It is commonly said that you can’t choose your family.  We all seem to accept this as true to a certain extent.  We tend to think of this sense of “family” as a blood-line determined by parents, grandparents, etc.  There is, though, a broader sense of family that we find in the both the Hebrew and Christian Scriptures, and for that matter, in other religions as well.  This sense of family is based upon a connection that is deeper than the ties even that we have with our local families. The curious and very unfortunate thing is that we fail to grasp this universal sense of “family” with obvious devastating and even violent results.  We tend to identify ourselves solely by our gender, “immediate” family, race, nation, religion, sexual orientation, economic status, etc.

Then we have the great universal family in which we all belong that Paul speaks about all throughout his epistles and quite directly in his letter to Ephesus (EPH 1: 11-14).

What does it mean to be “In Christ?”  In yesterday’s excerpt from this letter, Paul says:

“…he chose us in him, before the foundation of the world, to be holy and without blemish before him.
In love he destined us for adoption to himself through Jesus Christ…”

It seems clear here that our adoption into the “family” of God pre-dates the very “foundation of the world.”  Wow!  That’s a mind-blower!  So, the person of Jesus, who is the Christ, came into our history in this world to do his best to ensure that we truly “understood” that we are adopted into this family of God.  ALL of us.  Today’s continuation of his address to the Ephesians talks about how this is our “destiny”…

“Brothers and sisters:
In Christ we were also chosen,
destined in accord with the purpose of the One…

In him you also, who have heard the word of truth,
the Gospel of your salvation, and have believed in him,
were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,
which is the first installment of our inheritance
toward redemption as God’s possession, to the praise of his glory”

There is not a hint of exclusivity in this passage.  We are “chosen” to be together, which is our “salvation.”  In this sense, we could say that we are “saved,” to the extent that we realize and embrace the connection that we have “in Christ,” which is that “sealed promise” of the Holy Spirit.  Continuing the “family” theme, Paul says that this is the “first installment of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s possession.”  We belong to God and because of this we have to belong to each other.  This is God’s “possession” – an ownership that is not in the sense of “property” but in the sense of community.  The only criteria for belonging to this great family “in Christ,” which by its nature necessarily extends beyond the Christian Church, is that we accept, embrace, and celebrate this “inheritance!”  Redemption happens when we allow this inherited “saving” Love of God to place us in an alert and gracious posture of receiving God’s longing to be with us.

It’s difficult to hear this kind of talk sometimes because many of us, myself included, live in the luxury of comfort that is not only characterized by economic status, but also gender and racial factors.  Who wants to give up comfort?  But I wonder if really is comfort…

Jesus seems to be talking about a false comfort, which results in ultimately the exclusion of others, when he speaks of the “leaven” or hypocrisy of the Pharisees in today’s Gospel (LK 12: 1-7).  Jesus has spent the last few days going through all the “woes” to the Pharisees and Scholars who surround themselves with a system of exclusion that disguises itself as requirements for participation in the “family.”  This is a type of “morality” that prescribes things that we either must do or must NOT do in order to be included.  This flies in the face of the already “in Christ” status that we all have.

Make no mistake, though.   Being already in the Family of God as we all are, regardless of whether we realize or embrace it, has some sobering realities:

““here is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, nor secret that will not be known.
Therefore whatever you have said in the darkness will be heard in the light,
and what you have whispered behind closed doors will be proclaimed on the housetops.”

So much for privacy.  Is the cost too high to accept this all-inclusive, vulnerable, revealing, “nothing to hide behind” membership in the family in Christ?  After pointing up the responsibilities of living authentically for and with each other, Jesus tells us in the Gospel the crux of this whole “family business.”

“Are not five sparrows sold for two small coins?
Yet not one of them has escaped the notice of God.
Even the hairs of your head have all been counted.
Do not be afraid.   You are worth more than many sparrows.”

The price of accepting that we belong to God and therefore to each other does involve the transparency of our lives, but that is precisely because we are living within the great Trinitarian embrace of God.   The embrace of being “in Christ,” i.e., of being noticed and loved in every minute detail of our being – “the hairs of our head” Everything is accounted for, but this “accounting” is not a calculation but a compassionate glance of loving beauty into us that transforms us so that we literally “get caught up” in the flow of God’s life.  We are “in Christ, when the embrace becomes not a grasping but a compassionate flowing that washes away fear-inducing division and disunity, and empowers us to touch each other in ways that celebrate and spread the family inheritance we have in God’s Life – LOVE!.  This is our “Family Business!”

Peace

Thomas