May I speak to you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Good morning! What do y’all think of my giraffe hat? It's pretty strange looking isn't it? What do you think my friends, colleagues, and family would think if I wore it for days, months, years? I might wear this one time and get away with it, but if I wore it all the time, you might start to think I was strange.
I’m sure my family would become pretty concerned about me. They would probably sit me down for an intervention: talk to me about how I've changed and about how the hat makes them feel. I’m sure they would suggest that I receive psychiatric help. When I asked my eight-year old daughter what she thought about my giraffe hat, she responded, Dad, it makes you look like a total lunatic. Point taken Valerie, as much as I like my giraffe hat, I think I’ll take it off.
In our Gospel lesson this morning we read about another person who did something that made his family very concerned; they wanted to talk to him as well. This person is Jesus. When Jesus started his ministry he began going from place to place healing people and casting out demons. He became so popular that people followed him everywhere to the point that he and his disciples could not even sit down to have a meal together. Soon his family became so concerned about his behavior that they went to talk to him.
One day, while Jesus was teaching in a house about binding up the strong man, someone said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking about you." You see Jesus’ family were just as worried about their own reputations as they were about him; they didn't understand his mission from God. So Jesus replied to them, (point to the congregation) "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
I can remember many years ago, when I first became a follower of Christ, I had so much passion and zeal for the Lord (shiny new Christian) and naturally I wanted to share my zeal with all my close friends and family. One weekend I came home from college to share with my parents my new found resurrected life in Christ.
We were sitting in a low candle lit room at Provinos Italian restaurant in my hometown of Snellville, Georgia.
After placing our order, I remember leaning in close to my folks who were seated across from me to share with them this most glorious secret that I had become a disciple of Christ. Now you need to understand that I did not grow up in a religious household, and my parents had even experienced a brief toxic encounter with the church many years earlier that ended their spiritual search. So in response to my exciting good news, my dad replied, in his most sarcastic tone, “We’ll see how long this sticks”(with my mother shaking her head in disappointing agreement).
My heart sank and I instantly felt their rejection. However, my dad’s response was perfectly understandable due to the many different personas and identities I had experimented with throughout my teenage years. But this particular experiment did stick, and slowly God began to transform my life.
I met an amazing man named Reggie Williams in Macon, Georgia who had a vision of transforming the inner city through the Gospel of Jesus and the work of the Holy Spirit within us. I joined an African American charismatic store front church and began serving handicapped and at-risk children in the community through the AmeriCorps program.
I had never given my life away so radically for the will of God, and the people who surrounded me became my brothers and sisters and mothers and children.
I will never forget the moment I was baptized into the triune life of God by Pastor Reggie in Lake Tobesofkee: greeted and embraced by my new brothers and sisters in Christ upon the beach. It felt so unbelievable, it felt like inclusion, it felt like family.
I recently heard someone exclaiming that blood was thicker than water, meaning that biological family was more important than the family you gather around you as we journey together through life. I remember having a strong emotional reaction to his statement in my heart, but chose to remain silent at the time because I was yet unable to express the truth I was feeling. You see my two children are not my biological children, yet I can only see them as a part of me.
This past Friday morning I was sitting in my living room reflecting and writing this sermon: my two dachshunds snuggling next to me, my wife busy playing joyfully with her new 55 gallon fish tank, and the sounds of my children laughing and playing upstairs was filling the house with such joy and comfort. At that moment I had an epiphany of sorts that this was the exact space that I belong, that these are my people, this is what family feels and looks like for me. We are a family who loves God and serves him together, bound, not by our natural bloodline, but through the blood of Jesus.
Having my children in my life for the past five years has taught me so much about the Spirit of Adoption. The Spirit of Adoption is the work of the Holy Spirit revealing within us that we belong to the Father in the Son. Paul declares in Romans 8: “For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God.” What Paul is saying is that Jesus has scooped us up into his Father’s arms where we now are able to relate to him as Abba Father, the Aramaic word for daddy.
When I first met my children 5 years ago, they were strangers to me, as I was a stranger to them. Then slowly, over time, an incredible transformation of love took place in our lives. Today, both of my children express our intimate connection by calling and relating to me as daddy. I am daddy and they are my true children. I believe something like this is taking place in today’s gospel lesson. I believe that something like this is taking place today in our own spiritual contexts.
I think that what Jesus is saying to us today is that our family is larger than we think.
That yes, blood bonds are important, but nothing can transcend the power of God’s love as expressed through the redeeming blood of Jesus Christ our Lord. A power that embraces us and adopts us into relationship with Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, a power that transforms us into the very children of God. This is a love so vast, so immense, that everyone, regardless of our own opinions and prejudices, is included within it. This is the good news Jesus died for (put on giraffe hat), and this is the good news that sticks, and I hope you foolishly experience with me for many weeks, months, even years from now. God bless you. God love you. Amen.
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