Katie Derksen
I grew up in a home that contained a healthy dose of love. Hugs abounded, family time was set aside and kept, at least for the early years, and friends were often welcomed into the house. As with most families, my parents used different methods to try to teach my sister and I the values they wished to pass on, and part of that was the setting up of boundaries and rules. When I was in elementary school, even in junior high, the form of discipline for breaking said rules was what mom and dad called grounding. Grounding involved my parents keeping us from things that we liked. At different times, I was grounded from tv, the radio, friends, going out in general, or from using the phone to talk to friends. Going out and friends were two of the first things to go, usually. If I was really bad, all of these privileges were taken away, and I had nothing left to do but sit in my room and read. As much as not being able to go out and play with friends was rough on me, being a rather social child, it actually wasn't that bad. Mom and dad raised my sister and I to have a strong love for books, and so I'd generally curl up on my bed with a book (after a bit of pouting, I'm sure...). It wasn't terribly fun to be there instead of out with friends, but I'd like to think that eventually I learned my lesson, and didn't do whatever I got into trouble for again – at least, that is, with any sort of frequency.
As an adult, with both my sister and I out of the house and on our own, sometimes when we're all at home times of "do you remember" happen. Just a couple of years ago there was a time that my parents, my sister, and my brother in law, and I were sitting around the table with reminiscing about our childhood. With my sister being a parent herself, I think we might even have been talking about how mom and dad enforced their rules and boundaries.
The topic of grounding came up, and my sister and I both agreed that really, if mom and dad had really wanted to punish us, they should have grounded us from our books. That would have been severe punishment. Mom and dad looked at each other with a twinkle in their eyes, looked back at my sister and I, and replied: "Don't you think we knew what we were doing? We wanted you to read!!" We were both a bit stunned at first, but then we were impressed. What kid doesn't want to think that they've pulled the wool over their parents' eyes? And here, mom and dad had taken the fact that kids will be kids, and break some rules, and used the need to discipline us as an opportunity to give us something constructive. I think both my sister and I have filed that little trick away for future consideration.
Most people have the benefit of growing up in families that love them and care for them. Families are places where values and ideas of right and wrong are taught, or picked up through what is seen in day-to-day living. Sometimes, rules and boundaries are set up to help teach what is considered to be right and wrong, or to help show what are good ways to live out life in the community. Often, when rules are broken or boundaries are crossed, there are consequences. Although it was hard for me to see it then, the different boundaries that mom and dad had set up, as well as the consequences for stepping too far outside of them, were there because they loved me. When I look back on it now, I can see that they were trying to teach me things, and that those teachings stemmed from the love they had for me. They wanted my sister and I to grow up well, and to have healthy ideas of what is and isn't acceptable. All of this was because of the love they had for us.
We are God-Begotten
Today we heard Jonathan read for us about how those who believe that Jesus is the Christ are children of God. In many ways, God is our ultimate parent. The love that God has for us is an active love, and a love that has sometimes been expressed to God's children through the setting up of rules and boundaries. However, we heard in the reading from First John that the commandments that have been laid out for the children of God are not to be considered burdensome. Quite the opposite!! The commandments are set up so that the world can be conquered by love!
I have found that the writings in the Epistles can be quite circular at times, and I was certainly struck by that when I first encountered this reading from First John. I often find that it is helpful if I check some other sources to assist in my understanding, and one of the resources that I've come to appreciate more and more over the last little while is The Message. The Message is a paraphrased version of the Bible, kind of like the Cotton Patch version that Don referred to last Sunday. It was put together by a man named Eugene Peterson, and published in a complete version only last year. What a treasure store it is!! I often find that Peterson, through simply re-wording things, can have a way of clarifying things, or saying them in a way that sheds a different light.
In his version of First John 5, Peterson interprets John as saying that "every person who believes that Jesus is, in fact, the Messiah, is God-begotten." I like that terminology. God-begotten. True, it's just another way of saying "born of God," such as the New Revised Standard Version says, but it seems to be catchier. It seems more immediate, more personal. We are of God.
It reminds us in a different way that those who love God and love Jesus are considered children of God. Our belief turns us into a family held together by God, and by a common belief in God. One of the ways in which this belief is celebrated within a community of faith is through baptism. We heard a baptismal story last week, and we have heard another this week. Both last week's story and this week's story are ones that show the wideness of God's mercy and grace, how even people who originally would have been excluded are now included. Just after our passage from Acts, in which Gentiles receive the Holy Spirit and Peter baptizes them, Peter is criticized for eating with Gentiles, for having contact with those who are viewed as being unclean. At first those confronting Peter were unhappy with him and with the situation, but after Peter shared a vision he had received from God, they rejoiced that God had extended the salvation that they had thought was open only to them to people who were previously excluded.
Adopted into God's Family
When I read this baptismal story, and the other texts for today that speak of being the family of God, I was reminded of something I had read in a text book called "A Peculiar People" while studying in college. It had to do with baptism, and how the act of baptism was viewed as a transforming act that changed the individual's life to its very foundation. As Rodney Clapp, the author, reminds the reader, we are all born into a particular family, within a larger clan, within a city or town, within a province, in a country, on a continent. We belong, in a way, to all of these places, and have a sort of allegiance to all these things. However, the act of baptism changes all of that. According to Clapp, and to many others as well, the act of baptism is one that changes all allegiances. It is a radical membership in a new family, the family of God. All past allegiances are gone.
The language of adoption figures strongly in this section of Clapp's book, and he reminds the reader that Paul also used such language to refer to becoming the family of God. Clapp tells the reader that "...those who have been baptized into Christ... have been adopted by God. This baptism means that [the] Christians' new parent is God... Their new siblings are other Christians. Their new name or most functional identity is simply "Christians" - those who know Jesus as Lord and determiner of their existence. Their new inheritance is freedom and the bountiful resources of community. Their new culture, or comprehensive way of life, is the church" (A Peculiar People, by Rodney Clapp, page 100). When baptism is taken seriously, Clapp suggests, it has the potential to have immense social implications, both within the church and outside of it. As baptised believers, our main identity is that of Christian. Not as Mennonite, as resident of Ottawa, or even as a member of a particular family in the conventional sense. No, the family that baptised people belong to is much larger than that. It spans not only continents and cultures, but it also spans time.
Be at Home in God's Love
It is also a family that has love so infused in it, that it is hard to comprehend how it could exist without love. In fact, I'm not sure that it could. It was love that brought Jesus to earth to live, to teach, and to die. It was love that pulled people to Jesus, and in many ways, love is still what draws people to him and to the church. It is love that we experience when we gather together.
In our Gospel reading for today, we hear Jesus encouraging us to love each other. I like the way The Message interprets Jesus' words: "I've loved you the way my Father has loved me. Make yourselves at home in my love. If you keep my commands, you'll remain intimately at home in my love. That's what I've done – kept my Father's commands and made myself at home in his love" (John 15:9-10). He goes on to say: "This is my command: Love one another the way I loved you" (John 15:12).
This passage is rich with home language. To me, "home" speaks of comfort, of acceptance, of love. It speaks of expectations, and a healthy give-and-take. "Home" is a word that brings a sense of peace, and of belonging.
In the family of God, as with any family, there should be a sense of "home" that the family members have. However, unlike a more conventional family that may have a house to call home, the family of God is encouraged to find its home in God's love. What a lovely image that is: to find a sense of home, of belonging, in the love of the Ultimate Parent.
As the church is a visible sign of our relationship in the family of God, it becomes a sort of home. We are taught what is right and wrong, or rather, what should be valued and expressed. It is through seeing how each of us live that people observe what it means to be a part of the family of God. Just like any family, there are consequences for stepping outside of the boundaries that have been set up, but it seems that most churches opt to focus on the positive side of things. Very few churches these days focus on the disciplining of their members. Instead, we are encouraged and taught through worship on Sunday morning, and through our contact with each other throughout the week. We support each other through prayer, and through our interactions with each other. We uplift one another, through conversations Sunday mornings, through staying in touch during the week.
We are a family, and yet the membership of this family extends far beyond this church's membership or attendance. We are also part of a broader family, and wherever we go, we will encounter sisters and brothers, who often are siblings that we did not know before meeting them for the first time. And yet, the fact that we may be strangers with these siblings does not in any way decrease the kinship that exists. The family of God is a vast family, larger, perhaps, than any of us can conceive of.
The focus of this family is not rules and regulations, but is instead love. True, rules and laws are a part of this family, but as we are reminded in both our Gospel reading and First John 5, because of the love that flows from God to us, and from us to God, those rules are not meant to be a burden. In fact, if deep love for God is in existence, the commandments won't be hard. As we heard in First John, "… the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world."
As believers, we are born of God, or are God-begotten. We have been adopted into a massive family, a family focussed on love. Love of God, love of each other, love of all creation. We have heard two accounts now of people being baptized who, before the coming of Jesus, would not have been considered for membership in the family of God. And yet they were welcomed with open arms!! The love that exists in the family of God is a love that will conquer the world, as we just heard. But first, before we can share that love with the world, we need to learn to make ourselves at home in the love of God. To find our comfort, our sustenance, our challenge and growth in the love of our Ultimate Parent.
Last week Don commented about how we should be able to feel more at home in a church than a restaurant : this week, I want to remind us that we are encouraged to be the church, and to find our home not in a building, although that can sometimes be a factor, too. No, where we are supposed to find our home, even where we are supposed to make our home, is in God's love. Once we have found our home in the arms of our Ultimate Parent, love will surround us and sustain us in ways we hadn't imagined before.
Amen.
All quotations of Scripture, unless otherwise noted, are from the New Revised Standard Version.