Children of God

Sermon as Preached at Lambs and Evington UMC on 4/19/15

Read 1 John 3:1-7

Has anyone here ever tried to research their family tree? I remember in Middle School one of our assignments was to do just that, trace our family as far as we could and then too present it to the class as a family tree. This involved sitting and talking to my parents and my grandparents to get a collection of names and dates if they remembered them. As a middle school assignment, my tree wasn’t all that intensive, mostly a collection of Aunts, Uncles, and cousins, and a history that stretched as far as my great-grandparents. Still, displayed on a huge poster board it was impressive to see all of the branches that could stretch just from the family members I knew. On Ancestry.com you can go into even more detail with. You start by putting in yourself and your parents, and maybe your grandparents and then usually a little leaf will appear. It takes you to information like birth, death, or marriage certificates, and from there you usually find information about their parents or aunts or uncles and cousins, and as it all adds up you start to see a massive family tree. James is the child of so and so and his cousin is the daughter of Gertrude. I think there is something in finding out who our family truly is, and traditionally this has been with the analogy of a tree.

             When we think about family we tend to immediately go to that genetic nuclear family. Whose child am I? Who is my sibling? We think first of our parents and grandparents, our brothers and our sisters. For many of us it is natural to frame our understanding of family around genetics because we have been privileged to grow up in an environment where we belong. But this concept of family is different for almost everyone. The other day apparently was National sibling and to celebrate many people on Facebook including myself, changed their pictures to a picture of them and their siblings. After a while I began to notice many only children make many statements about not having a sibling, some even put up pictures of cousins or just best friends and called them brother or sister. It got me thinking, for an only child who is their brother or sister? For the child who was adopted genetics is not the best indicator of who their family is. For those whose ancestors were brought here by force not choice; a family tree can only go so far, and may stir up some pain. Family is not as cut and dry as we sometimes make it out to be.

            As Christians we have taken on a new understanding of family. When Jesus asks his disciples “who are my mother and my brothers” it became apparent that family is more than just genetics. Those who follow Christ are Christ’s family, and are each other’s brother and sister. It is through the water and Spirit of Baptism that we are claimed as children of God and enter into this family, the family of God. As Baptism challenges our understanding of family, maybe it can also challenge our typical means of tracing our family history. Maybe we can move from a family tree towards a family stream. Think for a moment about your baptism and who baptized you. That same person who baptized you by water and the Spirit in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, where you were claimed as a child of God; was themselves a child of God and baptized. And they were baptized and brought into the family of God by someone who was also baptized. And if we begin to trace not the branches of our family tree, but these streams of Baptismal waters we find ourselves connected to the early believers baptized on that day of Pentecost. We find ourselves connected to the Ethiopian Eunuch baptized by Philip. If we follow those streams of baptism far enough we even find ourselves connected to Jesus Christ himself. And as we hear the words from heaven proclaiming, “This is my son with whom I am well pleased” we realize that through that same water and Spirit we too are children of God.

            The author of 1 John understands the importance of being children of God. Despite its name this book of the Bible was most likely not written by the same evangelist as the Gospel of John. Instead this book is much more like one of the letters we find from Paul written to a specific community for a specific purpose. The community this letter was written to, was one that was probably highly influenced by the Gospel of John, hence the name 1 John. Like almost every letter to a community we have in the Bible, this letter seems to address a conflict in the community. There seems to be a lack of understanding of what it means to follow Christ, and there seems to be many false teachers leading the members of the community astray. As we will see in the next few weeks, the author of 1 John settles these conflicts through exploring love, and in particular God’s love.  In our scripture for this morning the author begins by describing our relationship to God as being children of God.

            What does it mean to be a child of God?  It means we belong to God. It means we are able to hear the words of God spoken to us through the prophet Isaiah saying, “Do not fear for I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine.” You are mine. It is in these words that we are able to find comfort, a comfort the world cannot give to us. It is a promise from God that there is nowhere we can go, or anything we can do that will leave us deserted from our heavenly Father. It is a promise that in our times of fear or grief, like a mother God will be there to nurture us. Being children of God means that our connection to the Holy of Holies, is through an intimate, familial relationship. Therefore when God’s children are out in the community helping those in need, when they are studying they are studying the Word, when they are comforting those who are sick or grieving we can almost hear the words of a proud parent crying that’s my son, that’s my daughter. But though there are certainly things we do that please our Father above, noting can earn or take away God’s love. So even when we fail, when we do what we know we shouldn’t, when we have failed to be an obedient church, when we have not love our neighbors, God still cries out, “You are mine” you are a child of God. It’s like have you ever been a parent or family at a large gathering where there are a bunch of kids playing. You are talking to the parents, when all of the sudden your kid comes around all covered in mud or paint, or they broke a nice piece of art and that dreaded question is asked, “Whose kid is this?” Unlike some of us would, God doesn’t hesitate, they are mine, they are a child of God.

            Being a child of God means we belong to God, but this is not a select family, it is a place where all belong. Being God’s children is a word of hope for so many in the world. There are so many who feel worthless, so many who feel abandoned, so many who feel ridiculed or despised; and so in a world in which they feel rejected, in God they can find a place where they belong, you can find a place where you belong. Because as a child of God you are family, you are a son or daughter of God, and likewise you are a brother or sister to many.

            As we hear the good news today that we are children of God, that God has claimed us and that we belong, we must also wrestle with what it means for us to be a child of God.  How does the world know we are God’s children?  Often it is easy for the world to tell whose child we are. About a month ago I talked about how messy and unorganized I was and how I always needed Heather to find things. When it comes to space, this is true I am as unorganized as they come, but when it comes to time the same cannot be said. I am a meticulous planner of time. Each day I plan out what I plan to do and when, I’m such a planner that I even account in my day to day plans, time for unexpected, unplanned events! And because of this I hate to be late. If I say we are leaving at 10, we aren’t leaving at 10:05 we are leaving at 10. It reminds me of Dad and I sitting in the car on Sunday morning waiting for the girls to be ready to leave. When I get into one of these tizzies about time those close to my family will often say, “You are definitely Wayne’s son.” We tend to resemble members of our family.  I am told often that not only did I get my red hair from my Papa, but also many similar personality traits, including the call to ministry.

            Is the same case true for our Heavenly Father?  Do we share in the likeness of God?  Sadly, often the answer is no. Our scripture tells says, “ Beloved, we are God's children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is” Here we find really the paradox of faith, the paradox of being a Christian. We are children of God, but still we must become children of God. We are children of God in that God has claimed us, there is nothing that we can do that will either earn us that title or cause God to take it away. It is the gift of grace, freely given, that we are children of God. And yet though we are God’s children we do not act like children of God. We do not love as God loves, we do not serve as God serves, we do not adequately reflect our kinship to the Lord of Lords. What we will be has not yet been revealed, but when God is fully revealed we will be like him; and yet God has already been revealed through Jesus Christ and so we are called to be like him. We are called to be the children of God.

            But how do we do that? If we are already God’s children, how do we become God’s children? First and foremost it starts with us realizing that we are in fact children. No matter how old we are or how much we think we know or have experienced, we are God’s children, not God. This seems like a pretty simple concept to grasp but Christians seem to fail at it over and over again. We tend to act and to speak as if we have all of the answers. We tend to judge other as if we ourselves are the judge siting on the throne. We tend to ignore our daily prayer life because we think that we can handle it, and only turn to God when things get out of our control. In our daily lives and in the life of the Church we act as though we make the rules, we set the tone, we make the decisions; but how quickly we forget that we are not the Father, we are but children of God.

            And as children we have a lot of growing up to do.  Too often we act as though Baptism; that water that connects us to each other through that family stream, it the end of the story. We act as though because we are saved we can just wipe off our hands and walk away. The truth is however, that baptism is not the end, but is just the beginning of the journey. Jesus told Nicodemus that we must be born again. We love this term, “born again Christians” but if we are born again that means that we are infants, and we have a lot of growing to do. We must allow God to be like our father, instructing us in the way to go, and disciplining us when we go astray. We must allow Got to be like our mother, nurturing us when we fall, feeding us with the spiritual nutrients we need to survive. In order for us to become a reflection of our Heavenly parent, we must be will to submit to the guidance and nurture of God. We must be willing to turn away from our sin and turn towards God. We must be willing to journey.

            And as we journey, as we grow as children of God remember those words of comfort from God  “You are mine.”  You are God’s when you feed the homeless, visit the sick and those who are imprisoned. You are God’s when you stand up for justice and have compassion for the marginalized of our society. But you are also God’s when you fail. When you put yourself above others, when you scorn a friend or talk bad about a neighbor you are still God’s. Because God has claimed you as one of the children of God, when you fail and when you succeed you belong to God. And so in our journey in which we are but infants, may we strive to live in a way that reflects the love that God has shown for us, so that when someone looks at us they may say, “Surely they are a child of God.”