In I John 3:1-3, we find an exclamatory interruption. It contains many of the well-known themes one finds throughout the rest of the New Testament. With the imperative 1See (Behold Ἴδετε), he wants to get their attention for what follows. He is getting emotional about this. We can understand why he wants to get their attention as he exclaims that the Father has loved us so much that God would call us children of God (τέκνα Θεοῦ); and that is what we are. The opponents of the author may have argued that the insistence of the author on the unity of faith and works lowers the status of believers as children of God. They have received such a precious gift, for they have not earned the right. It comes as pure gift. We find this emphasis in Paul as well. Believers have become dear children. The intimacy of the parent and child relation also suggests dependency and trust. John will always use “children” in connection with God or the with the devil. He uses the word to express the fundamental relationship humans have with what defines their identity. In typical Johannine thought, one’s parentage is either divine or evil. One can find the reality of godly parentage in Old Testament images (i.e., Israel as children of God — Hosea 11:1). The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know the Father. Thus, the relation a believer experiences with the Father through Christ places the believer at odds with the world. The Father calls believers to a separate way of life, one that necessarily creates division. The love of God not only positively transforms the community’s relationship with God, but it also changes the relationship of the community with the world. They will suffer rejection, just as Jesus did. The “world” that does not know them must have included the Jewish groups who viewed them as blasphemous, the Gentile groups who did not understand their customs, and members of their own group who had left the fold (2:19-20). There is a sense they felt rejected on all sides, but this was of no concern to those who have the assurance of the love of God. 2Beloved (Ἀγαπητοί), he reaffirms, we are God's children now (νῦν). This might be a subtle reminder that prior to their conversion and entrance into the community they were children of the world. The writer assumes a form of dualism, an “us versus them” perspective on the world that can make some persons suspicious. In John 8:44, “them” are the unbelieving who are children of the devil. Paul will suggest a dialectical tension between the believer and the world, offering ways for the Christian to live in the world while not conforming to it (Romans 12:1-2), which gives his wrestling with this tension an expansive and evangelistic mood. With John, the mood is more on the danger “the world” is to “us.” This letter will hold out the possibility that even some within the beloved community will reveal themselves to be dangerous. The ethical stance is personal, suspicious, and inner-directed. It has a sectarian mindset that is in tension with the type of love Jesus taught in the with the parable of the Good Samaritan and the expectation that followers of Jesus will preach the gospel to the ends of the earth. Such a view of the world can lead to withdraw from the world. In spite of all these tendencies, if we read the letter as part of the canon, we will see that it is part of an internal conversation regarding church/world, believer/unbeliever that includes some tensions with which believers in every generation and culture will have to wrestle. Despite its ominous tone, the promise that the love of God is a gift through Jesus Christ reveals the grace and power of the gospel. Moreover, God's love forms community and orders the relationships between believers. It reaffirms the promise that the Father is to reveal more to the believer who keeps the faith. The most suggestive issue in the text for postmodern Christians is this: At what price community? Identification with a tribe within a modern culture can lead to a suspicious attitude toward those who identify with another tribe. It can lead to violence, as any other tribe becomes morally reprehensible. Thus, one may well sacrifice openness and learning from those different from us in favor of full identification with the moral superiority of our tribe. In fact, God has not yet revealed what we will be. If they have undergone a change from their previous life to their present existence, how much more will they change when the Father reveals Christ, and they see him just as he is? The future will be a new manifestation of the love that has accomplished the gift of becoming children of God. John is offering a brief reflection on time. His point is that on the path in time, objects and people exist only in anticipation of what they will be in the final revelation that only the end can clarify. We can rightly refer to that end as eternity. The clarity the end brings is the entry of eternity into time. In the end, the distinction between time and eternity dissolves as time itself disintegrates into the fullness that eternity represents. In the end, the totality of life arrives, along with the true and definitive identity of the finite and temporal. The future is that toward which the finite and temporal aim. Therefore, the future becomes the basis for the lasting essence of each individual creature that finds duration in its time and place. Finite things must relate to their eschatology.[1] What we do know is this: they already have the knowledge that when the revelation of Christ occurs by the Father, we will be like him. We will live as reflections of the love of God. This will happen because we will see him, as he is (καθώς ἐστιν). The author affirms that he tangibly experienced Jesus during his minister (1:1-4). Yet, he looks forward to seeing him again in the fullness of his glory. Thus, they have already gone through a radical change. When the final disclosure brought by the end arrives, they will change even more to see Christ as he is. In I Corinthians 13:12, Paul says we see now in a dim glass compared with viewing things of the truth of their end. In addition, those 3who have this hope in him purify themselves. The call for the people of God to be pure is as old as the Holiness Code, especially in Leviticus 11:44-45, 19:2, 20:26, and 21:8. They are to be holy as God is holy. Jesus took this teaching and transformed it. Rather than imitating God’s holiness, we should be merciful as God is merciful (Matthew 18:24ff; Luke 6:35-36). If we belong to God, if we are children of God, then we are to be like the one whose children we are. As children of God, we are to be like our Father. Purity suggests ridding ourselves of attitudes and actions that are inappropriate of those who such an intimate relationship with the Father. We have the creation of a new divine family (2:29). They live in the love of God and have the firm hope of a glorious future. The revelation of this glorious future has not yet taken place.[2] The resemblance between the believer and Christ will be in the realm of righteousness. To be a child of God is to begin a journey in the faith that will lead to a more profound knowledge of who Christ is, in his fullness. Furthermore, this journey will lead to a deeper, personal, moral purity; the believer will become like Jesus. Ambrose Bierce once defined a saint, with some sarcasm, as “a dead sinner, revised and edited.” Yet, the statement has a degree of truth. God must revise and edit all Christians for them to enter divine glory.
[1] Pannenberg, Systematic Theology Volume 3, 531, 603.
[2] Barth, Church Dogmatics II.2 [37.3] 608.
[3] —Sociology professor Tony Campolo, quoted by Jeanette Clift George, “Dad meets the messy baby,” Men of Integrity, January 18, 2000, ChristianityToday.com.
[4] —Nina Utne, “What’s in a name?” Utne, November-December 2002, 12.Used by permission. When I was growing up, my surname was Rothschild. My grandfather used to say that we were the “Brooklyn branch” of the fabulously wealthy European bankers. If there is a family connection, we never found it, but people nonetheless made a lot of assumptions because of the name. I learned that it was useful for making restaurant reservations.
[5] —Janet Wolf, “Ministry with all God’s children,” New World Outlook, gbgm-umc.org. Retrieved December 5, 2002. The church is very good at doing things for people, but we are not very good at proximity and partnership. There is a big difference between dragging folks into your soup kitchen and simply hanging out with them on the street corner. There is a difference between bringing others into the church so that they can be like you and becoming immersed in someone else’s struggle.
Things change for you when you hang out with people and become partners with them. Suppose you are tutoring children in a low-income neighborhood. When you begin to see that your pupils are gifted, bright, talented children, yet realize that many of them are flunking out of school, it pushes you to challenge and change the public school system. When you begin to know people’s hopes and fears, dreams and struggles, you move into the fight for justice.
If you redefine everything in light of this new priority — being present with people and in partnership with them, being concerned with justice rather than just charity — everything changes. Children’s ministry becomes redefined as ministry with all God’s children — the children hanging out on the streets, not just those that an adult brings to church.
[6] -Suzanne St. Yves, "Into the Depths of the Human Heart: Madeleine L'Engle's Search for God," November 9, 1999, www2.ari.net/bsabath/950331.html. Whatever the literary genre, [Madeleine] L'Engle upholds that a writer's responsibility is to radiate hope, to bring healing, to say yes to life. Her works wrestle with the unanswerable questions of life and death, God and darkness. In Walking on Water, a superb book about how faith and art influence one another, L'Engle argues that there is a "chief difference between the Christian and the secular artist - the purpose of the work, be it story or music or painting, is to further the coming of the Kingdom, to make us aware of our status as children of God, and to turn our feet toward home." Her stories accomplish this primarily through her characters, real or fictional. Readers develop relationships with them, discussing them with other L'Engle fans as if they were chatting about friends. As L'Engle proposes in Walking on Water, "We all want to be able to identify with the major characters in a book - to live, suffer, dream and grow through vicarious experience." Readers can heal their own painful childhood moments just as the female teenage protagonists who are believable, ordinary girls struggle with their growing up years.
Liked the idea of parentage. My D.Min project was spiritual foster care. The idea of hooking spiritually mature adults with children who came to church but did not have parents that came or cared about a child spiritual development.
ReplyDeleteYes, an important aspect of life. In my case, I needed some re-parenting that the church provided me in my teens and twenties.
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