Becoming Children of God

(John 1.1-5, 10-13)

A sermon preached by Dave Shull

Spirit of Peace United Church of Christ

Sammamish, Washington

The Third Sunday of Advent: December 13, 2009

This Advent, we’re taking a walk through the first chapter of the Gospel of John.

Two weeks ago, we heard these words:

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was with God.
And the Word was God.
The Word was in the beginning with God.
All things came into being through him,
and without him, not one thing came into being.

John is the only gospel-writer who takes about the Word. For John, the Word is with person of the Trinity who makes the invisible God visible. We can’t see God. But the Word is the One through whom all is created. What we can see, hear, feel, touch, and taste is how we “see” God. Through the Word, we are able to know God is. Through the Word is how we are able to know God is love.

Last week, we heard these words:

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

The Gospel of John is filled with the words life and light. If the Word is how we see the invisible God, than what the Word reveals is that God is a God of life. God creates life. God restores life. God heals life. And even in the darkness of the tomb, God is life. For God brings life even out of death. God is so deeply the God of life that no darkness can conquer that light and life at the heart of God.

This morning, we hear these words from the first chapter of John. Listen for a word from God.

The Word was in the world,
and the world came into being through him;
yet the world did not know him.
He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.
But to all who received him, who believed in his name,
he gave power to become children of God,
who were born, not of blood or the will of the flesh or of the will of man,
but of God. (John 1.1-5, 10-13; NRSV)

As I prayed these words this week, the phrase that kept speaking to me was power to become children of God (John 1.12). And I wondered, What does it mean to become children of God? And What difference does it make if we’re becoming children of God?

So in this sermon, I’m inviting you to join me in my wonderings about that becoming children of God might be about.

When I think about the phrase children of God, I think of baptism. Jesus was baptized by John the Baptizer in the River Jordan. When he came up out of the water, a dove descended upon him, which symbolized the Holy Spirit. And then the voice of God from heaven, saying, You are my Son, chosen and marked by my love, pride and delight of my life (Matthew 3.17, Mark 1.11, The Message).

So I wonder: do children of God believe that the words God said to Jesus at his baptism are also God’s first and last words to us? Do we believe that God’s first and last words to us are You are my Child, chosen and marked by my love, pride and delight of my life? What would be different if we believed that this is how God looks at us and feels about us?

And then I wondered further: Do the people who are becoming children of God believe that these are God’s first and last words to all people on this earth? Do people who are becoming children of God believe everyone on earth is part of God’s family? So we are all sisters and brothers? And even those whom we hate or fear, even those who do horrific things, are part of our family? And God’s first and last words to them are You are my Child, chosen and marked by my love, pride and delight of my life? This week we honored the lives of the four police officers killed in Lakewood. Do those who are becoming children of God also believe that Maurice Clemmons, who it seems killed those officers, is part of the family of God – and so part of our family? And that God’s words to us are also God’s words to him? Because God is the God of life, God is grief-stricken by this loss of live. Grief-stricken by all the brokenness that made Maurice Clemmons who he was. And by the human failures that might have kept him from hurting anyone. And, at the same time, do children of God somehow still see him as their sisters and brothers who are chosen and marked by God’s love?

And what about those who are the targets of NATO drones in Afghanistan and Pakistan? What about those whom President Obama said in Oslo this week we are morally justified to kill? It is so hard for those who are becoming children of God to live in that tension: if some children of God are being threatened by other children of God, what do we do? How do children of God live amidst violence and war and hatred?

Another thing I wonder about is how those who are becoming children of God deal with their stuff. Those of us who are gathering on Monday nights at Starbucks to discuss Jesus for President are being challenged mightily about our stuff. The writers of this book remind us how the early Christians dealt with stuff. And it’s not like most of us deal with stuff:

[The early] Christians didn’t need Caesar’s power to create an alternative society …

They practiced a radical economic sharing, so much that it could even be said they

ended poverty in the small pockets they lived in. One of the results of the birth of the church at Pentecost was that the church ended poverty: ‘there were no needy

persons among them’ (Acts 2.45). The community itself became good news to the poor. They lived near each other, sharing a common rule of life, daily sharing worship and friendship. They, as their hearts became softened to the love of God, enacted ‘release to the captives’ and ‘freedom for the prisoner’, slowly dissolving the structures of oppression within their households. To a world gone blind from ‘an eye for an eye’, they gave sight, living out Jesus’ teachings on enemy-love” (Shane Claiborne and Chris Haw, Jesus for President, Zondervan Press, 2008, p. 155).

I wonder if the early Christians believed that they were children of God more than many of us do. They knew they couldn’t follow Jesus alone. So they created a common pot. They put in what they had to put in. And people took out what they needed. Without apology or shame. These children of God somehow knew that what they “had” didn’t belong to them. They knew what they “had” was a blessing and a gift that belonged to God’s family.

Peter and I live in the tension of the affluent. We are blessed with parents who helped us buy our first house. We were blessed to grow up in families where there was more than enough food, warmth, clothing, love. We have been blessed talents and with good jobs. It’s not like we have deserved any of these things. That’s simply how it has been for us. Because we’ve been blessed like this, each year we live in the tension of how much to save and how much to give away. But I wonder if that’s that right question for people who are becoming children of God? If we see everything we “have” as belonging to God’s family, then may the question for children of God is, How much can we justify keeping for ourselves? When there is so much need in this world, doesn’t the vast majority of what I make and have belong to them?

I think it’s hard for us to live in that world of the first century church because our culture leads us to think in terms of individual family units. I think of my little family and my responsibilities to them. We are raised to think in terms of groups. We don’t think about living in groups, and having a common pot. So all have enough. So there was no need among them. I wonder if those who are becoming children of God in this culture somehow see beyond this individualism … and imagine a common pot for God’s family.

A final wonderment about becoming children of God. Thinking about God’s family and about our stuff, we’re thinking about what’s outside us. I wonder about what’s inside those who are becoming children of God. What’s inside us shapes what we see outside us. Good, loving feelings do not pour out of me when the driver at the front of the line at the stop light doesn’t press the accelerator when the light turns green. I do not think good thoughts about that person. Of course I have good, loving thoughts inside of me. And I know there are these other feelings as well. And the more of those kinds of feelings I have inside me, the less I am able to look in the faces of those around me and see children of God.

One day the Buddha, badly overweight, was sitting under a tree.

A young soldier, trim and handsome, came along, looked at the Buddha, and said: ‘You look like a pig!’

The Buddha replied, ‘Well you look like God!’

‘Why would you say that?’ asked the rather surprised young soldier.

‘Well,’ replied the Buddha, ‘we see what’s inside us. I think about God all day and when I

look out that is what I see. You, obviously, must think about other things . . .’ (Ron Rolheiser, Holy Longing, NY: Doubleday, 1999, p. 239).

I wonder what’s inside those who are becoming children of God, so when they look at the world around them, what they see are other children of God looking back at them?

* - The title is from Becoming Children of God by Wes Howard-Brook, Orbis Press, 1994.