(Photo is of a mosaic of the Apostle Paul in the Palatine Chapel in Palermo, Italy. Used under Creative Commons License)
Lectionary Scripture – Romans 8:14-17 (NRSV)
For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, "Abba! Father!" it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ--if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.
“Abba! Father!”
The Apostle Paul used different approaches to help new Christians, especially Jewish Christians, comprehend the generosity God extended them for becoming followers of Jesus. For most Jews, their lives and upbringing centered completely on following a complex set of laws to earn God’s favor. Almost always, a person failed in one regard or another to measure up. Failure was therefore sin. To absolve oneself of sin, sacrificial offerings or purification rituals were required to get back on track and avoid God’s wrath. Over the centuries, the rigidity of the rules and laws for these offerings and rituals, as administered by the religious authorities, felt more like slavery. Naturally, fear of scorn and judgment was the byproduct awaiting your next misstep rather than feeling loved and right with God.
Becoming a follower of Jesus reframed all that negativity. It took some work however to help individuals make the leap in their understanding to “knowing” the generous love God intended for them. It had in fact been a generosity always available to them, but humankind -- as we tend to do – had so corrupted and controlled people’s sense of whom and what God loved, that an entirely new movement was needed to break people out of the slavery that bound their hearts, minds, and spirits. Jesus brought that movement into being and as vehicle of God’s generosity made it palpable and undeniable. It would then be up to Paul and many others to flesh it out.
For the Roman Jews, Paul found a means for fleshing things out through the concept of adoption as defined under Roman law. The Roman definition was quite clear that in the eyes of the law adopted children had the very same rights and privileges as biological offspring. The only requirement involved is that the adoption had to be witnessed by one other party. For Paul, induction into the family of God occurred through encounter with the Holy Spirit. The Spirit was therefore the witness that God’s generosity and love and adoption into God’s family had been conveyed to a person. The encounter itself might be like that of the early disciples and Pentecost or it might be something similarly ecstatic to the love of a parent that greets a newborn daughter or son.
For me, I would have to say that my experience of such love didn’t occur at my baptism or confirmation when I was a young child. No, that moment of God breaking through to me and completely reframing my understanding of how God saw and regarded me happened several years later. It involved a simple moment in the course of a routine day while working as a bank teller. Age nineteen and home from college for the summer, I was processing a night deposit bag in the company of other tellers doing similar work. Suddenly while consumed in total focus on processing the deposit, God’s Spirit broke into my awareness and completely overwhelmed me with a feeling of being loved and accepted. I had never experienced anything like it before and the sensation coursed so powerfully through me that I had to lean against the counter in front of me as I feared I’d collapse to the floor. Precious words then flowed into my mind, words that could only be God’s, “You’re okay Brad, you’re really okay.” From that point on I knew my life would be committed to this divine presence and helping others to find this feeling and affirmation for their lives.
We live in a world my friends not unlike that of Jesus and the Apostle Paul. It’s a world that remains fear-based. It plays on our fears in countless evil ways so as to contravene the generosity that could transform our humanity and heal the earth. Like Paul did, we need to help each other learn. We need to help one another see, sense, and experience being part of God’s family beyond the prejudices and particularities that separate and divide us or serve self-absorbed egos. One example of such endeavor is captured in a journalist’s story of Mother Teresa’s life in India. Unfortunately I’ve lost the name to properly reference and credit his work, but what he wrote if far too important to pass up:
In recent years before her death she was labeled an "impostor", a "religious imperialist" who surreptitiously converted millions of poor people to Christianity. In response, she was once heard to say, "I do convert - I convert you to be a better Hindu, a better Catholic, a better Muslim, Jainist or Buddhist."God’s Generosity, it’s the only path forward for humanity’s healing and reconciliation. What can you share or let go of in order that others may know a Love so powerful it will take them to their knees?
People in Calcutta remember a particularly emotional day when Mother Teresa faced a delirious crowd of protesters. She had set up the Home for the Dying next to a famous Hindu temple in Calcutta and there she took in patients refused even by hospitals. Locals were enraged after rumors spread that those who died there were buried as Christians. After a public furor, a local official and a senior police officer went to inquire. In a room full of an intensely foul stench, they saw Mother Teresa hunched over a person whose face had turned into a large gaping wound. Unmindful of the smell, she was pulling away maggots from the patient’s raw flesh with the help of a tweezers.
On approach of the officials, Mother Teresa said, "You say a prayer in your religion and I will say a prayer in mine. Together we will say this prayer and it will be something beautiful for God." With tears in his eyes, the police officer returned to the angry crowd outside the Home for the Dying and said to the protesters, "Yes, I will send this woman away, but only after you have persuaded your mothers and sisters to come here and do the work that she is doing. This woman is a saint.”
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