St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, May 14, 2006
Adopted in Christ – Rev. David Mundy
Romans 8:12-17 John 15:1-8
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last
October I flew to Vancouver to preside at my Uncle Arthur’s funeral. He was a
United Church minister, retired, and the family thought it would be appropriate
for someone from the next generation, also a minister, to conduct the service.
Of course that was an honour and we gave thanks for my uncle’s faith and life.
The weekend
also gave me the opportunity to become reacquainted with Art’s four children --
my cousin’s who are all adults now. Because they grew up on the West Coast, I
hadn’t seen most of them since my teens. We ate our meals together and did our
best to catch up on thirty years of benign relational neglect.
At one
point it occurred to me that they didn’t look much like one another. There was
good reason. Even though these four siblings all called my uncle “dad,”
they had four different biological
mothers. Let me explain!
When my
uncle married the first time he and his wife adopted a child, a boy. Eventually
they had another child, born to them in what I think was a happy surprise.
Unfortunately my aunt died young, and subsequently my uncle remarried a woman
who had two children, one of whom was adopted. Not long after they married,
they adopted each other’s children, so all four of them went through the
process of adoption even though they may not have been aware of it.
No doubt
there was a great deal of paperwork and bureaucratic waiting before this
happened. One of my cousins was born to an aboriginal mother, so there may have
been additional challenges with that adoption. As I grew up it never occurred
to me that this was a blended, blended, blended family. They were just my
cousins, my kinfolk, and when I saw them last Fall it really wasn’t any
different.
I don’t
want to sentimentalize this picture because they have experienced their share
of ups and downs through the years. But you may have noticed that families
where all the children were born to the same mother and father are known to
have their share of challenging times as well, with misunderstandings and
squabbles along the way. I was impressed that they put all of that aside for a
time in order to say goodbye with grace.
I could ask
this morning of Christian Family Sunday how many of us are adopted or have
adopted. While you might be surprised at the number of people in this
congregation who fit into that category in various roles, including
grandparents, it is still a relatively small percentage.
What if I
suggested to you that every one of us could or should raise a hand if I asked
the question, “are you adopted?”
Once again,
let me explain! This morning we listened to a portion of the apostle Paul’s
letter to the church in Rome. Romans is a very theological book – certainly not
easy reading.
Yet in this
passage Paul uses several yet powerful and personal metaphors to describe who
we are when we are incorporated into Christ. He tells his readers that we are
children of God, who can actually approach God as Abba, Father, in a
relationship of intimacy. I was in an art gallery one day where an
orthodox Jewish family was taking in the
exhibit along with everyone else. One of the children tugged on his father’s
pant-leg to get his attention and said loudly and clearly “abba.” God is our parent – perhaps we would like to
include “mother” as well as “father”on Mother’s Day – who responds to our tugs
as sons and daughters.
Paul also
says that rather than becoming slaves to God we receive what he calls a spirit
of adoption. If this isn’t enough, when we are adopted by God we then become
joint heirs or coheirs of the family fortune,
which for Christians are the gifts of grace and love. We all know that
we when we are named in the will we are really “in!”
Paul does
point out that we may actually go through hardship as part of the family of
Christ, but we will also share in the glory.
We are all
adopted in Christ and by the community of Christ. What an interesting term. We
all know that young siblings can be cruel at times and brothers and sisters
have been known to say to one another “you’re adopted” which is another
way of saying “you don’t belong the way I belong.” What we are told here
is that when God adopts us we are special. We are chosen.
How do we
express this spiritual adoption in our life together? It can be in more formal
ways. This morning we celebrated one of the sacraments of our Christian faith.
Through the application of the symbol of water we say that the Holy Spirit, the
Spirit of God our loving parent, the Spirit of the Christ who welcomes us home,
will be in this child’s life in a new way from this moment on. Every time we
participate in this ceremony we commit ourselves to be part of a new and much
larger family of Christian support and nurture.
Today we
baptized a newborn infant but there is no age restriction for baptism. We never
question age or skin colour or the size of the candidate. All we ever ask is
that the person being baptized or the family bringing the child live as
faithful followers of Jesus Christ. It strikes me that every time we baptize
someone in Christ’s name there should be a sense of anticipation and
celebration, the way adoptive parents feel when they get the phone call that a
child has been found for them, or when the waiting period is over and the
adoption is finalized.
We are all
adopted in Christ and by the community of Christ. Sometimes the adoption is
less structured, but essential just the same. In virtually every congregation
the majority of the members and adherents have come from other places rather
than growing up there. This past week the St. Paul’s Board heard a presentation
from the committee that did the Joint Needs Assessment, a review of where our
congregation is right now and where it might go. The committee did an excellent
job, and among the things they discovered were that while many of the
respondents have been around here for a long time, the average number of years
was seven.
Of course
adoption has its share of risks, as any parenthood does. We just don’t know the
outcome with our children, even when they share our genes. In one congregation
I served there was a retired couple who had adopted a child in the nineteen
sixties, before much was known about fetal alcohol syndrome. When I met them,
the son was in his forties, still roaming around North America. They would get
phone calls from the most unlikely places and heard about some very strange situations
he got himself into. They never stopped
loving their chosen child. In fact they loved their son fiercely.
Congregations
take that risk as well. Newcomers don’t
always know the family rules, even when we say there are no rules. They often
challenge us to think differently. They may be a bit unruly and test our
patience. Yet we come to realize – hopefully – that the risk is worth it. More
than that, it is what Christ wants for us, because we have been accepted in
Christ.
Pastor and
writer Anthony Robinson claims that Christian hospitality is not about finding
people who are just like us. While that may feel comfortable, it is not
necessarily healthy. He maintains that
we become robust and more faithful when we are
...a church with a clear centre but open boundaries. Rather than drawing
a hard line that says who is in and who is out, the centred church articulates
and honours its centre in the Lordship of Jesus Christ . . . Whoever is moving
toward the centre is welcome, no matter how far from the centre they may be
coming from. In such a church the goal is not to foster uniformity. It is to
receive those whom God sends us.
Of course
when Robinson says that the open boundaries are formed around a clear centre he
is referring to the living Christ. What a great perspective. The people who come into our life as a
congregation for adoption are a Godsend! We may instinctively feel that it is
risky business when newcomers show up, but by far the most unhealthy
congregations I have served through the years are the ones where the members
have known everyone else for eons and nothing ever changes. The spiritual gene
pool has shrunk to a little puddle.
If adoption
in Christ is something to celebrate, then we would do well to ask ourselves what
our adoption program is like here at St. Paul’s.
FAre we fulfilling our vows to
support the families who bring their children for baptism and church school?
FWe would like to believe that we are
“a light on the corner” at the St. Paul’s congregation. Does the wider
community know we exist here on Church Street and do we have a passion for
sharing the Good News of Christ with
others?
FDo we encourage those who are new in
our midst to take on leadership because we believe that we will be a stronger
congregation because of their insights, not just because they will ease the
workload?
Answering
these questions is important, but before we address them we might go back to
the first question I asked today: “are you adopted?” Surely if we feel in some deep place in
our spirits that we are loved and chosen by the God who we can call “Daddy” or
“Mommy” there will be both the humility and the
gratitude which spills over into our acceptance of others. Sometimes
adopted children are referred to as “chosen children.” It is good to know that
we are all chosen children.
In another
New Testament letter called 1st Peter we find a great affirmation of
belonging to God and finding our true identity with God
But you are a chosen race,
a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
God’s own people,
in
order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of
darkness
into his marvellous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God’s people;once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9-10
Remember
this morning and always that you are adopted in Christ and the God who loves
you and redeems you through the cross and resurrection will never let you go.
And
remember that this is Christian Family Sunday, so shove over and make another
place at the table. Amen!