Pentecost 11/Mary, Mother of Our Lord              Gal. 4:4-7                      8/15/04

                                              "Adoption: grace, freedom, belonging"

About this time four years ago I was anticipating my first Zilhaver reunion. As a courtesy the pastor of St. Paul’s is invited to this large family gathering. Since I’m alone and far from my own family, I very much appreciate being included. Thus, I was looking forward to the reunion with much joy.

But, I also felt some trepidation. You see a certain member of this congregation had told me I would be adopted into the "Family" at the reunion and there would be a christening to mark the occasion. (I sort of thought this nameless member was just pulling my leg, but I will admit to half expecting to have a can of soda poured on my head sometime that afternoon). Thankfully, it never happened.

Christening or not, I can say that I haven’t noticed any major difference in my life as a result of becoming an adopted child of the Zilhavers. And though it’s pleasant to feel I may belong to this family, I don’t expect to become anybody’s heir.

Quite the opposite is true when people are adopted into the family of God. As St. Paul tells us in our Galations reading, when Christ redeemed us we became the adopted children of God and through that adoption we become heirs of God. We inherit something far greater than the family photo album or even millions of dollars in land or stocks. We inherit eternal life - that is a loving, intimate relationship with God forever.

There are three benefits that come with being adopted by God: grace, freedom, belonging. By God’s grace we receive all of the promises that were made to Abraham and his descendants. Without any merit or worthiness in us, God chooses to love us, forgive us, call us His own and enter into us through the Holy Spirit. He does this now, as we are, still riddled with sin.

This is the wonder of our adoption. God looks at us crippled as we are by sin and chooses to take us into His family. He doesn’t say to get cleaned up first. He doesn’t take us contingent on our improving our behavior, on measuring up or on pleasing Him. He doesn’t even build a clause into our adoption papers whereby He can rescind the adoption within thirty days if He finds something really awful about us and changes His mind. No. God extends His grace to us, just as we are, no strings attached, and continues to extend it to us through eternity.

God can do this because He decided long before He sent His Son that another benefit of adoption would be our freedom from the law. He sent His Son - born to a human mother and thus human as well as divine - to live out a perfect life, totally fulfilling the requirements of the law, so that when He died on the cross His sacrifice would be entirely for our benefit. This, then frees us from the law.

The sin that remains in us keeps trying to re-enslave us to the law. It whispers constantly in our ear that even though we are saved by grace we still have to...take your pick: live a good life, believe all the right doctrines, do good works, whatever,... Yes, we don’t know what, but surely we’ve got to do something to at least hold onto the salvation given us by grace.

This was the problem Paul was addressing in this letter. The Galations had accepted Paul’s teaching about Christ, that they were saved by grace, redeemed by Jesus blood and righteousness. But Paul had moved on to another city to preach the Gospel and establish a new mission church. Now that he was out of the way, Judaizers, people who aggressively taught that obedience to the law was necessary, had moved into the area. Their preaching confused the gentile converts and they needed this clear statement from Paul to get set back on the right path.

We don’t have Judaizers today, but there are plenty of voices all around (and even in us) that try to lead us away from the freedom Jesus won for us and back to enslavement to the law.

Thus, we need to hear again and again, "You are free of the law. You have been adopted into God’s family, freely claimed as His child, not because of who you are, but because of who God is. You have become an inheritor of the promise and an inheritance is a gift, it cannot be earned."

This brings us to the third benefit of our adoption - belonging. At our anniversary luncheon last Sunday, people were given an opportunity to share their thoughts about St. Paul’s. One theme that came from these comments was that people who have joined St. Paul’s or rejoined after some years away, feel they have come home. In other words, St. Paul’s is a place a person can enjoy a sense of belonging. Belonging means you are accepted, wanted and loved.

In helping people feel they have come home, become part of the family, belong, we demonstrate, at least in a small way, what God offers us as He adopts us as His children. Being adopted by God through Christ means we always have a home. It means that even if we are surrounded by strangers, or worse enemies, we don’t need to feel alone, alienated or rejected. No matter what, we know we belong to God. We can feel accepted, wanted and loved by God.

This is also not just a superficial or objective belonging. As an adopted child we can have an intimate relationship with God. We are told we can now cry "Abba!" This "abba" is the equivalent of "daddy" in English. Because of our adoption, in our most troubled or troubling moments we can cry out "Daddy" just like a little child cries out in the middle of the night sure that that caring person will come to them.

Hopefully, our "Abba/Daddy" will signify something else that a child’s cry shows upon seeing a loving parent. The child also cries, "Daddy" out of a feeling of joy and love - a response to the Daddy’s love. "Abba" is also a proclamation that this is the One I love and joyfully serve. Our response to being redeemed from the law and made an adopted child of God is prayer and praise, return of a portion of what He has so generously given us and use of our talents - also gifts from God - in His service. By this we show our joy at being adopted by our Abba into His family.

Today, we have the awesome joy of celebrating the adoption of another of God’s children into the family as we baptize, Victoria Marsh.

Victoria, in your baptism you too receive the benefits of grace, freedom and belonging. We encourage you to enjoy them to the full. We look forward to having you as our sister in God’s family. We hope you will grow in grace, cling to your freedom from the law and always feel that you belong to the family. You can help this happen by faithfully attending the family reunion each Sunday, using your gifts in God’s service and calling on your Abba/Daddy in good times and bad. Welcome to the Family. Amen