This morning we read from the first letter of John, in which he writes, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.”  I would like to focus for a moment on this experience of being children.  And I would like to do so by asking you to think about your own experience as children, however long ago that may have been for you.  

So, think, if you would about your parents.  Conjure an image of them in your mind.  The image of your mother… Is she tall or short?  What is she wearing?  In what position is she standing?  What is the look on her face?  Is your mother saying something to you?  Is she about to say something?  How is she holding her head?  What expression is on her face?

Now think about your father.  What image comes to mind?  What is he wearing?  What is the look on his face?  

 

I want to ask you to think about some of your experiences as a child growing up with your mother and father, since that is what most of us grew up with.  If you grew up with only your mother or only your father, think of them.  

As a child what were some of the ways that your parents showed love for you, that made you feel like you were the most special person in the whole wide world?  How would your mother express that she loved you?  How would your father express to you that he loved you?  Can you remember what it felt like to know that you, in your deepest being were so loved?

People have said that rebelling against your parents is the hardest thing that you can ever do, because your parents formed you. Their genes are your genes.  Their words and perceptions shaped your world and your understanding…    

When was it that you first realized that you were growing up to be like your mother, that you were growing up to be like your father?  Was it when you looked in the mirror and saw their eyes, their nose, their hair or smile looking back at you?  Were you saying something and suddenly realized that that was what your mother would say, or your Dad?  Did someone tell you that you were just like your mother or father in some way?  

If you could put aside their negative sides for a moment and just think about their best sides, what were the great things about your father that you always hoped you would also become?  What great parts of your mother would you snap your figers and make a part of you today if you could?  As much as you always wanted to be your own person—and you are—what was it like to realize that it was your destiny in some way to become very much like these two people, your mom and dad?

 

Finally, your experience as a child… can you remember what it was like for you when so much of the world was a mystery?   When there was so much that you did not understand?  Your parents would say, “No you may not!” And you couldn’t understand why.  People would tell you stories about faeries and you would believe them.  You thought, maybe, that animals actually could talk.  You thought you had the whole world figured out at the age of six and there wasn’t anything else to know.  What are some stories from when you were a child about things you didn’t understand?

 

Like many children, we often are convinced that we have it all figured out.  A child in this parish once told his mother, “Mom, I know everything there is to know.  I don’t know what they’re going to be able to teach me next year.”  I’ve known kids to swear up and down that they can beat any adult in Trivial Pursuit because they are so bursting with knowledge they can’t hardly conceive that there are bits of knowledge that they haven’t yet heard.  And then at the same time, children can get terribly exasperated when things happen that they didn’t foresee.  

As children of God we also are immature and too often arrogant about the maturity we have achieved.  Compared to what we know about the spiritual life, about God and the redeeming work of the Trinity, our knowledge is paltry at best, even for the best of us.  We are growing, but we are also young, in the midst of things we don’t have the perspective or understanding to make our own way through.  As children rely on parents, so we must rely on God.  

Do you recall that feeling of realization when you understood that you were to become like your parents?  Spiritually, we too are a smaller pattern of our Father in Heaven.  As children of God we are growing into his likeness as sure as children of flesh grow into the physical likeness of their parents.  On the last day, when the pureness of Christ is revealed at the last judgment, we will be shown to be like him, like Christ who has gone before us.  And this is the cause for the holy hope that we hold for our immortal souls — that though we are children now, God is preparing us, training us, uplifting us, teaching us, making us ready through good times and bad, for that final day when our childhood is complete, and we are ready to stand before him as people spiritually grown and mature.  It is a picture we must not cease holding out before us.  As students think towards graduation, so we look ahead to that time when God’s likeness becomes in maturity our own.

Finally, we are God’s children in that we are deeply cared for by Him.  Cared for by him oh so very, very much.  As a parent finds in their baby the most powerful love they have known, so God finds his love for you to be ceaselessly overflowing. As loving parents do, our Father in heaven nurtures us, feeds us, provides for us.  Our Father God lifts us when we fall, comforts us in circumstances we can’t understand, cries out against us when we cross the rules (because that transgression puts us in mortal danger), gathers us in a warm embrace of perfect love, and gives attention to us like we are the only ones in the whole world.

1 John 3:1-7 says, — See what love the Father has given us—that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The world may not recognize us as such—as God’s children—but the world does not know us because it did not know him when he came among them. Beloved, we are God's children now.

See what love the Father has given us--that we should be called children of God.

Amen.