The Art of Family Discipleship Part 2: Sunday Morning
This is the second part of a series where we will take a look at families depicted in songs, paintings, films, and poetry and see how faith is portrayed in the home through art.
Today let’s take a look at another painting from the same artist we looked at in Part 1. This painting might be one of the most sadly accurate portrayals of American family spirituality. This is Sunday Morning by Norman Rockwell from 1959.
The Artist
Norman Rockwell (1894-1978) was an American painter who is most famous for his illustrations on the covers of the Saturday Evening Post and Boy’s Life. His art is known for its optimistic depictions of American life. He often addressed issues related to family, war, race, and religion. In his 84 years of life he produced more than 4,000 pieces of original art.
The Painting
Sunday Morning (also known as Easter Morning) was on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post in May of 1959. This painting shows a mother and her three children dressed up and heading out to church while dad slouches into his chair to stay home with his cigarettes , coffee, and sports news. This may seem humorous to many, but to those of us who love God and want to see families discipled, this is a terribly grievous scene.
The scenery outside the window is the actual view from the studio in which Norman Rockwell painted. His daughter-in-law Gail posed for the mother in the picture. When asked if the two girls in the painting were twins, Rockwell replied, “They ought to be. I only hired one model.”
The Story the Painting Tells
The mom is not ignorant but she is ignoring her husband. With her chin raised and her gaze fixed straight ahead she is the perfect representation of someone resolutely committed to her path, but she also seems very displeased with her husband’s choice. This is the state of too many families. Mothers who are committed to following God and leading their families, but they feel like they are in it alone. We should all be encouragers of spiritual widows who carry a burden made heavier in its lonely nature. Of course, there are families where the opposite is true and there are many families led by faithful men of God, but sadly the stories I hear most often are about passive, disinterested fathers who refuse to lead as God has called them. God save us from the religious indifference of the men of this generation!
The daughters imitate their mother. In their posture, their visage, and their gait, these daughters are following their mother’s lead step for step. What a blessing to have a godly mother. This mom is showing her daughters how to follow God in spite of resistance, even if that resistance is in their own home.Proverbs 22:6 “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old he will not depart from it.”
The son can’t help but look to his father. Though the women are fixedly marching out of the home on their way to church, the son sneaks a glance at his dad. Sadly what he sees is a man who chooses vice over virtue. He sees a father who needs redemption but is unrepentant. In the son we see the longing of the human heart to indulge and its endless curiosity about sin. Many of the godly men I know pursue Jesus in spite of the lack of an example of godliness in their own home. Lord have mercy on our spiritually fatherless homes. Fathers have the potential to be the most influential person in the life of a child. A father’s righteousness is a blessing to his family, and the absence of it is a curse. Proverbs 20:7 “The righteous who walks in his integrity— blessed are his children after him!”
The father in the painting is devoted to his sin and himself, but he lacks devotion to his God and his family. You won’t be able to unsee this once I point it out, but Normal Rockwell painted this father in red and with disheveled hair that forms two small horns on the dad’s head to represent his devilish mischief. He represents not only his own self-deceived depravity, but also a temptation to his son to indulge in the same. How sad it is when a father abdicates his God given role of leading his family to follow God. With it will come all kinds of evil into a home. What a privilege it is to hold the title “father” and what a crime we commit when we sully that title with our own willfull sin. If only fathers were repentant and righteous. We pray for our generation of father’s to receive the impact of the ministry of John the Baptist, Luke 1:17 “he will go before him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just, to make ready for the Lord a people prepared.”