{"id":2102,"date":"2008-11-30T11:22:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-30T16:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=2102"},"modified":"2022-04-09T11:22:28","modified_gmt":"2022-04-09T15:22:28","slug":"considering-adoption-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stephenhphelps.com\/?p=2102","title":{"rendered":"Considering Adoption"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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listen to this sermon<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Texts on the First Sunday of Advent, November 30, 2008
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Romans 1: 1-7; Mark 1: 1-11<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today is the first Sunday of Advent. We call it a time of preparation or waiting. But waiting and preparing for what? Christmas? The birth of Jesus? We <\/em>may need to be born again, but does Jesus? Of course the holidays require lots of preparation\u2014cards and cookies and presents to wrap, but that\u2019s not what they mean by Advent preparation. You see the difficulty: If we are getting ready for something we already understand because we\u2019ve done it before\u2014well, that\u2019s very nice, but it\u2019s not the birth of Christ. Jesus says, \u201cBe ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an unexpected <\/em>hour.\u201d (Matthew 24:44) How can getting ready for something we have tamely scheduled for the 25^{th<\/sup> of December have anything to do with Christ\u2019s coming at an unexpected hour?<\/p>\n\n\n\n}

Let\u2019s be simple. The annual festivals of a culture can be very satisfying and refreshing. What happens now, if you\u2019re not too lonely, seems to weave the threads of your life into the fabric of family and friends forever. That is worth a great deal. As good as it can be, however, it is not what religion is for. It is just not good enough for you\u2014for who you are in the eye of God. Would God merely have you see again what you have already seen? No. God wants to show you Presence not yet seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Advent is time set apart to prepare for the presence of God\u2014not because the Son will come for you on December 25, but set apart because our minds are so easily distracted by our pains and pleasures. Because the message Pay attention, God is coming down<\/em> is too much for us; we stop listening, we lose faith. To allow for our weakness, then, only a little time is set aside\u2014only a few weeks. This is a time to go home, if you will, by a different route, day by day, asking God to give you the grace to hear what you have not yet heard, to see what you have not seen. Not the baby Jesus in a manger. Not the old Christmas carols, which almost make you cry. You know these all too well. No, but a new birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Throughout Advent, we are going to listen to just the openings of gospels and the letters of the New Testament. The very first words of these books were chosen carefully. They were read aloud to people who couldn\u2019t read. They were sent to wake up the spirits of people pummeled with doubt and fear\u2014 people like you and me. The first thing they said about Jesus was meant to catch the people\u2019s attention, not with terror, but with trust and hope for a new birth. What did they say?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today, we hear the earliest New Testament voices, Paul and Mark. Paul wrote all his letters before any gospel was written. Mark, most scholars agree, set down his stories more than a dozen years after Paul wrote the letter to the Romans. The other gospel writers we\u2019ll read in coming weeks. All the rest composed their gospels ten, fifteen, or even twenty-five years after Mark wrote. So listen now to the first words from the earliest Christian writers. Here is Paul. [Read Romans 1: 1-7]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul calls Jesus the Son of God. Now, how do you get to be someone\u2019s son? Usually, you\u2019re born that way. But Paul\u2019s story doesn\u2019t sound like it\u2019s ready for Christmas Eve. There is no Christmas story here, and you won\u2019t find one in any of his letters. The bold essentials of Paul\u2019s birth narrative are these: This is the gospel concerning God\u2019s son, who came from David\u2019s seed, according to the flesh, and was declared Son of God, according to the Spirit, by resurrection from the dead.\u201d <\/em>Let\u2019s hear that once more even more simply. Paul says Jesus was born in the ordinary way to a father and mother who had King David somewhere in their family tree. And how does Jesus become Son of God? He is declared \u201cSon of God,\u201d says Paul. How does God make that declaration? Spiritually\u2014by the resurrection. In other words, Jesus is adopted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now let\u2019s read the opening of Mark\u2019s gospel. [Read Mark 1: 1-11]<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mark also calls Jesus God\u2019s Son. Here, Jesus comes into the scene, but he is already a grown man. No shepherds, no kings, no angels, no star. Mother Mary doesn\u2019t have a part anywhere in Mark\u2019s story until the very end, when she appears among a group of women grieving at her son up on a cross. Joseph is never mentioned at all. So when does Jesus become son of God? Mark says it happens at Jesus\u2019 baptism, when a voice from heaven, sounding out Psalm 2, cries \u201cYou are my Son, the beloved.\u201d In other words, Jesus is adopted. It\u2019s funny: we adults are always so unsure when to tell the children that someone is adopted. They might not understand\u2014wait till they\u2019re old enough.<\/em> Well? Are you old enough? According to Paul and Mark, Jesus wasn\u2019t born God\u2019s son; he was adopted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, ideas that come from our own ordinary understanding, like adoption, cannot possibly account for what God does. But then, that\u2019s always the case when we speak of the Divine; we have no language for God except concrete things we<\/em> do understand. So let\u2019s play. When God was considering adoption, and went to the orphanage of all humanity, and looked through the cosmic window at the faces of the children for the one just right to adopt, what was God looking for? A certain race or sex? Gold stars for Sabbath school attendance? A good reference from the birth parents? A fine resume?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paul and Mark have an opinion\u2014no, an experience\u2014about this. It is how they open their gospel. They say: To receive God\u2019s good news in Christ Jesus, you don\u2019t need to know anything about his birth or childhood or young adulthood, for God adopted him\u2014by his resurrection, says Paul; in his baptism, says Mark. Considering adoption, God did not need for Jesus to have already scored a perfect ten. Why, if Jesus had never done anything wrong, where would such perfect power have come from? From himself? He denies it. A seeker came to him, calling, \u2018Good Teacher\u2014\u2019 \u201cWhy do you call me good?\u201d Jesus interrupts. \u201cNo one is good but God alone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In showing no concern at all for Jesus\u2019 early life, Paul and Mark set the charges for some explosive good news. Knowing who he is makes it possible for him to do what he does\u2014not the other way around! Not<\/em> good work gets him good favor and a good position, but first the declaration\u2014\u201dYou are my son\u201d\u2014and then<\/em> the good work begins. In the churches where Paul and Mark ministered, Christian faith was born with no back story to Jesus\u2019 life but this, that God chose a flesh-and-blood man to overturn the world in its sorrow and its error.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What can this mean for you and for me and for a world still unconvinced of forgiveness and freedom? Never mind that adoption is a metaphor, or that there was no orphanage and no adoption papers. The adoption story is a way of making sense of two striking things. One, that Jesus was ordinary. He had half his DNA from a woman, half from a man. He was like us. But two, that he was not ordinary. In him, say Paul and Mark, we experienced something new under the sun, something not like us, something we did not expect before we met him\u2014namely, that there is a kind of life which nothing can extinguish, and that that life which is in Jesus Christ . . . is in us, and we are in that life. We weren\u2019t given that life because we deserved it or earned it. In fact, that life has always been in us, and we in it\u2014but we did not always know that. And so we thought our life was the sum of all our fears and hopes, our strengths and weaknesses jumbled together. And we were anxious and we hurt others sometimes, and our self. Because we did not remember who we were, who God says we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That is what Advent is for: to prepare to hear Jesus as God\u2019s word, recalling you to who you are, and to life which nothing can extinguish; life born not of the flesh, but in the power of Holy Spirit. You did not see it until you saw him. Now you prepare to receive him, each night or each morning: a time of quiet, perhaps a candle burning during a time of prayer. A time of listening carefully in your family. Will you do it? Then, as if from a messenger gone before to prepare the way, perhaps you will hear God\u2019s ancient word. \u201cBe not afraid.\u201d Or again, \u201cLo, I am with you always.\u201d And in this way, through this coming of Jesus at an hour you did not expect, you see the eye of God on you, considering adoption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

delivered at First United Presbyterian Church, Silver Creek, New York<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00a9Stephen H. Phelps 2008<\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"