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Monday, July 16, 2012

July 15, 2012 EPHESIANS 1:3-14 NRSV


Rev. Halliburton                                                                       July 15, 2012

EPHESIANS 1:3-14 NRSV
3Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,
who has blessed us in Christ
with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 
4just as he chose us in Christ
before the foundation of the world
 to be holy and blameless before him in love.

 5He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ,
 according to the good pleasure of his will,
 6to the praise of his glorious grace
that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. 

7In him we have redemption through his blood,
 the forgiveness of our trespasses,
according to the riches of his grace
8that he lavished on us.

With all wisdom and insight 
9he has made known to us the mystery of his will,
 according to his good pleasure that he set forth in Christ, 

10as a plan for the fullness of time,
 to gather up all things in him,
things in heaven and things on earth.

 11In Christ we have also obtained an inheritance,
having been destined
according to the purpose of him
who accomplishes all things
according to his counsel and will,

 12so that we, who were the first to set our hope on Christ,
might live for the praise of his glory.

 13In him you also,
when you had heard the word of truth,
the gospel of your salvation,
and had believed in him,
were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; 

14this is the pledge of our inheritance
 toward redemption as God's own people,
 to the praise of his glory.

***

I wonder if you know what it means to be adopted by God. As someone who is adopted, this phrase means more to me than any other in the entire Bible. It speaks to me of a mystery I know well, and yet it leaves me in awe and sheer wonder of such grace, grace that is set before us all. If I can convey to you a modicum of this emotion, if I can convey to you one line of the list from Ephesians, then the Holy Spirit will have shed its grace. This my friends, is the promise of our baptism: we are adopted by God.

I am not usually one to believe in destiny. Usually, I think of God taking the pieces we are given and growing them into something miraculous, rather than some miraculous plan laid out that we simply follow. Yet, when I think of my adoption, and my later call, there is something of God’s destiny to be seen in the looking backward over my life. When I look at the mystery of my own adoption, I know God was at work in some miraculous ways. The miracle is not that I’m adopted. The miracle is that God adopted me, and has adopted each one of you.

My parents were unable to have children. They wanted someone they could tuck in, and someone to read to. They wanted a child to love and raise so they decided to seek adoption. At that time in the state of Texas, a place never known for its separation of church and state, they had to obtain a minister’s signature in order to adopt a child. Therefore, my parents decided they ought to try going to church. They liked the Universalists but figured it wouldn’t count in Texas. So, instead they found the black sheep of the Presbytery.  A pastor, named Bill Mounts, is pictured in some of the first photographs of my life. His signature linked my life to the worship of God before I was even known. He was the first of many pastors at that church to make an indelible mark on my life. I have to wonder if God had a hand in Rev. Mounts signing those papers. I have to wonder if God had a hand in bringing my parents to church. I have to wonder if God had a hand in choosing St. Andrew in San Antonio. I think God did have a hand in all this, and I think it's one of the amazing parts about our adoption by God. God adopts us and is at work in our lives before we are even born. Before we are known, we are blessed by God, and called God’s own.

When we baptize a child, it is not about us claiming what that child believes. It is about God claiming that child, and loving that child, before the child was even formed. It’s about the spiritual blessing in the heavenly places that each of us has, and has had all of our lives and before our lives even began, because we are adopted by God. Before your mother knew you existed, God created you and loved you. Before you ever saw your brothers or sisters, you were a sibling to Christ. Before you took your first breath, the breath of the Holy Spirit was preparing a life for you. It doesn’t mean my, or your childhood was prefect, or even good, but it means it was blessed by God, and that God was at work. Are there ways in which you can see God’s work in preparing your life for you? Are there ways in which Christ was drawing you close as a child? How might the Holy Spirit have been at work before your coming into the world?

I was born of two teenagers, ages fifteen and sixteen, and first cousins. My birth-mom was the daughter of  a prominent city councilmen, and a very Catholic mother who had once studied to become a nun. There were many reasons why I could not stay. My birth-grandfather, the city councilmen, went through papers of perspective adoptive families. When he read my parents, he stopped and said, “This is it. Here they are.” His wife asked if he ought to read the rest of the papers, but he knew, and I wonder if God knew too. I wonder if God knew that in me was a penchant for public speaking and community leadership like my city councilmen birth-grandfather. I wonder if God knew that in me was a spiritual streak like my almost nun birth-grandmother. I wonder if God knew there was a rebellious curiosity streak in me like there was in my birthmother. I wonder if God knew her shame. I wonder if God knew the pain of my birthmother never getting to hold me. I wonder if God knew the love and the loss with which they gave me to another family. I believe God knew this all. God knew I had a bent to become a pastor, with a curious rebellious streak, just as God knows each of the hairs on our very heads. God knows us that intimately. God loves us that closely. You are known by God inside and out, head to toe, and including the fingerprints on your feet. God loves you so much to know you this closely, and God loves you even after knowing you this closely. When you feel misunderstood and completely unknown, God understands you and knows you completely. God also knows us in our shame, like that of my birthmother. When you have done something you deem unforgivable, God has forgiven you, and God’s grace is working for redemption. God also knows the love and loss of my birth families, because God, the Father, God like a mother in labor, gave God’s only son. That we might be adopted in Christ, that we might know God’s love on earth in the Beloved. We share in the blessing of Christ’s baptism when the heavens opened up, and a dove descended, and God said, “This is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” God also extended this blessing to us. We, just like Christ, are also are God’s own children, whom God watches over and loves. We have been adopted by God. And through Christ we are brothers and sisters.

My sister’s name is Diana. We look nothing alike. She is adopted too. Her story has mysteries like my own, and grace like my own too. God is at work in her as an artist and a counselor. But that is her story to tell. Mine is that she is grace to me. Though we fought like normal sisters growing up, she is my best friend. I would not have known her without God’s mysterious grace that put us together in the same family as sisters. I tell you, it is the same with you and I, and you and the person next to you, and the person across the aisle from you, and the person in a pew across the world from here. God’s adoption has truly made us family. What mysterious circumstances brought each of us to this place in this time to worship together? What mysterious grace that the people in these pews have been family to us? We are family. We may sometimes fight like siblings, but we are unavoidably and graciously brothers and sisters. This is God’s adoption, a family reunion every Sunday, sharing the holidays together, raising each other’s kids as our own, gathering for funerals, marking life moments with one another, watching little ones grow, and adults grow old. This is our family. We are family. God has adopted us.

We are marked with the seal of adoption, our papers are signed, our spiritual gifts come with us and God knows them. God has given us God’s Son in Christ, and our family brothers and sisters in Christ. Our response to these inherited blessings is our pledge of thanksgiving. Our response to grace of our adoption is to praise God with our life. When I look back on my adoption story, I see the mysterious ways God has graciously adopted me, in response I am called to live my life in worship of God. Likewise, God has adopted each one of you, and you are called to life lived in praise of God. Do you know what it means to be adopted by God? To humbly grasp even a modicum of this emotion, or just one line from Ephesians sets us on path to respond as those alive in the Holy Spirit. We are adopted by God. Thanks Be to God.