July 16, 2006

ADOPTION ANYONE? INHERITANCE?

By Linda Hunt Anton

Linda Anton is a long-time member of FCC and a recent graduate of Pacific School of Religion.

Many Bibles put headings on selected verses of scripture to describe the content of the grouping. Perhaps a parable or a healing story or a particular theological theme. When preparing for a sermon I like to refer to different translations of the Bible, and while doing so I found the different headings of today's scripture to be striking:

God's Rich Blessings

Spiritual Blessings in Christ

The Glory of Christ in the Church

Chosen by the Father, Redeemed by the Son, Sealed by the Spirit

Whoa!! This scripture is an amazingly upbeat and powerful message:

God blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.

Now we don't know exactly what Paul had in mind when he writes heavenly places. Is he referring only to the realm after death? I don't think so. I for one am a firm believer that one of the heavenly places can be/is our own dear earth with all its wonders.

It is also possible that the reference to heavenly places is not a reference to a physical location, but rather to the sphere of spiritual power which shapes life from within. A reference to the heavenly place within us.

Regardless of the exact meaning of heavenly places, just imagine . . . we are blessed with every spiritual blessing:

Baptism

Communion

Church

Scripture

Knowing Christ and his teachings

Redemption and salvation

God's love

The Created world

What have I missed? Call out if you think of other spiritual blessings I've missed.

God's glorious grace is freely bestowed on us in the beloved; it is lavished on us.

The richness of God's will is made known to us.

In Christ we have obtained an inheritance.

We are marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.

No wonder Paul's sounds almost euphoric or exhilarated in this epistle, like someone who has just fallen in love, which he has. Paul's is experiencing his new love of Jesus. Paul has experienced first hand the fullness of God's grace in Christ Jesus.

AND ONE OF THE GREATEST BLESSINGS IS THAT GOD WANTS TO ADOPT US.

God chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world,

destined us for adoption as God's children through Jesus Christ.

It may be hard for us to fully comprehend what that means, to be adopted by God. One way to get at it is think what it would mean to NOT be adopted.

Adoption makes a tremendous difference in people's lives.

I think of children who need to be adopted, who need families to love them and embrace them so fully that they are adopted as full fledged members of the family.

Foster children who aren't adopted often drift from home to home, never secure and grounded. At times they're merely tolerated. Sometimes they're mistreated.

I think of the children I knew when I did a four week volunteer vacation in Romania at an orphanage. The staff were wonderful to the children . . . as much as they could be, but they were woefully understaffed. The children were fed, bathed, and clothed, but unless volunteers were there, the younger ones spend all day in their cribs. The older ones - four to six years old - were put in a room where they could at least move around. All the children languished. We had a pediatrician on our team and she said that not one of the children was at a normal level of development.

So children who need an adoptive family but don't get one often have sad and lonely lives.

God does not want us to be drifting along, spiritually languishing. We were destined for adoption through Jesus Christ so that we can become part of the divine family.

And then there's the other side of adoption, the parent side.

Often when people adopt it's because they're unable to conceive children. When that's the case there can be a deep, deep longing, literally a physical aching for a child

I think that longing and aching mirrors God's longing for us.

God wants a close and intimate relationship with us, not merely as created beings, but as spiritual children. God wants a relationship so significant that it entails inheritance.

I don't know if any of you have had personal experience with adoption, either yourself or someone close to you who tried to adopt. It's quite a challenge. You don't walk into a store and say, I'll take that one. It takes tremendous will and determination. It can take years. It can take thousands of dollars.

And then sometimes after the adoption happens, the heartache begins.

In June I attended the Rocky Mountain Conference Annual Meeting in Colordao and went to a workshop called Guilty and Innocent. It was led by Katherine Norgard, a Licensed Psychologist in Tucson, AZ. She and her husband had adopted a son and early on could see that in some ways he was different than the other kids, some learning problems although he was bright, and some behavior problems although he could be charming. Her husband felt that the adoption agency had not leveled with them and he wanted to take the boy back, but she wouldn't hear of it. He was their son! Eventually she and her husband got a divorce as problems with the son spilled more and more into the marriage.

When the son started to school, he started taking little things that didn't belong to him, and he didn't do well scholastically. Well the problem child grew into a problem adolescent, even though the mom and his teachers did all the right things to get him help. He just kept making bad decisions. Eventually he ended up in prison for credit card fraud shortly after he turned eighteen.

He did well in the structured environment, served some time, and got transferred to a minimum security prison. And then one day another bad decision that had tremendous implications for his life; he walked away. His picture was on TV as an escaped convict. He called home once from the edge of the desert and agreed to turn himself in. And then horror of horrors, she learns that he has been arrested for the murder of two elderly people in their home. He beat them to death. There's a trial, he's found guilty, he's sentenced to death. Throughout it all she is heartsick, stricken. After the sentence is handed down, she's determined to save his life.

She manages to locate his birth mother who was an eighteen year old single woman on her own, drinking too much during the pregnancy. Given what we know now about Fetal Alcohol Syndrome it becomes clear that changes in his brain took place before he was born. Certain essential connections in the brain were not developed. Thus her son was guilty AND he was innocent. He did kill two people, but he did not ask to be born with Fetal Alcohol Syndrome.

Through her advocacy her son's sentence was commuted to life in prison.

I imagine that Kathleen Norbeck's ferocious and passionate love for her son is a weak reflection of God's ferocious and passionate love for us. Katherine did not abandon her son, even when he murdered two people and was condemned to death; she was with him.

That's how it is with God. God freely, lovingly chooses us as sons and daughters and when we disappoint, when we harm others knowingly or unknowingly, God does not turn away from us and abandon us. God does not take us back to the adoption agency.

A different slant on God being with us for the long haul came up last Sunday evening at the church's discussion group, which by the way was wonderful. We met at Mary and Oak Dowling's home and had the first of three discussions on the book The Phoenix Affirmations. We're using this book as a way to explore new ways of talking about our faith.

I really reacted to one sentence that we read and discussed. The author was talking about what he calls sacred cow assumptions about prayer, one of which is "I'm not good enough or religious enough" to engage in serious prayer. This is the line I reacted to:

"Yet God is not in the morals business."

I'm thinking Wait a minute here, of course God is in the morals business! God cares about right behavior. God cares how we treat one another, how we treat the planet.

And of course that's true, but the author meant it in a different context, one that relates to this theme of adoption.

The author's context was this, "God is not in the morals business. God is in the relationship business . . . this means God is also in the forgiveness business, the mercy business, the business of love and compassion. God does not count our sins before agreeing to meet with us. Likely you are more interested in your sins than God is."

This strikes me as an extraordinary way of looking at God's interest in us. And as I continued to think about it this week, I concluded that the author might be right, that God cares far more about relationships with us than about where we fall short.

It's true for our other significant relationships. Yes, of course we care if persons we love fall short and disappoint us, but it's not our primary focus. What we really care about is the individual and the relationship.

And isn't that what we're hearing in this passage from Ephesians? Aren't we hearing God's eagerness to be in close relationship with us?

Now when Paul uses words like chosen and destined, he doesn't mean that God chose some individuals and rejected others. No, chosen and destined are not meant to exclude others but to express God's love and invitation to be part of the covenant people, an invitation open to everyone on earth. The context of this scripture makes that clear. God's will is to gather and unite under Christ all the peoples of the earth, regardless of the religious labels they put on themselves or others. We see this inclusive and open chosenness in Paul's mission to the gentiles.

Because Paul was an orthodox Jew who had persecuted the Christians, he wasn't particularly trusted by either Jews or followers of Jesus. His ministry was to the gentiles; this letter is to gentiles in Ephesus who followed Jesus.

Gentiles who converted to Judaism and gentiles who followed Jesus were in many ways like the orphan child alone on the sidewalk outside the restaurant, looking through the window at the blessings and privileges, the feast, that God assigned to Israel.

NOT SO! said Paul. The gentiles in Ephesus had responded to "the word of truth, the gospel of salvation." Paul was adamant that gentiles now had a way to become full members of God's household. Jesus -- his life, his death, his resurrection -- broke down the barriers between insiders and outsiders. Now all had equal access to God. Now all could be taken into the divine family of God through Jesus.

Anyone who heard the word of truth - the gospel of salvation - and believed in Jesus, was marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit.

Having just returned from Southern Utah I'm mindful that out on the open range, even in pastures because livestock sometimes get through fences, animals are branded. That mark insures they can be identified by and returned to their rightful owner.

The mark of our seal is not visible. Rather it's the promised Holy Spirit.

When we are adopted and sealed with the Holy Spirit, we become full sons and daughters, in line for inheritance.

Ephesians is about the riches of God and Christ, the riches of grace and mercy and glory. We see the riches all around us in creation, excessive in their diversity and humor and beauty. God's excessive generosity, freely given.

AND WHAT IS OUR ROLE IS IN THIS ADOPTION AND INHERITANCE?

What is it we need to do?

Let it happen.

God is the initiator. If we listen we'll hear God's invitation. It's scattered throughout scripture; it's visible in the world.

Come to the banquet, come to the feast, and inherit the kingdom of God.

Come, come, be one with me.

Amen