See what love God has given us, that we should be called Children of God; and that is what we are (1 John 3:1a).
For the past eight years or so there’s been a dramatized series on the History Channel called “Vikings.” It had this really great advertisement—I’ll put a link to it in my Note from Fr. Keith this week. The commercial starts with this pudgy, balding, middle-aged man running out across his manicured suburban lawn to his mailbox and being disappointed that something—we’re not sure what—hasn’t arrived. Day after day he gets more and more frustrated as he peers into the empty mailbox. Finally, finally, the envelope he’s been waiting for shows up—it turns out he’s been waiting for the results of a DNA ancestry test. He rips it open and scans the results down the page with growing disappointment, but then, at the very bottom of the page, the last line, he sees it—0.012% Viking! Suddenly he jumps up, he screams with joy, and he’s transformed into a fur-robed, sword-wielding, fierce warrior. He knew it all along—he’s a Viking.
According to recent estimates, more than 26 million Americans have purchased one of those at-home genetic ancestry testing kits. The journal “New Genetics and Society” recently published an extensive study based on interviews with Swedish, British and American individuals who used genetic ancestry tests to prove they had “Viking blood.” Many of these test-takers were looking for the results to validate who they are: One person said that knowing he was descended from Vikings explained his tendencies toward violence and explosive anger. Another said it explained her desire to see “new lands” and her inability to stay in one place…These test-takers, I think, are looking for justification for their flaws.
As Christians, we see “justification” in a different light, the light of the sunrise on Easter morning. “Justification” is the word used in Scripture that means in Jesus we are all forgiven, declared to be righteous by God even when we weren’t—when we aren’t—righteous. Justification is not a once-for-all free pass that means we’re going to heaven when we die and so nothing matters here now. Theologically, for us as Anglicans, Justification is a living and dynamic reality and is intrinsically related to what is called Sanctification—Justification—Forgiveness, must lead to growing up in our faith and in our lives, growing up, growing closer to God.
John calls us “children” three time in this short passage. “See what love God has given us, that we should be called Children of God; and that is what we are” (3:1). “Beloved, we are God’s children now” (3:2). “Little children, let no one deceive you” (3:7). Remember Jesus saying things like “Let the little children come to me, for the Kingdom of Heaven belongs to such as these,” and “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like little children, you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven.” We are children…we are God’s children…and as God’s children we should be always growing more fully into the likeness of God our parent.
Children are frail, and children fail and children fall. John is not naïve, he recognizes this, too. Just last week in our reading John said, “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us” (1:8). So in today’s reading, when he says, “Those who have been born of God do not sin,” what John is telling is us not that we are perfect, but that we must make no compromise with evil. As children, we should recognize that we are immature. As children, we should recognize that need to be taught so that we can mature and grow. Like all children, we need to practice and exercise in order to become strong and skilled. We do this maturing—we get our schooling and strength training—by prayer, and by fellowship, and by reading Scripture, and by the Sacraments, and by reaching out to help and welcome and heal those other children of God around us.
“Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed (3:2).” God is our parent, Jesus is our brother, and everyone we meet should see the family resemblance—it should be obvious. We are God’s children now—not fully grown, independent adults, but children, childrenwho need to ask our parent for help, children who need to practice and study, children who need to do our homework so that we can grow into what we should be. This is the sanctification that follows from justification.
You don’t need to pay 23AndMe to tell you about your DNA—In today’s Epistle John tells you for free: You are a child of God. In fact, the Common English Bible translates verse 9 which follows right after today’s reading as “God’s DNA remains in [you].” My prayer this week is that you will be like those 23AndMe Viking-bloodline seekers—but instead of trying to justify your anger or your wanderlust through some minute percentage of ancient Norse warrior blood, you will know instead the justifying and sanctifying power of Jesus’ blood, on the Cross and at the altar. I pray you will know that your heritage—your defining inheritance—your DNA—is building you up for nothing less than joining in the salvation and healing of the world. And I pray that when everyone looks at you, they will say, “I can really see the family resemblance—you are the spitting image of your Father and your Brother!”
