1 John 3:1-3
On Being Children and Saints
James Sledge November
2, 2014 – All Saints
Some
of you may be familiar with the writings of Kathleen Norris who has authored books
such as Amazing Grace, Dakota: A
Spiritual Geography, and The Cloister
Walk. The title of that last one comes, at least in part, because Norris, a
married Protestant, spent nine months as an oblate in a Benedictine monastery.
The book as a chapter entitled, “The War on Metaphor.” In it Norris describes
attending an event for a group of Protestant clergy, mostly Lutherans, where
the poet Diane Glancy did a poetry reading. As a way of introduction, Glancy said
she loved Christianity because “it was a blood religion.” The audience gasped
in shock, says Norris, who goes on to say that Glancy shared how she
appreciated the Christian faith’s relation to words and how words create the
world we live in. But Norris worries that we Christians have lost our sense of
the power of words, and especially of metaphor. She writes:
My experience
with Diane (Glancy) and the clergy is one of many that confirms my suspicion
that if you’re looking for a belief in the power of words to change things, to
come alive and make a path for you to walk on, you’re better off with poets
these days than with Christians. It’s ironic, because the scriptures of the
Christian canon are full of strange metaphors that create their own reality—the
“blood of the Lamb,” the “throne of grace,” the “sword of the Spirit”—and among
the name for Jesus himself are “the Word” and “the Way.”
Poets believe in
metaphor, and that alone sets them apart from many Christians, particularly
people educated to be pastors and church workers. As one pastor of Spencer
Memorial - by no means a conservative on theological or social issues - once
said in a sermon, many Christians can no longer recognize that the most significant
part of the first line of “Onward Christian Soldiers, marching as to war” is
the word “as.”
…This metaphoric
impoverishment strikes me as ironic, partly because I’m well aware, thanks to a
friend who’s a Hebrew scholar, that for all the military metaphors employed in
the Old Testament, the command that Israel receives most often is to sing. I
also know that the Benedictines have lived peaceably for 1500 years with a Rule
that is full of terminology, imagery, and metaphors borrowed from the Roman army. [1]
I’m
inclined to think that our “metaphoric impoverishment,” as Norris calls it,
extends to the terms “children of God” and “child of God.” In current usage,
these are often little more than flowery ways of saying “human being.” Indeed
to suggest that the terms do not apply equally to all people sounds almost
fundamentalist.
I
can appreciate why. Especially to our metaphorically impoverished ears, where
words simply impart information, to apply “child of God” in a non-universal
fashion, is to engage in the worst sort of exclusivism where some people matter
and some do not, where some have value, and some do not. But “child of God” is no
pedestrian label.
I
suspect that some of the problem here arises from another metaphor that has
been flattened and impoverished: “Son of God.” Like “child of God,” it has
become simple description, stripped of metaphorical thickness. We hear Son of
God as a simple statement of Jesus’ divinity, his nature. But the authors of
the New Testament and their original audience, people steeped in Israel’s own
metaphor rich story, heard more.
Psalm
2 is a coronation song, likely used when a king took the throne. In it God
speaks, You are my son; today I have begotten you. The same sort of language used in
God’s covenant with King David. “I
will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be a father to him,
and he shall be a son to me. There’s nothing about biology or divine
DNA here but rather a statement of intimacy and relationship, a claim of
adoption.
There
are echoes of these Old Testament passages in the gospel accounts of Jesus’ own
baptism. And part of the core message of the Christian faith is that through
our relationship with Jesus we can enter into the same intimacy and
relationship that he has with God. We too can be adopted, becoming members of
God’s family. This not about the humanity we all share. It is an invitation something
wonderful and new. As the Apostle Paul says, You have received a spirit of
adoption. When we cry “Abba! Father!” it is that very Spirit bearing witness
with our spirits that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs,
heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ…
When
Paul wrote those words to the Christians in Rome, he addressed them To
all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints. Saints, another
word that has been flattened and impoverished, used to describe super- Christians.
But Paul does not use it that way. It does mean something special though. The
word Paul writes means holy, sacred, consecrated or set apart for special use.
In that sense it’s not unlike being adopted by God. It means to be chosen by
God for a special purpose, to be marked as those called to bear God’s love to
the world, to be Christ to the world.
Saint
and child of God; that applies to each of you. You are not God’s child because
of biology or human birth, but because God loves you and choses you, adopts you
into the family. You are not a saint because you have done so well, but because
Jesus calls you, choses you to follow him, to learn the ways of God’s household
and so to live as his sister or brother, becoming a channel through which God’s
love flows.
As
children and saints, we are invited to dine at the holy feast, to join now in
the great banquet that will one day welcome all. Here at the table, we join
with the saints of past, present, and future. Here we are nurtured and
nourished by God’s grace, the embrace that has claimed us as children. Here we
are met by the Risen One who is now our brother. Here we are strengthened in
the sure hope that as his sisters and brothers, we are joint heirs, sharing in
his resurrection and in his new life.
Come
to the table, all you who are chosen, embraced, and adopted by God. Come all
you called to be saints, consecrated for holy purposes. Come to the table of
grace. Come to feast on God’s grace. Come to join with the saints who have gone
before, and with whom we will gather at the great feast, that great party and
banquet that is yet to come.
Thanks
be to God!
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