Lectionary blog for Jan. 5, 2020
Second Sunday of Christmas
Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 147:12-20;
Ephesians 1:3-14; John 1:10-18
For those of us who are blessed to live relatively close to families we love and who love us, these past couple of months have been a time of getting together more than usual. Now that I live on the same continent as my parents and in-laws (we moved back from Northern Africa last year) my children are making up for lost time in seeing their grandparents. But January has come with, I suspect, a decreasing desire to travel anywhere but directly south to warmer climates. Most of us probably aren’t making plans to get together with family for a while. Now is the perfect time for the lectionary readings to remind us that one of God’s principle actions is in creating and bringing together a new human family.
This week’s passage from Ephesians speaks repeatedly about how God has planned to adopt us into God’s holy family. We were chosen in Christ before the foundation of the world (Ephesians 1:4) and destined for adoption (5). God planned to gather up all things (that includes us!) to Godself in the fullness of time (10). Indeed, God’s ancient plan to adopt humans into God’s holy family is so complete and thought out that God even prepared an inheritance for us! This inheritance is redemption (14) that leads to life (11-12).
Imagine what this would look like in human terms. Someone plans to adopt a child before she is even born, readies an inheritance and prepares everything. When the opportunity finally comes to make the adoption legal, the child’s future life is already completely prepared. That would take an amazing amount of love, foresight, patience, planning and work. I think that’s exactly how we should understand God’s relationship to us as expressed through Jesus—full of love, foresight, patience, planning and salvific work.
The work of God’s family, then, is to be gathered together from all the corners of the world, to love God and each other as brother and sister, united in one adoptive family.
In the Gospel of John’s poetic and mystical prologue, the full picture of our adoption into God’s holy family is laid out. Even though the world was created through him, much of the world rejected Jesus. But, for absolutely any who would receive him and believe in his name (Jesus’ name means “God saves”), he gave the power to become children of God (John 1:12). Just to be clear and drive the point home, the Gospel writer points out that the adoption of people into God’s family is just that: adoption, not natural birth. We become God’s children not by blood relations or any sort of fleshy encounter, but by the will of God (13). We aren’t part of God’s family by accident—we were purposefully chosen to become beloved children.
What does that mean? God, through the prophet Jeremiah, describes a time when God will join the people together again. God’s family will be pulled together from all corners of the world (Jeremiah 31:8). People of all physical abilities will be included (8) and all the pathways in God’s land will be accessible to all (9). God will prepare the way for all specifically because God self-identifies as Father (9). This is a role that God has chosen. At least in this passage, it is how God introduces Godself. I’m struck by this, mostly because of how infrequently I introduce myself first by saying that I am a dad. It’s a large part of my identity that I am the one who loves, provides for and takes care of my boys. But it’s not foremost in my mind about who I am. But we know God as God the Father/Parent because that’s who God is and chooses to be to us.
God’s whole mode of interacting with us humans is as a hopeful adoptive parent, who wants us to choose to be loved, taken care of and identified with our Heavenly Parent. God has chosen each and every one of us before the foundation of the world, to be called as God’s child, to be provided an inheritance of redemption and life. God is so pleased that we are God’s children. The work of God’s family, then, is to be gathered together from all the corners of the world, to love God and each other as brother and sister, united in one adoptive family.
