February 8, 1998 - LESSON: Ephesians 1:3-6, NRSV

SERMON TITLE: Adopted by Choice

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INTRODUCTION:

The family is disintegrating.

Stuart M. Butler, in The Heritage Lectures, "The Family as Foundation For Social And Economic Stability,"⁽¹⁾ writes:

"In Britain and the United States, it is no exaggeration to say the family is on the brink of collapse. Today, the illegitimacy rates in Britain and the United States are-over 30 percent. And remember, that is their average rate. In the African-American community in the United States, it is a staggering 69 percent. In other words, more than two out of three black children in America today are born to unmarried women. We now have black communities in American cities in which virtually every child grows up without a father in the home. And the white population is catching up fast; indeed, the white illegitimacy rate in the United States is near where the black rate was about 30 years ago.

"We should be aware that the collapse of family as an institution can occur quite suddenly. Look at Britain. Between 1550-the time of King Henry VIII-and 1950, the illegitimacy rate in England never went above 5 percent, according to the best data available. But since 1950, it has increased six-fold. Like Britain, the illegitimacy rate in the United States did not exceed 5 percent until 1960. Today, it is over 30 percent. And we should not think we can blame it all on the Protestants. In Catholic Ireland, the illegitimacy rate was below 1 percent until 1970. It is now 25 percent. Significantly, Chile and other Latin American countries are also experiencing a rapid increase in their illegitimacy

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"There are many reasons for this alarming trend in illegitimacy. One is ill-considered government policies. Welfare programs for the poor in many countries have tried to give the greatest help to broken families for whom the need is perceived to be greatest. This seems very reasonable. But that help has encouraged family instability and illegitimate births by effectively rewarding these conditions. And easing divorce laws has not only increased the breakup of existing families, but also appears to alter people's desire to marry by devaluing the institution of marriage. Since Britain eased its divorce laws in 1969, its first-time marriage rate has fallen sharply.

"In addition to the messages given by perverse government policies, people in Western countries have come to think differently about marriage and family in large part because of ideas and pressures they encounter in the modern world. One particularly strong influence is the media: People's customs and ethics are challenged daily by what they see on television."

The family is in trouble.

Leonard I. Sweet in "The Family Ideal, Not Idol."⁽²⁾ writes:

"The family in America is in crisis. The American family is at risk.

"Don't believe me? Or tired of hearing it? Then listen once more to one of America's leading political philosophers and public intellectuals, Jean Bethke Elshtain, the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Professor of Ethics at the University of Chicago. In her widely touted new book "Democracy on Trial,"⁽³⁾ she explores the enigma of why, just when democracy is triumphing around the world, our American democracy is in such trouble. Her conclusion?

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"If democratic society is to be sustained in the future, she insists, it requires strong families, much stronger families than we have seen in this country for more than a generation. "Over the long run, stemming the tide of family collapse is the best protection we can offer a child against becoming either the victim or the perpetrator of violence - or, as it turns out, poverty" (8).

"In Elshtain's own words, she asks us to consider that: American children are growing up frightened, and an increasing number of them are being scarred by violence in the schools and streets...We know that the strongest predictors of domestic situations in which children are likely to be physically abused are stressed-out, single-parent households with a teenaged mother, often of several children, and households consisting of a biological mother and her children living with a man who is not related to those children or who does not accept legal responsibility for their well-being...We further know that a stable, two-parent household ("sustained by a network of helpful 'others'--neighbors, relatives or associations of all kinds, formal and informal") is the best protection not only against child abuse, but against the possibility that a child will grow up to be an abuser. (6)

"Another facet of Elshtain's argument is that a democratic future for this nation requires churches to do more than they are doing to help build strong family life and to sustain family rituals. "Married parents who are not high- school dropouts are a child's best protection against both poverty and violence. But families cannot do this alone. They need neighbors to turn to; churches to give not only solace but solid, hands-on help; a network of friends and agencies that assist in time of trouble" (8).

Families have always been in trouble.

Just consider the dysfunctional or conflicted families

Cain and Abel

Abram, Sara and Hagar

Jacob and Esau

David and Bathsheba

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In 1851, at the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, Horice Bushnell wrote:

"The transition from mother and daughter power to water and steam-power is a great one, greater by far than many have as yet begun to conceive--one that is to carry with it a complete revolution of domestic life and social manners."

It did.

In New England thousands of women and children, as young as 8, worked from sunup to sundown in the woolen mills.

I am reminded of my own conflicted family.

In general, my brothers and sisters and I have accomplished a great deal, in spite of.

We have come to believe that the less than ideal family does not provide for the mental health, the welfare or the potential for children.

You might be surprised to learn something from Dr Paul Tournier,⁽⁴⁾ in his book "Creative Suffering."

"When I start writing a book I always picture you, my unknown reader, as you open it at this first page. This is my twentieth book: a sort of jubilee. And so you come close to me, seeking that dialogue with the author which reading a book always involves. But we are not yet quite together: you are joining me at this point in my thoughts on my subject, but for me this point is the culmination of a long process made up of many personal experiences, many surprises, and many confidences received: a long journey of which you know nothing. I too am seeking contact with you, but I know nothing about you either. Your reactions to what I write will depend on your own experiences, especially if you are in trouble or have known adversity. There is a risk that something I say will re-open the wound.

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"Therefore, since I cannot share your life, I must tell you something about my own, and then you can follow me along that bit of my road which has brought me now to this book. My starting-point was an article written by Dr Pierre Rentchnick of Geneva, which appeared in the periodical Midecine et hygiene, of which he is the editor, on 26 November 1975, under the surprising title, 'Orphans Lead the World'. When President Pompidou died, my colleague found himself wondering what might have been the political repercussions of disease in the case of other statesmen, such as for example President Roosevelt at the end of the war. So he set about reading the life-stories of the politicians who had had the greatest influence on the course of world history.

"He was soon struck by the astonishing discovery that all of them had been orphans 1 Some had lost their fathers in infancy or in early youth, others their mothers, and some both parents, or else they had been cut off from one or the other because they had separated; or else they had been illegitimate children and had not known their fathers or anything about them. Yet others had been rejected or abandoned by their parents. Dr Rentchnick compiled a list of them. It contained almost three hundred of the greatest names in history, from Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, through Charles V, Cardinal Richelieu, Louis XIV, Robespierre, George Washington, Napoleon, Queen Victoria, Golda Meir, Hitler, Lenin, Stalin, to Eva Pern, Fidel Castro, and Houphouet-Boigny.

"These are only a few examples - obviously I cannot enumerate here the names of all those famous people, carefully classified( by the author, who illustrates his article with their portraits: a] of them had suffered in childhood from emotional deprivation He informed me that the only two exceptions he had come across were Chancellor Bismarck and General De Gaulle Even so I found Bismarck in his list of those deserted in childhood.

"So there we are, giving lectures on how important it is for child's development to have a father and a mother performing, harmoniously together their respective toles towards him. An all at once we find that this is the very thing that those who have been most influential in world history have not had!"

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We have a natural family.

What have we learned from our natural family.

Our parents of record, whether biological or inherited.

We have learned a great deal.

But some of what we learned was flawed or incomplete.

I believe in the importance of the family.

I believe in family values, traditions and ethics and morals that are passed from one generation to another.

Much is incomplete

Some is flawed

The exaggerated emphases on the family diverts us from one of the most important components of the individual and the family's life.

Theologian Janet Fishburn has declared in her book, "Confronting the Idolatry of the Family,"⁽⁵⁾

that we have succeeded in elevating an idealized version of the family, even over God.

The Bible is clear: Nothing must come between God and us, or before our faith in God. So as we build a stronger focus on the family, let us not give family first place in life. Let us not place family before God.

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In the words of Fishburn, The

"Christian home" is not the source of blessing...The family is not essential to the Christian life. People can become Christian through participation in a congregation of Christians whether they were born into a Christian family or not. Only the church is essential to the Christian life.

It is for this reason that Bill Easum,⁽⁶⁾ in argues against metaphors of the family as adequate images of the body of Christ. In his must-read book, 'Sacred Cows Make Gourmet Hamburgers,' Easum writes:

"The Family is never a priority issue in the Scriptures. It is mentioned only six times in the New Testament and never in relation to a congregation.

"Family is always secondary to Christ's claim on us (Matthew 10:37).

"On several occasions, Jesus de-emphasized the importance of the family.

"Family obligations came behind the obligations the demands of discipleship.

"He put the disciples' obligations to the mission of the kingdom before caring for dead family members (Matthew 8:22).

"On one occasion, he even said that he came to cause divisions in the family (Matthew 10:35).

"But none of his statements about the family are more telling than when he said, 'For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother,' (Matthew 12:46-50; Luke 8:19-31; 9:49-53, NRSV)."

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God desires to correct the flaws in our thinking so that we might have complete the information on the meaning and purpose of family.

To do this he invites us to be his adopted children.

(Ephesians 1:5-6 NRSV) He destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will,

There is a beautiful example of what Christ has done for us in a story told by E. Eugene Franse,⁽⁷⁾ about a little Korean orphan boy.

"During the Korean war an American soldier had strong feelings and sympathy for a little Korean orphan boy who kept hanging around the barracks. The American soldier began to show him lots of attention. So the attachment and relationship grew so much that the American soldier called the boy "Son." In return the Korean boy would call the American soldier "Daddy." Whenever he could, he would follow after the American soldier.

"One day the Korean boy who was hanging around the hospital compound noticed four soldiers carrying a man on a stretcher. He had been wounded in battle. The boy soon saw it was his adopted American daddy. The boy could see he was wounded badly. He understood enough what the soldiers were saying. The man had lost a lot of blood. He was in need of a blood transfusion. The boy offered his help but was only brushed aside by the soldiers.

"Sometime later one of the soldiers came out of the hospital compound. They stumbled over the body of the boy. The boy had slit his wrists with a piece of dirty broken glass. The blood had run from the fragile thin arm of this boy into an old rusty can. On a crumpled piece of paper was scribbled, "I gave blood for my Daddy."

"The boy did what he did from the deepest of loves and the highest of motives.

He didn't understand.

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God wants us to understand and apply what is being offered to us.

That's what Jesus did for you and me when he died on the cross.

Our sins were so great we deserved to die, but Jesus died in our place.

He gave His precious blood that we might be adopted into God's family.

Leonard Sweet, invites us to ask, What comes first?⁽⁸⁾

"When we put marriage first - we ask our spouse to be our god.

"When we put our family first - we ask our family to be our god.

"When we put our job first - we ask our job to be our god.

"When we put our country first - we ask our country to be our god."

God wants to come first and if we put God first he will come to us and share life with us.

Bob Considine⁽⁹⁾ likes to tell the true story of how he accompanied an infant Vietnamese orphan to the U.S. so she could be adopted after the Vietnam War.

On the long flight to the U.S. the baby's eyes overflowed with tears, but she made absolutely no sound.

Considine found a stewardess and asked her what the problem was.

She had seen war orphans before, and was quick to tell Considine that this was normal.

As she said, "The reason they don't make any noise when they cry is because they learned a long time ago that nobody will come."

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Jesus has said, I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you.

Jesus comes to us through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus not only comes to us he makes it possible for us to be adopted.

The adopted child has all the rights and privileges of the family.

We can be adopted, but it is our choice.