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Baptism: We Are All God’s Children

“We Will See”
Sermon Celebrating the Baptism of Jack Field Munson
by Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch
April 19, 2015
I John 3:1-7

“Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” Matthew 5:8

Today we are making an extraordinary assertion. We are asserting that Jack Field Munson is not only the child of Tyler and Sydney—he is a child of God.

We take it so granted today, so I want to emphasize it again: We are saying that Jack is a child of God. What are we thinking?

In the liturgies of the early Christian church, when the congregation came to the Lord’s prayer, they were reminded what an amazing thing it is that we can dare to call God our Father. This was Jesus’ point as well when He taught us the prayer and told us to call God “Father.” His point is, this is an extraordinary statement. We have the right to claim it. But we must never ever take it for granted.

Our passage from I John tells us that we are children of God and asserts, amazingly, that “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” This is an assertion of both a present and future reality. We will be God’s children in the future, at the return of Jesus, but we are also already God’s children now. The fact that we aren’t fully formed into the image of Christ as we will be in the Age to Come doesn’t mean we aren’t God’s children now. That’d be like saying Jack isn’t fully his parents’ child until he’s a fully-formed adult. We are God’s children now.

And that’s amazing. That’s humbling. That’s empowering.

Our reading in I John is preceded by a verse that gives it even more power:

“And now, little children, abide in him, so that when he is revealed we may have confidence and not be put to shame before him at his coming.” (2: 28)

The Greek word for “confidence,” parresia, carries a powerful meaning. It means “the right to speak openly before God” (Brown, The Letters of John, Anchor Bible Commentaries, 380). It is the right to do as some of the great Biblical patriarchs did, and dare to challenge God, to speak boldly in God’s presence. Moses spoke with such boldness before God, when God was so angry with the people that He threatened to destroy them, and Moses talked Him down by appealing to God’s own sense of honor and God’s promise to bless them, not curse them. Abraham had that same boldness, when God told him he was angry with Sodom and Gomorrah and prepared to destroy them. Abraham pursued the case as relentlessly as a Lawyer: “Most Holy, if you find only fifty righteous, will you spare the city?”… “If you find only ten righteous will you spare them?” This is the boldness of someone who has been granted the incredible privilege of speaking before God as an equal, without fear of of retribution or payback.

Parresia also means the confidence we have that God is our Father. God loves us. God is not ashamed of us. You can have “confidence before God or His Son as you make petitions, or face judgment” (Brown 380), because we “come before God [as though God is] a loving friend, not as a judge” (381). We come before God as a father who loves and, just as importantly, respects His child.

To claim Jack today as a child of God means that he can have confidence that God loves him as a Father loves a child, or as a mother loves a newborn. It means that as he grows older, and struggles with the questions of life, he can have the boldness to go before God and say, “What gives?” or “This isn’t fair!” and know that God will receive him not only with love, but just as importantly, with respect. This is the boldness all of us are allowed as the children of God: we are received with respect. This also means, as of vital importance, that we don’t need to come before God ashamed.

That’s the perspective that John is arguing against, and one we can all understand, because we’ve all been there: we don’t need to be ashamed to come before God. John is arguing against a way of thinking that is as old as humanity itself: that we are so flawed, so imperfect, and so unloveable in God’s eyes that the only way we dare enter God’s presence is with our heads bowed and our eyes averted, ready at any moment to be chastised or punished for our shortcomings, our flaws, and our sins. John is calling us to the boldness of the children of God. We enter God’s presence because we have a right to be there. And we enter God’s presence “with the confidence of the children of God” because we know that God loves us as a loving parent loves her child—as Sydney and Tyler love Jack and Amelia.

Today we are committing to raise Jack with the boldness to claim that yes, he is a child of God. We do this at a time when some 18% of high schoolers admit to considering suicide. Our children today grow up under a societal stress to achieve that begins often in pre-school. But beyond that, our society struggles with issues that, while they seem to affect only adults, are certainly leaving their mark on impressionable children. When Jack’s a teenager, hopefully these societal issues will be resolved, and we will have learned as a society not to put so much pressure on our children. But there are always problems in life—if not when you’re a teen, then when you’re an adult, as so many of us know.

John, our letter writer, singles out shame as the problem that human beings struggle with, and he’s right. Shame has been a consistent theme of human angst in the Bible since Adam and Eve discovered they were naked, and hid themselves from God because they were ashamed. Shame afflicts humanity and makes us afraid of one another, afraid of ourselves, and afraid of God. We inevitably discover in life that we fall short. It can be devastating to discover this at any age, but it is especially devastating for young people to discover it. You feel like everyone knows, that no one could possibly understand, that everyone else is perfect by comparison, and that everyone would look down on you if they knew. You feel disappointed in yourself. You feel that the people who love you are disappointed. You feel that God is disappointed. How can you possibly hold your head up in the presence of anyone, especially God?

You can hold your head up because you are a child of God. You can hold your head up because God knows exactly who you are, inside and out, has known it from the beginning of time, and still has asked you—in fact, insists—that you call God “Father.” God tells you that have a right to make the incredibly bold claim that God loves you, that God is your father, and that Jesus is your brother. God says you have a right to courageously come and stand before the throne of God’s grace and courageously speak your mind—to boldly present yourself, warts and all, before God without fear of rejection. God has no intention of shaming us—God loves us.

There is no better place to go when you’re ashamed than before the Throne of God’s grace. There you will find someone who loves you with an infinite love. Someone who listens to you with infinite respect. There you will find consolation in time of need, but not consolation only: you will find the courage to go on. There you’ll discover that though the present moment seems awful, the future is in the hands of God, and God loves you. God gives you the strength to learn, to grow, to either accept or change your shortcomings, and move on. God welcomes you and says, “I love you. I am your Father, and I am not ashamed to call you my child. Be yourself before me, and find peace.”

That’s what Jack can say for his entire life. That is the promise and assurance of baptism—not only for him, but for all of us. Have to courage to believe and to claim what it really means to make the incredible claim that we are God’s children—and God is our Father.