Ro 8:12-17

18 June 2000

Trinity Sunday

 

"All in the Family"

 

My sermon title might be a bit misleading.  I won’t be talking about a certain TV show from the seventies in which the terms “meathead” and “dingbat” were important parts of the script.  I won’t insist on sitting in my favorite chair!  I will be talking about a family though—the family that Trinity Sunday is all about.  It’s the divine family:  Father, Son, and Holy Spirit—or as some people prefer, Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer.

Of course, today has another family tie.  Due to the lateness of Easter this year, Trinity Sunday falls on Father’s Day, something which rarely happens.  I’m sure that today many sermons are being preached which compare our earthly and heavenly fathers.  That would really be an interesting comparison to make on Mother’s Day!  But for today, I don’t want to get into the gender of God, or lack thereof!  I want to focus on the family, the community, that’s at the heart of Trinity Sunday—and keeping that in mind, looking at what Paul says about being received into that community.

With some hesitation, I want to focus on family values.  I say "with some hesitation" because the phrase "family values" has become so politicized.  You can't utter those words without a bunch of politicians and special interest groups scrambling to claim that they're the ones who are "for the family."  And they all don't agree, so what does that say about their image of the family?  Some yearn for a return to the day when the family meant a husband and wife (married only once, and to each other), plus their 2.5 children.  (Like the Simpsons!)  Others choose complete rejection, seeing the family as the oppressive remnant of a humanity still living in the Dark Ages!

The idea of family values that we find modeled by Trinity Sunday is a little different.  It isn't one determined by narrowed vision, of focus on particular items that one holds dear.  This idea is based on the very nature of God.  In the three Persons of the Holy Trinity, we have the exact opposite of the dysfunctional family.

With the heavenly Father, we see the perfect example for an earthly father—indeed, for an earthly parent.  Still, this being Father's Day, I'll stick with the male image.  God the Father has the parental concern that leads to incredible acts of self-sacrifice and nurture.

In God the Son, we witness several things.  Of course, there's the matter of no small importance of coming to earth as the man Jesus of Nazareth.  But we also see the child's desire to please the parent.  We see a son's courage and devotion to the way of truth he's been shown.

This is a family bound in perfect love.  There's no intimidation, no shaming; no one is made to feel like dirt.  This family is immersed in the pure love that is the Holy Spirit.  The only joy is what brings joy to all.  The only concern is for the concern of all.  The Holy Trinity is the family as it was meant to be—a family at peace, a family of peace.  I don't have to tell you that our earthly families are a long way from that!

At first glance, our text in Paul’s letter to the Romans seems to have nothing to do with the family, heavenly or earthly.  The reason it’s a reading for Trinity Sunday is because Paul mentions the three Persons of the Trinity and shows ways that they relate to each other and to us.  As I just mentioned, this is a picture of pure love, the most powerful force of all.

But Paul’s focus isn’t so much on God or the Trinity itself as it is on his hearers.  He’s reminding them of some important facts.  These are things that follow from what he’s already told them earlier in the chapter.  By the time we get to chapter 8, which discusses the Christian’s spiritual life, Paul’s letter has dealt with the guilt of all humanity before God, the example of Abraham, and deliverance from sin.  With chapter 8, Paul introduces his idea of the flesh and the Spirit, competing forces that pull us in different directions.

It's Paul's discussion of the flesh and the Spirit that's led many people to say that he, and Christianity itself, view the human body as something bad, something of which to be ashamed.  There are plenty of Christians themselves who believe that.  And while it's certainly possible to be addicted to bodily comforts—food, drink, sex, sleep, whatever—these things in themselves are not bad; they, too, are God's creations.

What happens is that the Christian faith becomes associated with so-called "spiritual" things while "earthly" things are considered of no value.  And that is strange, since in Jesus we have God in earthly form, God in a human body.  In fact, much of the religious leadership's expressed opposition to Jesus was in the form of disgust.  Jesus wasn't spiritual enough for them.  They called him "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Mt 11:19).  We can't begin to talk about the doctrine of the Holy Trinity without mentioning the very strong affirmation it makes about the true humanity of Jesus.

So when Paul, at the beginning of today's epistle reading, warns us against living "according to the flesh,"  what does he mean?  If it's not something as simple as hating our bodies and never having any fun, then what is it?  The Scottish commentator John Murray offers this:  "The 'flesh' is the complex of sinful desire, motive, affection, propension, principle, and purpose, and to 'live [according] to the flesh' is to be governed and directed by that complex.”^[1]

That's a mouthful!  Another way of putting it is that it's the way we look at and do everything—that is, everything outside the way of God.  Basically, living according to the flesh is how we as humans, falling short of God's glory, exist.  But by the grace of God in Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit comes to us and enables us to look at and do things in a new way.  As Paul says, "if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live" (v. 13).

Have you ever been driving down the highway on a dark, moonless night and decided to turn off the headlights?  And then quickly realized that speeding through pitch blackness isn't a very smart thing to do?  That's a rough comparison of living according to the flesh and to the Spirit.  That's us in the car, racing along until we crash and burn.  But letting the Spirit turn on the headlights means we can see where we're going.

Being brought into the family of God truly means we can see where we're going.  This is something that leads to the end of fear.  (One of Jesus' most powerful lines is "fear not.")  As verse 15 puts it, "you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption.”

This idea of adoption (uioqesia, huiothesia) is one of Paul’s favorite descriptions as to how we’re brought into God’s family—how we become children of God.  In Galatians 4:4-5, he tells us that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.”  According to Ephesians 1:5, God has “destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ.”  And in Romans 9, the apostle looks back to the Israelites when he says, “to them belong the adoption,” as well as a long list of other things (v. 4).

Jesus, as today’s gospel reading reminds us, is God’s “only Son” (Jn 3:16).  He is the monogenh (monogene), the “only-begotten.”  As Christians, we are enabled by the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of adoption, to cry, “Abba!  Father!” (v. 15).

This image of adoption is one that I especially relate to.  I think some of you know that I was adopted as an infant by my parents.  I have no information concerning my genetic parents, but I know that my adoptive parents did plan for, and wanted to have, me.  (Actually, it feels weird to use the word "adoptive"; I've always simply thought of them as my parents!)  Knowing the procedural hoops they had to jump through in order to get me lets me know that I wasn't some unwanted accident—at least, not to them.

Likewise, knowing the procedural hoops God consented to jump through lets us know that we aren't a bunch of unwanted accidents.  "Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him" (Jn 3:17).  Again, as Paul says in the letter to the Ephesians, God destined us for adoption in Christ.  A great deal of provision has been made for us.

In fact, being adopted as God's children means that the greatest provision of all has been made for us.  According to verse 17 of our reading, if we are children of God, then we are "heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ."  If we are the adopted sisters and brothers of Christ, then we share in his inheritance.  That's nothing short of the glory of God and heaven itself!

Still, the last half of the verse gives us something to bear in mind:  "if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him."  Being a child of God, being a brother or sister of Christ, means that we join the divine family in its concerns.  We share the joys and sorrows of the Holy Trinity.  The things that bring happiness to our Lord bring happiness to us.  And in the same way, that which saddens our Lord also saddens us.  These are the family values taught by Trinity Sunday.  These are the goals set before us.

So often, when tragedy strikes, our reaction is, "Why, God?  Why did you let this happen?"  Or it may be even more direct:  "Why are you doing this?"  When we're in pain, when we're hurting—for ourselves or for someone else—it's hard to step back from the situation and see it any other way.  It's hard to remember that we're all interconnected in ways we don't fully understand.  It's hard to remember that God suffers with us.

The apostle Paul continues chapter 8 by speaking of the hope we have as Christians.  He finishes up with the often-quoted statement about how "we are more than conquerors through him who loved us."  He follows that with a long list of things, none of which "will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (vv. 37-39).