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Trinity Sunday

Romans 8
12 Therefore, brothers and sisters, we have an obligation—but it is not to the flesh, to live according to it. 13 For if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live.
14 For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. 15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship.[a] And by him we cry, “Abba,[b] Father.” 16 The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs —heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.

So you just got your Visa statement in the mail and you realize that your recent habit of buying Beanie Babies on eBay has finally caught up with you. Or you can’t go another day without a J/109, and your yacht broker says it’s gonna set you back a quarter million dollars, unless you don’t want sails. Or your partner’s book buying habit has got to the point where family members take you aside and say “does she need another book about the Dead Sea Scrolls?”

If any of these situations are true for you, then I have only one name to recommend: Publius Clodius Pilcher. Poor Publius Clodius Pilcher, one of the most famous people alive in the century before Christ, and now largely forgotten. Clodius, as he was commonly known, was a politician: but that really doesn’t sum him up. He loved the limelight, so expressing his persona in modern terms might make him a cross between Rudy Guiliani, Charlie Sheen and Lady Gaga.

Clodius was extremely popular--he passed a law giving everyone free grain every month in perpetuity--but also made so powerful enemies. In order to take on his most powerful enemy Cicero, Clodius had himself adopted. In doing so, he changed from aristocrat to non-aristocrat, allowing him to become Tribune of the Plebs, more-or-less the Prime Minister of the Roman republic.

The scandal here was not the adoption, that was quite common Roman society, particularly among the upper class. The scandal was going backward in terms of social status, and also the small detail of being adopted by someone younger than himself. He was breaking new ground here, and his contemporaries were not amused.

Back to our aforementioned problems, your Beanie Babies, my dream yacht and someone’s book buying habit, I have come up with what I call the Zuckerberg solution. Sure Mark’s 28 years old and I’m 47, but Clodius cleared the way through that small problem. And if wouldn’t even offend my parents, since Roman adoption was seen as making alliances and improving your clans situation, not rejecting some poor people from Mount Albert. Maybe I’ll send them some free grain.

Just now you’re thinking ‘the reading is from Romans and Michael is talking about Romans but something doesn’t seem right.’ Fear not.

St. Paul was citizen of Rome. Or at least we think he was a citizen of Rome, but the jury is still out. My resident Hebrew scholar will tell you that the evidence is mixed, based primarily on his brushes with the law, and the types of punishment suitable for Roman and non-Roman people. A lot of ink has been spilled on this question, but we can certainly say that Paul understood the Roman way and had Roman pretensions.

Thinking like a Roman, adopting Roman customs, taking advantage of the freedom to travel afforded by Roman peace, Paul become a missionary. He visited synagogues throughout the Eastern half of the empire, traveling as far as Rome itself. Paul took advantage of the ease with which Romans could move around and engage in trade. In his case he was trading in ideas, and conversion, but it fit the pattern of trade nonetheless.

When talking to Romans, as he did in the letter to the Romans, he spoke to them and used ideas with which they were already familiar. In Athens, he visited the Areopagus and made reference to a pagan statue. He observed the law while in the company of fellows Jews, and set it aside when with gentiles. In 1 Corinthians 9 he summed it up this way: “I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some.”

So, thinking about Paul and thinking about his Roman ways, and thinking about the extent to which he could be all things to all people (in a good way), listen again to Romans 8:

15 The Spirit you received does not make you slaves...rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship...The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children. 17 Now if we are children, then we are heirs —heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ.

Like good Romans, we have been adopted into the family of God. We don’t turn our back on our real family, quite the contrary. When Romans were adopted, usually the eldest sons, the connections between families increased and succession issues were resolved. Adoption brought peace to the community, and a greater sense of well-being, based on the assumption that everyone was becoming related in a new way.
So too with the Christian church. Adopted by God, Christ becomes our brother, and we all become heirs to the wonders that God gives. We received grace, grace upon grace as John says, and it is our inheritance, something we can share with others. We receive forgiveness, another inheritance we can share, the same forgiveness that brother Christ spoke and lived.

But there is another dimension here, one that Paul highlights too: “We share in his sufferings,” Paul says, “in order that we may also share in his glory.” Here is the other dimension of Roman adoption that Paul can’t ignore. When you link yourself to another clan through adoption, whether it’s to secure succession or make an alliance, trouble may also follow. And indeed, when the plebeian Fonteius got mixed up in Clodius’ feud with Cicero, it became his feud too. That fact that twenty-one centuries on he is known to us as the guy willing to adopt the older Clodius means that he really took on a world of hurt, forever.

We are God’s adopted children, but that doesn’t save us from pain. It doesn’t insulate us from suffering, protect us from loss, or any other way you can say the obvious truth: we have no extra protection, just better perspective. Suffering and pain and loss still come, but they happen in the context of a God that feels our pain, knows our loss, and suffers when we suffer, having suffered first on the cross.

There is a popular meme going around, where someone who has suffered some misfortune is asked the question “where is your God now?” It may have started when Chief Wiggum arrested Mr. Flanders and said “Where is your messiah now, Flanders?” And kids being kids, it has spread as a turn of phrase. My irreverent son said it to me on Friday when I called him to say that our race was cancelled due to too much wind. Ironies abound, I know.

The real origin of the “Where is your God now” meme is Psalm 42, and Psalm 115, and Matthew 27, when the others mocked Jesus and said “save yourself, you saved others.” They didn’t say ‘where is your God now,’ but they didn’t have to. The meaning was plain. And whenever misfortune comes, when there is a shooting, or some terrible tragedy, some will wonder about the seeming lack of protection afforded by belief. People pray, but misfortune comes. People believe, but tragedy strikes. People practice the rituals of religion, but the worst still happens.

Again, back to adoption. Being a child of God, being adopted by God, does not make us God. God remains God, we are God’s children. The rules of mortality and harm do not stop simply because we enjoy a closer walk with God.

What we do get, what all adopted children get, is wantedness. God wants to be in a relationship with us, wants to offer us comfort and support, wants to forgive us all our shortcomings, not as some distant deity, but as a parent. We are wanted, not because we are cleverer or better in some way. We are just wanted for who we are, God’s very own children. Amen.

posted by michael jacob kooiman @ 12:02 PM