes to people.
We need to make the most of the people who are in our life. Pour all that grace that God gives us, just pour that into the people who are in our lives.
What if we used this time of quarantine to serve each other? Bless each other? It’s a strange and unique time—what if we find some new ways to love each other and delight in your friends and family. There are probably things you can do now for people that you wouldn’t have been able to do for them before. What are some opportunities that we didn’t have before?
Don’t waste your quarantine.
And if you do, if you snap at people, if you’re a jerk, admit it. Confess it. Don’t be a punk.
God does finally get Cain to confess his sin. It’s not a good confession, but it’s good enough.
Verse 13 Cain says,
“My punishment is too much for me to bear.”
To be fair, it wasn’t that bad. It was basically the same thing God had told Adam. “The ground isn’t going to work for you anymore, and you can’t stay here.” But God didn’t kill him, which is clearly what Cain deserved.
Last week we talked about civil government. How it’s the civil government’s job, according to the Bible is to protect the citizens and punish bad guys. Well this is pretty early in the history of the world, this Cain and Abel thing, so God is acting as the civil government. But He’s also going to act as family.
It’s never the job of the family to punish. Parents are not supposed to punish their kids. Discipline, yes. Punish, no. Discipline, that’s done out of love—discipline is wanting what’s best for someone. Discipline is putting someone back on the right path. Punishment’s just punishment. Don’t punish the people in your life. God punished Cain for sure, but He also shows great mercy.
Verse 13 actually has a double meaning. Most Bibles translate it as “My punishment is too much for me to bear,” but it can just as easily be translated “my sin is too much for me to bear.” It actually means both.
Point is, Cain admits his sin. He confesses. It’s a lame confession but it’s a confession.
And it’s enough. God puts a mark, a sign, on Cain to protect him. A seven-fold word of protection. He doesn’t only get punishment, he also gets absolution. That’s what the mark of Cain is, it’s absolution.
God’s going to keep doing this kind of thing over and over in the Bible. He’s going to attach His Word, His Promise to a sign, so that the people will be able remember it and believe it. Like the rainbow after the flood, the Tabernacle in the wilderness, the sacrifices, the Temple, and in the church—baptism and Communion and fellowship with each other. He gives us His Word attached to a sign. It’s kinda wonderful.
So the story of Cain and Abel, it turns out to be the story of a murdered saint and an absolved sinner.
Anyone who messed with Cain after that was going to have to deal with God. You don’t mess with the absolved, the forgiven.
And that brings us back to where we started. Stuck in the house with other sinners—bless their little hearts. Everyone making sounds with their mouth and their teeth and breathing weird. Correcting each other’s stories. Going from room to room just making messes. Nagging at people to clean up those messes and do their homework and their chores. Whatever it is they do that tries your patience. Playing on their phone, laughing at videos. Whatever it is we might be tempted to go into a violent rage over. Or at least be unkind and impatient.
And then things go sideways. Our feelings get hurt. People get mad. It happens. Right?
I went to pour myself a drink the other night and Kim knew where I was going, she knew what I was doing, but she walked right to the place where we keep the glasses—she got in my way. Can you believe that? I mean, the nerve! I kinda said under my breath, “and of course you need to stand right there, right now.”
I know. Not cool. I’m not proud.
I immediately saw the look in her eyes that I had hurt her feelings, and I apologized. It wasn’t a great apology, though. Actually, it was a pretty pathetic apology. I looked at Angel and said, “Well, apparently I’m a jerk and just made your mom sad.”
That was my apology.
You know what? It was enough. She knew I was frustrated and tired. She said, “it’s fine. I’m fine.”
And that was the end of it. Nothing more happened. Everything was okay. They lived happily ever after.
This is probably the most important gift we can give each other in this bizarro C19 world we’re living in. Just show some grace. Don’t escalate every little conflict. If you get your feelings hurt, just admit it. Move on. Don’t play head games.
I’ve been doing family counseling for a lot of years now, and one thing that I’ve heard over and over—I mean it’s like fingernails on a chalkboard to me—it’s when someone says something like, “they said they were sorry but I don’t believe them.” “I said I was sorry.” “Yeah, but I don’t think you mean it.”
Ahhhh!
We better be glad God doesn’t treat us like that.
“Lord, I’m sorry for my sin, please forgive me.”
And He’d be like, “Yeah? I don’t know. You’ll probably do it again. You’ve done it before.”
Our motives are never pure. We confess our sins, and repent, and ask God to forgive us for all kinds of selfish reasons. There’s nothing pure about any of this. We don’t want Him to be mad at us, disappointed in us, we don’t want to be punished for what we did, we don’t want His justice, we want mercy—we want to get away with whatever it was. “Lord, have mercy on me, a poor miserable sinner.” So I can go back to feeling good about myself and do it again. Besides, it’s not like I’m as bad a sinner as those other wicked people anyway.
No, all of our confessions are lame. But God forgives us anyway. He absolves us anyway. Our confessions don’t have to be perfect. Because of Jesus. He not only forgives our sin, He forgives our pathetic attempts at confession. Thanks be to God.
So, can we just stop with the head games? If someone says they’re sorry, just take them at their word. And if you do something or you say something that you know hurt someone—come on man! Call it what it is. Say a kind word. Just apologize.
Some people seem to think that apologies are a sign of weakness. Yeah right. Look if you’re not strong enough to apologize it’s not because you're so tough—it’s because you’re too insecure to admit when you’re wrong. “Oh no, if I admit that I was wrong then they might use it against me.” Just confess your sin.
To confess is to call something was it is. To tell the truth about it.
Let’s be quick to call things what they are. Let’s be quick to apologize when we know we’ve hurt someone. To forgive when someone hurts us. And when someone makes an attempt to apologize, even if it’s pathetic and lame—Let’s take them at their word. The same way God takes you at your word. Forgiveness is always a gift. You don’t earn God’s forgiveness by making these great confessions of your sins. Don’t make people earn your forgiveness either. Certainly don’t make them grovel for it by not believing their apologies. Sin is always crouching at the door, just waiting—don’t let it in.
You have been shown God’s kindness. His grace. His forgiveness. Because of Jesus. Maybe you needed to be reminded of that today. That’s why you’re here...
Hebrews 12:22-25 says
“But you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem. You have come to thousands upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly, to the church of the firstborn, whose names are written in heaven. You have come to God, the Judge of all, to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, to Jesus the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel.
See to it that you do not refuse him who speaks.” AMEN
I have a bit of a “post script” for today’s sermon. Domestic violence is up and on the rise. I grew up in an abusive household and I have known far too many people who have suffered at the hands of a family member. If someone is hurting you, you need to get a safe distance away from them. If you’re in danger call 911, preventing someone from dialing 911 is a Class A misdemeanor—don’t make a bad situation worse. If you need help, call Katy Christian Ministries domestic abuse hotline at 281-391-4357, someone will answer 24/7. I will put more resources in the notes below. Forgiving someone does not mean continuing to take their abuse.
Harris County Constables OfficeDomestic Abuse Victim AssistanceBarbara McInnis
+1 281-578-2513
Katy Christian Ministries Domestic Abuse Hotline281-391-4357 (24/7)
Star of Hope
Women and Family
2575 Reed Rd
Houston 77051
713-222-2220
Wellspring Village
transitional house for homeless and abused women
confidential address
713-529-6559
Mission of Yahweh
shelter for women and children
10247 Algiers Rd
Houston TX 77041
713-466-4785