On being adopted

Romans 8:14-15  Common English Bible (CEB)

14 All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters. 15 You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear, but you received a Spirit that shows you are adopted as his children. With this Spirit, we cry, “Abba, Father.” 

I read this passage several times this morning.  Each reading led me to see and receive a different phrase until at last I came to an understanding of what it meant as a unit.

First I saw, “Abba, Father” and remembered how in seminary we were taught to use non-gender specific terms for God.  This was partly because God doesn’t have gender, as seen in Genesis 1:26-27.  “God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness . . .So God created humanity in God’s own image, in the divine image God created them, male and female God created them.”  And partly because many people have issues with the image of Father God, particularly those who have been abused by their human father.  

In the the next reading what stood out was,  “All who are led by God’s Spirit are God’s sons and daughters . . .you are adopted as his children.”  I thought about adoption, and how people don’t adopt children on a whim, but because they have given deep consideration to accepting a new person - a child - into their lives. When it is a case of adopting a child who is a bit older, then both child and parent have first formed a bond before the adoption is finalized.  An adopted child may be sure that they are not in this family by  accident, but that they were deliberately chosen by their parent.

Then, “You didn’t receive a spirit of slavery to lead you back again into fear,” came to my attention.  I thought of all those years - decades, really - when God was a being to be greatly feared, whose attitude toward me was to seek out my imperfections, of which there were many, and inflicting punishment for those imperfections.  And then I considered my current understanding of God, whose attributes of mercy, compassion, justice, and forgiveness have taken away my fear.  I fear God in the sense of being awestruck by God’s mighty power, but not in the sense of always being afraid, as I had been for more than half of my life. 

I came to understand this passage, then, as assurance that God loves me for who I am today.  I came to understand that I need never fear God as I used to, because God is my loving parent, in whose care I have freely put my life. 

Gracious and Compassionate God, we thank you for adopting us to be your children.  We thank you for your loving care for us even in our imperfection.  May we continue to be led by your Spirit.  Amen.