Children of God

 

I thought that today, for once, we wouldn’t look too closely at the Gospel reading,
as Luke’s account of Jesus’ appearance to the disciples after the Resurrection
is very similar to the account in John’s gospel,
which I expect you looked at last week.
We certainly did at Brixton Hill!

The only thing I will point out is that Luke says Jesus actually ate with them –
ghosts, after all, don’t eat!
So that particular detail is, for the gospel writer,
just another proof that Jesus really was raised.
He wasn’t just a ghost;
he wasn’t just a figment of their imagination.
He ate some fish –
and there’s the dirty plate!

You may have read the first chapter of this letter from John last week, too.
I want to focus on the passage we read today, in a minute.
It isn’t quite a letter, is it –
it’s more of a sermon.
He doesn’t put in the chatty details that Paul puts into his letters,
nor the personal messages.
Nobody seems to know whether it was really the disciple that Jesus loved that wrote the Gospel and this letter,
or whether it was someone writing as from them, which was apparently a recognised literary convention of the day.
But have you ever noticed that right at the very beginning of the letter, or sermon –
hey, let’s just call it an Epistle and have done –
right at the very beginning, he says:

“We write to you about the Word of life, which has existed from the very beginning.
We have heard it, and we have seen it with our eyes;
yes, we have seen it, and our hands have touched it.
When this life became visible, we saw it;
so we speak of it and tell you about the eternal life which was with the Father and was made known to us.”

In other words, the writer, too, claims to have seen, known and touched Jesus!

But to today’s passage.
“See how much the Father has loved us!
His love is so great that we are called God's children –
and so, in fact, we are.”
“See how much the Father has loved us!
His love is so great that we are called God's children –
and so, in fact, we are.”

We are God’s children!
You know, when you come to think of it, that’s a pretty terrifying concept.
People tend to think of themselves as serving God, or as worshipping God.
But to be a child of God?
That’s a whole different ball-game.
After all, if we worship God or serve God,
that doesn’t necessarily imply that God does anything for us in return.
But if we are God’s children?
That’s different!
That implies that God is active in caring for us,
in being involved in our lives,
in minding.

Many of us here this morning have had children of our own.
And all of us have been children!
Perhaps some of us didn’t have very satisfactory childhoods,
or our parents weren’t all they should have been.
The model of God as Father isn’t helpful to everybody, I know.

But I still want to unpack it a bit, if I can, as I do think it’s important.
We are all children of God, so we are told.
We are not servants.
We are not just worshippers.
“Children” implies a two-way relationship.

Actually, it almost implies more than that.
It implies that God does the doing;
we don’t have to.
No, seriously, think about it a minute.
I have a daughter –
she’s grown up and married now, of course,
but for eighteen years she lived at home,
and for many of those years she was totally dependant on Robert and me for everything, and her own boys are on her and her husband –
for food, for clothing, for education, you name it!
And babies need their parents even more than older children do.
Until they are about two or three, they can’t even keep themselves clean, but have to have their nappies changed every few hours.

Parents look after their children.
Quite apart from the seeing to food, clothing, education and so on,
it’s about the daily care –
seeing to it they get up and so on.
All the things we need to remind them to do or not do each day:
Have you washed your hands?
Have you cleaned your teeth?
Put your shoes on.
Put your coat on.
Pull your trousers up, please.....
Don't bite your nails!
And so on and so forth.
But it is, of course, because we care for and about our children,
and want them to grow up to be the best possible person they can be.

And parents do this because they love their children.
Ask any new parent –
all those sleepless nights,
the pacing up and down, the nappies, the lack of sleep –
and yet, they are delighting in that precious baby,
and will show you photographs on the slightest provocation.
And that is just how God feels about us!
Pretty mind-blowing, isn’t it?

And yes, God does want us to grow up to be the person he designed us to be.
And sometimes that will involve saying “No” to us,
as we have to say it to our children.
“No, you mustn’t do that;
no, you can’t have that!”
Not to be mean, not because we are horrid –
although it can feel like that sometimes when you’re on the receiving end –
but because it is for their best.
You can’t let a child do something dangerous;
you can’t allow them to be rude;
they can’t eat unlimited sweets or ices.... and so on.
When my elder grandson was about five, he once said, with a deep sigh, when reminded that sweets weren't very good for him:
“Is anything good for me?”
And the same sort of thing with us.

God loves us enormously and just wants what is best for us.
And because we are, mostly, not small children, we tend to be aware of this, and allow Him to work in us through the power of the Holy Spirit.

John goes on to comment about sin and sinfulness.
It is rather an odd passage, this;
we know that we do sin, sometimes, because we are human.
And yet we know, too, that we are God’s children and we abide in Him.
Yet John here says nobody who sins abides in God.
If he were right, that would mean none of us would, since we are all sinners.

But then, are we?
I mean, yes, we are, but the point is, we are sinners saved by grace, as they say.
God has redeemed us through his Son.
We don’t “abide in sin” any more.

St Paul tells us that when we become Christians, we are “made right” with God through faith in his promises.
I believe the technical term is “justified”, and you remember the meaning because it’s “just as if I’d” never sinned.
However, we also have to grow up to make this a reality in our lives.
That’s called becoming sanctified, made saint-like.

One author described it like this.
Suppose there was a law against jumping in mud puddles.
And you broke that law, and jumped.
You would not only be guilty of breaking the law,
you would also be covered in mud.
My grandsons seem to have spent most of lockdown rolling in the mud in Epping Forest, according to their mother, and they do seem to enjoy getting filthy!
Anyway, when you are justified, you are declared not guilty of breaking that law –
and being sanctified means that you wash off the mud!

So we no longer abide in sin, but are we washing off the mud?
That’s not always easy to do –
the temptation to conform to the world’s standards can be overwhelming at times.
We all have different temptations, of course;
I can’t claim to be virtuous because I don’t gamble,
since gambling simply doesn’t appeal to me!
But I am apt to procrastinate, and can be horrendously grouchy at times, particularly when stressed.
And I am very prone to self-pity.

These lockdowns have been stressful for all of us, I think, and many of us have found it all too easy to get cross at the slightest provocation.

And even now there is light at the end of the tunnel, we know we’re not out of the wood yet – we could easily still be locked down again.
Look how all Lambeth residents have been told to get a PCR test because there have been a few cases of a variant of the virus –
and we are all supposed to get two lateral flow tests a week, too,
though quite why those of us who have been vaccinated must do so escapes me.
But the point is, it’s stressful, and I’m finding it all but impossible to make plans more than a couple of days in advance.
And I know I’m not the only one to have found it all very difficult –
I’ve had it easy, of course;
I’m retired, so I haven’t had the worry about a job;
I live within a few metres of a large supermarket, so shopping hasn’t been an issue, and so on.
But even still, I can’t pretend it’s been easy, and there have been times when I’ve had to cling on to the fact that my relationship with God depends far more on God than it does on me!
But once, some years ago now, I posted a very self-pitying status on Facebook – can’t remember now what I said.
But a couple of posts down on my feed, someone had posted “Cast all your cares on Him, for he cares for you!”
So I laughed, deleted my status, and tried to do just that.
But you know, and I know, that it’s not always easy!

And, of course, there are those who have not said “Yes” to God,
who perhaps have no idea of doing so.
In this model, they are not God’s children –
but that doesn’t mean they are not loved!
Indeed, God so loved the world that he sent his Son while we were still sinners, so we are told.
God loves the worst and most horrible person you could imagine,
just as much as he loves you or he loves me.
Even terrorists.
Even paedophiles.
Jesus died for them, too.
Just as he died for you, and just as he died for me.

And we, we are Children of God.
We are God’s precious Children.
We are not just servants of God.
We are not just worshippers.
We are children.
And the Risen Christ calls us his friends. Amen.