Sermons

“Family Revelations”

Galatians 4:4-7; Luke 2:22-40 – Rev. Rebecca Littlejohn

Vista La Mesa Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), La Mesa, California – December 28, 2014

Holy God, bless the speaking and the hearing of these words that we learn to welcome the good news of your life-changing love. We pray it in the name of Jesus the Christ, Amen.

We’re getting to that point in the holiday season when having all the family gathered together is starting to get a little tense. Maybe you’re sick of sharing the bathroom. Maybe you’ve had enough of Uncle So-and-so’s offensive commentary. Maybe you’re tired of having to avoid certain taboo topics. These are generalizations, of course. Some family gatherings are tense from the very beginning. And perhaps there are some of you that have no idea what I’m talking about. Then again, even if it doesn’t happen in your own family, you know it’s out there. Our culture has a way of putting these dysfunctions on display.

Whether it’s reality tv, or talk shows, or just advice columns, hearing about other people’s problems is a much beloved pastime in this country. We don’t have cable, so for me, it’s advice columns. Whether it’s Dear Abby in the newspaper or Dear Prudence online, reading through the letters and their answers is a regular part of my morning routine. You start to notice themes after a while, mostly very good advice. Stuck on your own problems? Volunteer to help someone in need. Can’t let go of something? Get counseling. Tormented by a secret? Tell the truth. These are all things we ought to be able to figure out for ourselves, but I think sometimes it’s hard to recognize that the obvious advice we would give someone else applies to our lives as well.

One of the biggest sources of drama in Dear Abby or Jerry Springer is what you might call family secrets. On the other hand, let’s call them “family revelations” because the drama doesn’t start until the secret gets out, right? One of the first things a student of advice columns learns is the same lesson that came from Watergate: So much of the time, it isn’t the crime; it’s the cover-up. People hide things from their family because of shame or fear or whatever, but the truth eventually comes out, and then there’s more fall-out from the lack of trust and the duplicity than there ever would have been had the secret-carrier shared everything up front.

The truth is that we live large portions of our lives inside our expectations. We hear what we expect to hear; we see what we expect to see. We experience people behaving as we expect them to behave and dismiss anything that doesn’t fit our preconceived notions of who they are. So when a big enough secret breaks through all that and demands that we confront the unexpected, it shakes us up. It’s not necessarily that the new reality is bad; it’s just that it’s new. If we’re honest, there’s a large part of each of us that wants everything to stay the same always and forever, even if it isn’t that great. So when family secrets are revealed, things can get complicated fast.

Mary and Joseph surely had expectations for their son. Despite a somewhat rocky start, they were doing everything right, having Jesus’ circumcision and naming ceremony in the temple, and then presenting him, along with the sacrifice of turtledoves for Mary’s purification. They had gotten some hints that this was no ordinary baby, of course, but still, a lifetime of daydreaming about the children you’ll have one day doesn’t just disappear like a puff of smoke. And suddenly here is this weird old man holding their baby and telling them stuff about him that sounds kind of crazy. At the very least, this is going to take some getting used to. Mary just keeps collecting testimonies to “ponder in her heart” as people continue telling her things about her baby. Will it help? Will she be ready, thirty years later, for what’s going to happen? Or will it still pierce her soul like a sword, just as Simeon says it will?

There are some family revelations we never quite get used to. There is another one in the lessons we heard this morning. And it’s more about us than it is about Mary and Joseph. Did you catch it? Paul tells us in Galatians that because of Jesus – because of the way God came to earth as a human baby, because of how Jesus was God’s beloved child – so are we. We have been adopted into God’s family. We are no longer slaves, but children and heirs. Talk about your family revelations!

The strange thing is that this revelation wasn’t ever really a secret. The scripture was written almost two thousand years ago, and yet, so much of the time, we still act like we’ve just heard the news. We still have trouble getting used to the idea. Somehow, we stay trapped in the mindset of slavery, instead of embracing the truth of our inheritance. If we were to write in to an advice column about this, it would be one of those rare happy letters, or at least it would engender a happy response: “Enjoy it! Be grateful! Don’t take it for granted. Do something wonderful with this gift!”

But instead, we have trouble adjusting. We spend so much time trying to earn our way, trying to show how deserving we are. We spend so much energy trying to please the Master, trying not to say or do the wrong thing. We waste so much of our emotional resources on magical thinking, trying desperately to catch God’s attention. But that’s not how it is, scriptures tell us. That’s not the way it works. You don’t have to prove your worth, because God has already chosen you, adopted you, just as you are. You don’t have to be so afraid of messing up, because God is full of mercy and grace. You don’t have to engage in spiritual acrobatics to catch God’s eye, because you’re already the apple of God’s eye.

“You are no longer a slave, but a child, and if a child, then also an heir.” You don’t have to earn God’s love; you are a vessel of God’s love. You don’t have to work to obtain it; rather you have inherited it and you are called to share it. It can be a difficult mental shift to make, from being a pathetic, helpless victim of a wrathful, capricious god, to being the child and heir of a God of incarnate love. This is family in a way we’re not quite used to yet. There is mercy rather than punishment, appreciation and generosity instead of competition, encouragement instead of critical nitpicking.

To be adopted into the family of God is to be accepted for who we are and who we will become, without any qualifiers or exceptions. To be adopted into the family of God is to leave behind fear and self-doubt, and to trust in the depth and truth of the love we know in Christ Jesus. It’s not that this is a family that doesn’t know pain. Indeed, that sword that pierces our souls is still present. Having our inner thoughts revealed can be difficult. We may be called to carry those signs of Christ that are continually opposed. But if we do so, we do it with Christ by our sides, with the power of God within us, and the presence of the Holy Spirit sustaining us. To be part of the family of God is an adjustment from our normal way of living. It is a truth that requires constant revealing, because there is so much pushing us to live in different ways. We may have expectations, but we will need to carry them lightly, because God’s plans may be different. And much as we may crave the familiar, God’s way is the path of true freedom and fulfillment. Let us join Anna in praising God’s redeeming power! Alleluia and Amen!