Self-Differentiation/Emotional Health in Jesus’ Family
My own definition of self-differentiation is something like this:
The ability to remain calm, curious and open in the midst of emotional tension within the system (family or church), while also honoring your own values and truth.
It’s something none of us do perfectly, and very few do well.
If you want to know if you're self-differentiated - spend a week with your whole family during the holidays. If you find yourself acting out like you did when you were a teenager by the end of the week, then there’s still some work to do!
This post will briefly look at Jesus’ family through the lens of self-differentiation, and explore how the dynamics in Jesus’ own family may have shaped his own emotional health and self-differentiation.
Self-Differentiation and Emotional Health Series
This is the third post on a series about Self-Differentiation, or, emotional health, in the church.
The first post in the series describes 4 common ways we emotionally react in families and churches. They’re things we all do to some extent when tension rises…but they are signs that we still have emotional growth work to do. You can read that here.
The second post gives 7 Signs of Self-Differentiation. Self-differentiation is basically a term that psychologist Murray Bowen came up with for what good emotional health looks like. You can read that here.
Okay - here we go:
The Power of Knowing Where You Come From
There are 25 different genealogies listed in the bible, and 2 different genealogies listed for Jesus alone in Matthew and Luke. Ever since God’s covenant with Abraham that God would give Abraham “many, many descendents”, there is this ongoing sense in the Bible that where you come from matters.
In fact, just knowing where you came from, or having a sense of your genealogy at all for the Near East in antiquity was reserved mainly to the priestly class, and was a privilege. But even that privilege was not without complications, as the genealogies were often “tangled” and were so difficult to sort out that “some rabbis taught that clarification would occur in the messianic times when Elijah appeared”(New Interpreter's Bible Commentary Vol. 11, p. 66).
To know where you come from is a privilege.
To know where you come from is also a source of power.
In counseling graduate school, one of the first things you’re taught to do when working with families is to do a detailed genogram, which is basically like a fancy family tree. Most people can only go back to their grandparents before it gets really hazy, but even within just those three generations lies a wealth of information about the family.
Sometimes it’s 3 generations of messy divorces.
Sometimes it’s 3 generations of early deaths of parents that left the children traumatized and put pressure on the family unit to survive.
Sometimes in a big family full of “achievers”, there is a black sheep that did not live up to family expectations, and that identity seems to be passed down to their own children.
The only hope to break the pattern, is to first recognize it.
To know where you come from is a source of power.
You can raise your self-differentiation from the level in the family system, but, it does take work.
Most people seem to marry and start families with partners who are roughly at the same level of self-differentiation. And, they pass that same level of self-differentiation on to their kids who are raised in the family system.
We don’t know a lot about Jesus’ mother Mary and (step)father Joseph, but from the few verses afforded to them, it seems as if they possess some traits of self-differentiation. The self-differentiation in Jesus’ family of origin would no doubt make it easier for him to feel free to express his own values and truth with others, while remaining emotionally grounded himself.
Self-Differentiation in Joseph
Matthew 1:18-25 tell us that Mary and Joseph were betrothed, or, already legally considered husband and wife, when Mary became pregnant.
Deuteronomy 22:23-27 has a law for dealing with the situation of a “betrothed virgin” becoming pregnant in the city, and it is to stone her to death. While stoning to death would not have been the common practice in the time when Matthew was written, the “penalty was still severe and humiliating”(New Interpreter's Bible Commentary Vol. 11, p. 71). Matthew 1:19 tells us that Joseph’s original decision was to divorce her quietly.
While this may still seem harsh in our modern context, it would read as an act of grace for early readers of the text.
However, in verses 20-23 we are told that an angel visits Joseph and explains that he is to take Mary as his wife.
Joseph, in v. 24 marries Mary, and “effectively adopts Jesus into the Davidic line”(New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Vol. 11, p. 72).
In this story we get a glimpse at the self-differentiation of Joseph. Joseph comes to the realization that God is calling him to take Mary as his wife, something that, strictly speaking, breaks from the expectations of his community.
Joseph finds the courage to listen to his own inner-authority (which in this story is the outer-authority of the voice of an angel), and do what he understands God calling him to do, regardless of the consequences, or way he will be percieved.
It doesn’t seem to be an act of immature rebellion and emotional reaction to his communities values (which be a sign that he was not self-differentiated), but is instead deeply rooted in his own willingness “to set aside his previous understanding of God’s will in favor of his word from the living and saving God”(New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Vol. 11, p. 74)
This commitment to follow through with his own understanding of God’s calling and truth, is an act of self-differentiation.
Self-Differentiation of Mary
In chapter one of the gospel of Luke, we get the best glimpse of Mary’s reaction to the birth of Jesus in the gospels. In verse 38 she responds to the news from the angel that she is to have a child despite being a virgin, who will bare the title of Son of God:
38 “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May your word to me be fulfilled.”(NIV)
Here, Mary is not merely a vessel against her will. As R. Alan Culpepper writes,
“The annunciation would not have been complete without Mary’s trusting, obedient response. Mary had been chosen, “favored,” to have an important part in God’s plan to bring salvation to God’s people, but it is unthinkable that God would have forced Mary to have the child against her will. Mary is an important example, therefore, of one who is obedient to God even at great risk to self”(New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Vol. 8, p. 40)
To pick up on Culpepper’s comment of Mary’s willingness to be obedient to God at great risk, she accepts this role, prior to knowing how Joseph would respond. (In fact, in Luke’s account of the birth story, we are not privy to Joseph’s response).
This choice of Mary was not a simple act of compliance, which is a mark of emotional reactivity that lacks self-differentiation. By making her choice she puts herself potentially in harm's way and outside the bounds of what is acceptable in her community.
This appears to be an act of self-differentiation, in which she acted out of her deepest held convictions and understanding of God’s calling, despite the obvious risk to her well-being.
Jesus’ Self-Differentiation as a Boy
The only story we have from Jesus’ life prior to the beginning of his public ministry at the age of 30 in the gospels is in the story of Jesus in the temple at Passover in Luke 2:41-52. In this story Jesus stays behind at the temple in Jerusalem as his parents leave to return home. Mary and Joseph eventually find Jesus in the temple interacting with teachers:
48 When his parents saw him they were astonished, and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” 49 He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” 50 But they did not understand what he said to them. 51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them, and his mother treasured all these things in her heart.
Here we get a glimpse of Jesus, still a boy, with a growing awareness of an authentic self - who he is and who he feels God is calling him to be in the world. The word astonished in v. 48 is also translated as amazed in other translations and seems to be in reference to his ability to exchange with temple teachers with wisdom of someone much older than him.
There’s no information about the inflection of Mary’s response -“Child, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” However, given that she mentions she has been anxiously looking for Jesus, it makes sense that she would be anxious.
In my reading, Jesus does not get pulled into Mary’s (understandable) heightened anxiety, and calmly, curiously answers “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”. There definitely is a way that you could read the text where Jesus is asking these two questions in a passive aggressive way that would heighten the emotional reactivity of the situation…but because there is no further dialogue, my assumption is that in Jesus’ response, he both states his own growing sense of calling and independence (I must be in my Father’s house), while also engaging in dialogue with his parents out of a space of calm and genuine curiosity (Why were you searching for me?) - attempting to help gain clarity about their position, rather than react defensively about his own, which is a sign of self-differentiation.
Furthermore, the fact that Jesus agrees to go with his parents calmly (51 Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them,) suggests that this act of staying at the temple in Jerusalem was not an emotionally reactive act of rebellion, or a power-struggle, or distancing…all signs of a lack of self-differentiation and emotional maturity.
He remained connected and with a sense of togetherness with his family, while also expressing his individuality.
Jesus was simply acting out of his sense of self, doing what he “must” do.
As Culpepper writes,
Jesus was responding to the divine imperative that he fulfill God’s purposes for his life…his life was not driven by fate…neither was he driven by political coercion or religious legalism. Instead, his life was bound to God’s design for it.(New Interpreter’s Bible Commentary Vol. 8 p.59)
To me this situation fits the definition of self-differentiation exactly:
remaining calm, curious and open in the midst of emotional tension within the system (in this case his family), while also honoring his own values and truth.
So What About the Rest of Us?
Not all of us are raised in families with people who are highly self-differentiated.
Many of us have learned to hide parts of ourselves since we were a young age in order to avoid conflict. That ability to be emotionally aware of others and hide our truth to keep the peace was probably absolutely essential to us when we were younger, and has served us well…but now in this phase of our lives, it may be holding us back from fully living out our authentic selves, and expressing ourselves.
Others of us attempted to survive by pushing back against our families, and by asserting our independence. We may have rebelled, or we may have engaged in power struggles, all in an effort to distance ourselves from them and in order to not be controlled. In extreme cases, we may have moved as far away from our family as we could get and effectively cut ourselves off from them.
However, in this next phase of our lives, we may find ourselves quick to engage in these same patterns of rebellion and power struggles and distancing ourselves in our work relationships, our personal relationships, and our church life. We may be physically distant from our families or origin, yet still emotionally reacting to them even in our other relationships.
The good news is that it’s never to old to grow, change, transform, develop, and evolve into the fullness of who we are created to be.
Next post, we’ll talk about how to begin the process of self-differentiation.
Much of this post is indebted to the work of R. Robert Creech, professor at Baylor University, who wrote a brief article published over a decade ago titled Jesus and Differentiation of Self in the New Testament Gospels. If you want to nerd out, check that out. Creech provides much more scriptural detail that I was able to go into about examples of self-differentiation within Jesus’ teaching, which is really interesting.
Can you think of any examples from the Gospels of Jesus exhibiting traits of self-differentiation and emotional health? Times where he appears curious and open and non-reactive to others, while still maintaining his own values and sense of truth? If you’ve got one - comment below, I’d love to hear it.
Next is the final post in our series about self-differentiation and emotional health, as well as the final post in our broader series about Bowen’s Family Systems Theory. To find out about how you can raise your own level of self-differentiation and emotional health: read the next post here.
Thanks for Reading!
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About the Author
Travis Jeffords is a National Certified Counselor and Licensed Clinical Mental Health Counselor Associate in North Carolina. He holds a Master of Science degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling from the University of North Carolina Greensboro, and a Master of Divinity from Christian Theological Seminary. Travis writes on the intersection of faith, spirituality, the church, and mental health.