The Lectionary: The First Sunday After Christmas
Adoption into the (difficult, frustrating, infuriating) family of God
The Collect
Almighty God, you have poured upon us the new light of your incarnate Word: Grant that this light, enkindled in our hearts, may shine forth in our lives; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
Scripture
Galatians 3:23-25; 4:4-7
Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian.
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children. And because you are children, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, "Abba! Father!" So you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child then also an heir, through God.
The Message
I am in Dubuque, Iowa, this week, with my wife’s family, celebrating the holiday together. We are staying in big, old three story house, built over 150 years ago, that has been converted into an AirBnb. There are 13 of us staying here, along with my wife’s brother and his wife visiting daily from their own Dubuque home. It is a lot of people, albeit in a very accommodating and commodious space that is made for this kind of gathering. We have been eating, and drinking, and playing games, and talking and laughing, and reading, and exploring Dubuque. On Sunday afternoon, we will exchange gifts, and then Monday morning, my family will depart and head for Wichita, and eventually, Tulsa again.
Family can be a difficult thing. We were equal parts looking forward to visiting up here, and feeling trepidation over almost a week in a house with family. As with all families, there is a lot of love and affection in this family, and also points of tension, and frustrations, and a lot of history. This is nothing unique to my wife’s family. All large, extended families are this way. It is the way of human beings who are in close proximity - spatially and emotionally - with one another.
One of the themes in the letters of St. Paul that I’ve been picking up on this year has been that of adoption and being made heirs. HE devotes an extensive section early in Romans to this topic, and it shapes the entire argument he makes in that letter. Here in Galatians, as we read today, he also makes the case that those in the community of Christ are more than just disciples, or congregants, but have been made family with Christ, and consequently, with God. Our redemption, he writes, wrought for us in the Cross, grafted us into the people of God, and made us heirs to the fullness of God’s kingdom, promised first to the descendants of Abraham, and through him, to all of humanity, numbered beyond the stars in the sky and the sands of the sea. Through Christ, we inherit eternal life in God, free from sin and death, forever. We are participants with Christ in his suffering, and through that, we are part of God’s family, forever, and nothing can separate us from that family.
But, family can be difficult. I think, in this election year, we are all feeling that way, no matter our political leanings. Those we are called to be in community with, in a nation of 350 million, are difficult, and frustrating, and maybe even abhorrent to us. It’s hard enough to coexist in the same polity with them. To contemplate them all as family, then, may be a bridge too far.
But, that is the reality of humanity. Through Christ, we have all been redeemed from death. And that means, all of those people out there whom you most despise, abhor, or look on with disgust, they too are children of God, and heirs, just like us. They are our family. Their priorities and their politics don’t dispossess them of their humanity, and the Imago Dei they carry.
It’s a reminder many of us need, with our blood relations as well as with the guy on social media yelling at us, or the lady in the grocery store who gives us a dirty look. Heirs, all of them, and you as well. May we live lives worthy of that inheritance.