The Father’s Adoption

The Father’s Adoption

The Father’s Adoption                       Trinity Sunday

Romans 8:12-17   May 30, 2021   John 3:1-17

 In 1954, just four years after The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe made a big splash on the literary scene, C. S. Lewis published The Horse and His Boy.  It’s actually the fifth book published in a series that later came to be called The Chronicles of Narnia.  (Now, remember: Lewis was a man with a deeply-held Christian faith, and his books convey an underlying message of the Gospel.)  The Horse and His Boy is about Shasta, a boy living in Calormen, a huge country south of Narnia.  In Calormen, the animals don’t talk like they do in Narnia, so when Shasta met a Narnian horse named Bree, he was shocked to discover that he could talk!  Bree told Shasta all about Narnia, and how he was stolen from there when he was just a foal, and how he could never escape and get back home unless he had a rider.  So, they escaped together and headed for the freedom of Narnia!

On the way there, they had many adventures, including the meeting of a Calormene girl and her mare (another Narnian horse) named Whin, and the four of them decided to travel together.  They eventually made it to Archenland, a neighboring kingdom to Narnia, and Shasta was able to deliver a message to the King (just in time to save Archenland from a surprise invasion of soldiers from Calormen).

When Shasta talked to the King, the King thought Shasta was his own son.  And, as it turns out, he WAS the King’s son—the twin of the prince—he was the son who had been stolen in infancy and taken to Calormen.

So, //:Shasta, son of a poor fisherman in one country turned out to be Corrin, crown prince in another country!:\\

He had proven himself to be faithful, brave, and true while he still believed himself to be nothing more than a poor fisherman.  So Aslan, the Christ figure in these stories, made certain that he was restored to the position of responsibility and leadership into which he was rightfully born.

A Spirit of Adoption

Well, I thought about this book when I was considering our texts for today—especially the passage in Romans.  Paul says that we “have received a spirit of adoption.”  Rather than a spirit of fear and of slavery, we have a spirit of adoption from God.  He knew that the Romans lived in a culture where the worship of “the gods” was like slavery to “the gods,” and he was encouraging them not to fall back into slavish fear.  We have received a spirit of adoption

The Romans had a very elevated view of adoption.  When someone was adopted, it was understood that the old person no longer existed and the new person was truly a son or daughter.  They had full rights to inherit, just as a natural-born son or daughter would have.  So Paul plays on this understanding, and applies it to the relationship we have with The Father.  Since God has adopted us as daughters and sons, we should not be slavish in our worship, not fearful of God but having LOVE for our adoptive father!

He says, “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit, that we are children of God!”

And, if we are children, then we are also heirs—we are set to inherit all that God means for us to inherit!

Heavenly Father versus Natural Father

In our Gospel reading for today, we have a conversation between Jesus and Nicodemus, a leader of the Jews.  Jesus tells him that no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born from above (or born again).  Nicodemus is baffled, and asks, “Climb back into our mother’s womb and be born again?”  (How can this be?!)

So Jesus clarifies by saying that what is born of the flesh is flesh, but that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.

John picks up this idea and uses it in his first letter, chapter 4.  “Everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.”

Nicodemus was very close to the Kingdom, but he was still so earthly-focused that he was heavenly-blind.  Jesus was trying to help him understand something of the kind of relationship that God wants to have with us.

Brought In and Sent Out

Let’s go back to the Roman understanding of ADOPTION.  Any son or daughter that was adopted had an equal share of all the duties as well as the privileges of the natural-born children.  They were trusted to do even the most important work of their father.  (Just watch or read Ben Hur to get a sense of how seriously they took adoption!)

Now read today’s texts through that lens, and you will understand more deeply when Jesus says, “God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.”  Keep this in mind when you read Paul’s words, “All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God…heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ.”

We see that God’s pattern is to adopt, accept, receive, AND to send us out in mission!

Dr. Sam Shoemaker was one of those people who was sent out.  He was the rector at Calvary Episcopal Church in New York City, and was a co-founder of Alcoholics Anonymous.  He wrote a poem that explains his attitude, called, “I Stand By the Door”, and here is the first verse of it:

I stand by the door.

I neither go too far in, nor stay too far out.

The door is the most important door in the world—

It is the door through which men walk when they find God.

There’s no use my going way inside, and staying there,

When so many are still outside and they, as much as I,

Crave to know where the door is.

And all that so many ever find

Is only a wall where a door ought to be.

They creep along the wall like blind men,

With outstretched, groping hands.

Feeling for a door, knowing there must be a door.

Yet they never find it…

So I stand by the door.

I’ll finish with this thought: Just like Shasta, living in a land that he thought was his homeland, believing himself to be the lowly son of a poor fisherman—you and I are Children of the King who are temporarily living in a land that we only think is our homeland.  You and I are (hopefully) growing into the kingdom citizens that we are meant to be, imbued with God’s Spirit, ready to be sent into any place that God loves enough to send us.  We are the adopted children of the King, brought into great responsibility as well as great privilege.  And, as the King of Archenland had plenty of surprises waiting for Shasta, God has one adventure after another waiting for those of us who are ready to cry, “Abba!  Father!”