Today we observe the solemnity of the "falling asleep of our Mother." Disciples have rushed to Her bedside from all over the world including one whose relics repose in our Altar. We also take our humble places amongst this multitude who call Her Mother. For this was Her Son's Divine command issued from the Holy Cross: "Behold, your Mother" (Jn 19:27).
Is it unusual that so many not claiming biological parentage should call her "Mother"? If so, then consider another among Her Divine titles: Mother of God. And while we are reeling in our vain attempt to comprehend this — a Woman Who gave birth to One Who gave birth to the Universe — let us also wade into these deep waters personally, for we, each one of us, is a son or daughter of God, to Whom we might cry, "Father, Abba" (Rom 8:15). This is the essence of the perfect prayer: "My Father, Which art in Heaven." Yes, the Greek reads, "My," not "Our," for personal intimacy between child and Father is the great lesson Jesus teaches. It is the sacred stuff in which coheres the Kingdom of God.
Surely, the Scriptures are understood allegorically as well as literally. But make no mistake about it: the earnest reality of our sonship and daughtership in God is no metaphor nor a flight of spiritual fancy. It is a literal truth upon which the Scriptures insist over and over and over again. A clear example appears in St. John's Prologue:
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.... as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God,
to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. (Jn 1:12-13) |
St. John insists: "not born of blood"; "not born by carnal will"; "not born by will of the human soul" .... but born of God. This transformation, this all-important nativity of ours, is of God.
This is also Jesus' emphatic declaration:
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And a multitude was sitting around Him; and they said to Him, "Look, Your mother and Your
brothers are outside seeking You." But He answered them, saying, "Who is My mother, or My brothers?" And He looked around in a circle at those who sat about Him, and said, "Here are My mother and My brothers! For whoever does the will of God is My brother and My sister and mother." (Mk 3:32-35) |
As for biological family ties, to the shock of many a pious mother attending Divine Services today, Jesus depreciates them:
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He who loves father or mother more than Me is not worthy of Me. And he who loves son or
daughter more than Me is not worthy of Me. (Mt 10:37) |
Indeed, the Evangelist St. Luke puts a finer point on it:
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"If anyone comes to Me and does not hate his father and mother, wife and children,
brothers and sisters, yes, and his own life also, he cannot be My disciple." (Lu 14:26) |
I hasten to add that Jesus depreciates biological family in relative, not absolute, terms. After all, family is God's sacred building block for our entire lifeworld. Did not the Father take special pains to send His Son into a human family. Would it not have made more sense for the Son of God simply to appear on the earth as a mysterious and glorious King of kings, resplendent in regal array and hailing from a distant Kingdom? Is not this very figure one that Jesus Himself depicts in His parables and repeatedly?
Instead, the dignity of biological family is held aloft .... though Jesus be born in mean circumstances, among outcasts, and birthed midst barnyard mud and dung-stained hay.
And marriage, the basis for human family, He venerates in the highest terms:
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And said, "For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife:
and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." (Mt 19:5-6) |
Indeed, Jesus awaits a wedding (at Cana) to be the scene of His first earthly miracle bestowing a special blessing upon marriage. What is more, the sacred unity of marriage is not limited by bonds of earth, but revealed to be eternal: "but are as the angels which are in Heaven" (Mk 12:25). (Significantly, Jesus pronounces this teaching to men who equate marriage to coitus.)
Children, the first fruits of marriage, He also accords the highest dignity revealing that that they are first among the citizens of Heaven:
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But when Jesus saw [the Disciples mistreating children], He was much displeased, and said unto them,
Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: for of such is the Kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. (Mk 10:14-15) |
Furthermore,
| ".... whoever humbles himself as this little child is the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." (Mt 18:4) |
Perhaps most important, family is the sacred instrument God has chosen to make us one of these children: to train us and form us in His kind of Love, the highest and self-sacrificing Love, which He calls agape. Where else could we experience unconditional love poured out upon us sacrificially and without limit as the Love of God is channeled through mother-father love? Where else could you possibly find this love? Nothing is greater on earth than this. For it is God's design preparing us to be His children and to reveal God as our Father. You see, without this family love, the language of Heaven would be unintelligible to us. We might see it, but we could not know it in our hearts having that feeling of Divine power sweeping over us with every hair standing on end .... if we have been formed in it.
During seven years of seminary (often commuting six hours a day) my car became an oratory, a lecture hall (with taped lectures), a library (with audio Bible), and a meditation room. I made a point of pushing myself into new perspectives. For I faced a daunting problem: I knew the Bible too well. So I pushed myself using formalisms, drawing new geometries on to the Scriptures, attempting to drive into the light what my mind had been hiding. One day I appointed relationship with God to be my meditation. I asked, "What is the many-to-One equation?" "What is the One-to-many?"
I realized that the many-to-One we have known from our earliest consciousness. We have all been set into a Creation of dazzling beauty. Roaming through fields and streams, sitting for hours by hidden ponds, venturing out at dawn into the woods teeming with every form of life, a child never feels alone, but quite the opposite. He or she experiences unfailing intimacy, to be part of something very great. And it is natural to ask, "Who made all this? Who made me?"
And when I heard the hymn "My Father's World," touched me deeply for I knew the truth of it instantly:
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This is my Father's world,
I rest me in the thought Of rocks and trees Of skies and seas His hands the wonders wrought. |
We are all in it, and the stuff of this unity, holding it together, is our love of Father God. Here is the many-to-One. Here is particular relationship, of personal intimacy, touching us individually in our deepest selves. Everywhere I go I see people who are part of this many-to-One. Yes, each is one in a vast multitude, a speck of sand on a beach, yet each is the apple of our Father's eye. Amazing! .... yet anyone who has experienced life with a sentient soul knows the truth of this stunning fact.
But the One-to-many continued to elude me. I continued to ponder it. Yes, I knew the generalities: God made us. God loves us. But these are broad principles. What I sought were the nerves and sinews of actual relationship. As I approach the God I love, when I picture myself standing at a near distance wanting to draw closer, what exactly do I call myself? What is my identity in this living, breathing relationship?
The answer was already in the Scriptures though my mind had hidden it from me, for I did not esteem the word highly enough: the word adoption. We are actually God's children, not as a concept, but as a substantial reality. And this substance, which I depreciated, is adoption.
Why could I not see this? .... because I did not reverence the word adoption. It is too bad that this word has become stained in our time. To us, it means "second class" or worse. Our television and movie dramas are full-to-overflowing with stories of foster children who are abused or of legally adopted children who will not rest till they find their "real" parents (as if love were not always already realest real). It is too bad. For this was not the connotation of adoption the Lord Jesus or St. John the Theologian or the Emperor of the Roman Empire understood. Far from it! Adoption enjoyed the highest dignity, even above biological sonship. For it signified choice in deciding an heir. The future emperor Augustus was adopted becoming an heir to Julius Caesar. Augustus then adopted his heirs .... actually several times as circumstances changed. Members of the the Senatorial class, occupying the top tier in the Roman social pyramid, used adoption as a primary instrument to solidify their future estates and assure the fate of their family names.
And consider this, from Hebrews 5:
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.... though He was a Son, yet He learned obedience by the things which He suffered. And having
been perfected, He became the author of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, called by God as High Priest "according to the order of Melchizedek," .... (Heb 5:8-10) |
We read in our Epistle lesson today that though Jesus was a Son, He did not deem equality with God something to be grasped (Phil 2:6). He embraced instead obedience. And through His obedience He has become our Savior.
Although Jesus was the consubstantial Son of God, He was also called and then strived and then reached perfection becoming the author of our faith. And we who are also adopted follow Him: in our calling, in our striving, and in our being made perfect through theosis.
Consider also St. Paul's Letter to the Romans:
| .... and declared to be the Son of God with power according to the Spirit of holiness, .... (Rom 1:4) |
Jesus was declared to be the Son of God according to His holiness. Being a dimension of Jesus' Sonship then, adoption could scarcely hope to claim a higher worth.
You see, our modern notion of adoption has it precisely backwards. As a counter-example, the biological son of Emperor Marcus Aurelius, Commodus, has stood for the ages as a cautionary tale and byword that blood is no guarantee of nobility. Today, the Emperor Commodus is characterized as a psychopath and a narcissist who wreaked havoc upon his father's "golden age," the Pax Romana. His sordid assassination by a wrestler in the baths opened the gates to the ruinous "Year of the Five Emperors." So much for biology and the randomness of genetic shuffling. It is only adoption which stands as the bulwark against chaos.
The point of St. Joseph's descent from King David is also adoption, not Joseph's adoption but Jesus'. For Jesus' birthright to the House of David is accorded by way of choice. It is St. Joseph's gift of sacrificial love which crowns Jesus with the title "Son of David." And here we must remember that family descent, according to the Law, can only come by way of the father:
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And on the first day of the second month, they assembled the whole congregation together,
who registered themselves by families, by their fathers' houses, according to the number of names from twenty years old and upward, head by head. (Num 1:18) |
The conclusion is indisputable: as we follow Jesus in all things, sacrificial love is the holy standard by which we call ourselves sons and daughters of God. Does not Jesus say that we are known as His Disciples only if we love each other? We are to become One with the Father as He and the Father are One: only if we are united in this same love, which is specifically family love, the Son, the Father, and ourselves .... One.
From the Cross, the Son of God cried out, "Behold your Mother." And we have, and we do. We pray to Her every day in real and heartfelt love. We pray for her Holy Protection and especially that we remain pure especially in this dark age. We bow before Her in a holy Hermitage which bears Her Name. And on this day we take our rightful place at her bedside among saints and Apostles, among angels and archangels, and before the loving Presence of Father God. As she is carried into Heaven, following Her Son on Whom death can make no claim, we understand that this is our family tradition: the tradition of light, of truth, of goodness, of purity, and of deathless eternity.
So
let us keep Holy Day.
For this great feast is our day,
an imposing picture from the family album
—
all of us who belong to the Household of God.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.