Children of God
Deuteronomy 34:1-12; I John 3:1-3
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
November 5, 2023
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uy7mNCRUFAg
Last month, my high school graduating class had our 40th class reunion. I wasn’t there, but several friends sent reports about it. In the six months before the reunion, two well-known and well-liked classmates died. One died of an apparent heart attack. The other died by suicide, as a result of severe depression. My friends told me about the stories shared and the toasts offered to the memories of these recently departed classmates. Partly because of that, partly because I have a tendency towards the melancholy at this time of year, and partly because the church calendar invites exactly this kind of reflection on All Saints Sunday, I have been reflecting on the concept of legacy.
I am thinking about an individual’s legacy, what they accomplish or teach or inspire within their lifetime that has a lasting impact. It is the kind of thing that you sometimes find in an obituary or a eulogy, although neither of those is ever complete.
Moses’ eulogy in Deuteronomy 34 says “Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform . . .” Moses left big shoes for the leaders who would come after him. There no one like him, says the author of Deuteronomy. We know from other books of the Bible that Moses lived a complicated life. He was born in the midst of genocide, but was spared because of the actions of his mother and sister and Pharaoh’s own daughter. He grew up in the midst of privilege, as witness to oppression, until one day he killed the Egyptian who abused another Hebrew. Then he fled for his life, eventually settling down as a shepherd in the wilderness. Until God called him to return to Egypt to lead his people to freedom. Moses did so, but only after a good bit of arguing and making excuses. That kind of doubt and arguing and whining to God seems to have continued for the duration of his life. What God accomplished for the Hebrew people through Moses’ leadership was unparalleled. His legacy was enormous, but his life was far from perfect. In so many ways, he was an ordinary human being with faults and strengths who was used by God in spite of himself.
He died within sight of the land he had journeyed towards for years, but without entering it. Every death is like this. Every death leaves us with questions about how things might have been different. . . Every death leaves unfinished business.
The actor Matthew Perry died last week. He became famous overnight starring on the TV show Friends which lasted for 10 seasons. More recently, Matthew disclosed his lifelong struggle with addiction. He wrote a book about it and discussed it on talk shows. In one interview he said, “The best thing about me is that if someone says to me ‘I want to stop drinking, can you help me?’ I can say Yes and follow up and do it.” Matthew went on, “When I die, I don’t want Friends to be the first thing that’s mentioned. I want [my willingness to help others] to be the first thing that’s mentioned.”[1] What matters to most of us is not the awards or accolades, but the relationships and the times that we felt like we made a difference for someone else. Even for someone as famous as Matthew Perry.
Moses and Matthew both died with unfinished business. We too shall die with things left undone.
Reinhold Niebuhr taught theology at Union Seminary in New York for decades and was an influential voice in the middle of the last century. He wrote
“Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in our lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.”[2]
If Niebuhr is correct, that nothing can be achieved in a lifetime, then important work takes the work of several lifetimes. Important work takes multiple generations. I am thinking about an individual’s legacy, what a person leaves behind. I am also thinking about the other side of legacy which is receiving what is left for us by others. Some of us are grateful for ancestors who emigrated to this land. Because of their sacrifices, we may have received an easier way of life. Some of us are grateful for opportunities for education or travel or life wisdom of faith transmitted to us by parents or grandparents or trusted elders.
This summer I came across a list of the people who transferred from Temple Baptist Church to Emmanuel in 1970. That list is on the insert in your bulletin. Of the approximately 150 names listed, I have personally known only 9. I am grateful that I knew Audrey Ford, James Ford, Chris Moaton and Mattie Smith Blassengale. I am also grateful for continuing to know Sam Koonce, Rosemary Koonce, Esther Moore, Beverly Norwood and Dwight Smith. Many of you will recognize and remember other names on the list. When these 150 people joined Emmanuel, they provided a legacy for us. The historic black Temple Church and the very white Emmanuel Church looked very different after 1970. Because we became racially diverse, people of different races joined us and still do. That is a rare gift, a legacy to be treasured.
I want to honor our elders, those in leadership in 1969 and 1970 who had the wisdom and courage to bring those two churches together. We continue in the work of anti-racism shared by those folks fifty years ago, because nothing that is worth doing can be accomplished in our lifetime.
We inherit a legacy. We hope to leave a good legacy. Our ordinary daily actions shape that legacy. The letter of I John was written to Christians who struggled with some of our same questions. They had been through some hard times. At the end of the first century, their church is splintering. They may wonder what will become of them. There are a lot of theological fights in their time, but the writer of this letter is more concerned with the practical than the theoretical. He wants his readers to behave like Jesus, not just to believe that he is the Christ.[3] He wants them to support each other in the love that comes from God who is love.
“Beloved, we are children of God,” he writes. Not because we have earned that identity, but because God has freely bestowed it. We often declare that Jesus is God’s Son. What could that mean?
– That Jesus resembles God, in the ways that a child resembles their parents
– That Jesus is close to God, close to understanding who God is and what God desires
– That Jesus enacts the will of God on earth.
“Beloved, we are children of God,” John says.
What if John means that we are God’s beloved offspring, just like Jesus? What if we believed that? What if, on a daily basis, we looked in the mirror and reminded ourselves “Beloved, now you are a child of God.”
John says that the world does not recognize us as God’s children, just as Jesus was not recognized. Maybe the world doesn’t recognize us because we don’t recognize it in ourselves. What if we did? Imagine the legacy that we could create as children of God.
You recognize the name of Rev. Desmond Tutu. Known for his powerful non-violent leadership in the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, he became bishop of Johannesburg and later the Archbishop of Cape Town, in both cases he was the first black African to hold the position. I was blessed to hear him preach on a couple of occasions. He could remain calm and composed in the face of soldiers occupying a sanctuary, but he was also an excited and joyful preacher, especially when he got warmed up on his favorite subject which was the love of God.
Someone once asked him about a defining moment in his life. He told a story from his childhood. One time, when he and his mother were walking down a sidewalk, a tall white man was approaching them. Under the rules of apartheid, it was expected that Desmond and his mother would step into the gutter and nod their heads in deference as the white man passed. But this white man was different, and to their surprise he stepped off the pavement and tipped his hat as they passed him. The man was an Anglican priest called Trevor Huddleston who was bitterly opposed to apartheid. When Desmond’s mother explained to him that Huddleston was a ‘man of God’ he made up his mind there and then to become an Anglican priest just like him.[4] The tip of the hat, the simple act of kindness and dignity, confirmed for Desmond that he was a child of God. I cannot think of a better example of someone who lived into that identity.
John writes “Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed . . . but we will be like him.”
This is our identity and also our future goal, who we are to become. We live in the now and the not yet.
“Nothing worth doing,” Niebuhr said, “can be accomplished in a lifetime, therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, . . . can be accomplished alone; therefore we must be saved by love.”
And so we are saved by a love that accompanies us all our days, to death and beyond. Thanks be to God for a love like that.
[1] https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/Culture/matthew-perry-wanted-remembered-beyond-friends/story?id=104474000
[2] Reinhold Niebuhr, The Irony of American History, (New York: Scribner Book Company, 1952).
[3] Frank Stagg, [3] As quoted by Peter Rhea Jones in Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary: 1,2 & 3 John (Macon, GA: Smyth and Helwys, 2009), p. 9
[4] https://www.ministrymatters.com/all/entry/3326/you-never-know-what-will-grow