Today we participate in a great feast: the Dormition of the Mother of God. From all over the world, disciples rushed to Her bedside (including one whose relics repose in our Altar). We also take our humble places near to her, not distanced in any way. For She is our Mother, and we are her children and no less the apple of her eye, each of us.
This was Her Son's Divine command issued from the Holy Cross: "Behold, your Mother" (Jn 19:27). Such is God's manifest will.
Does this seem odd? Then consider another among Her Divine titles: Mother of God. We reel in our vain attempt to comprehend this — a Woman Who gave birth to the One Who gave birth to the Universe. With this reshaped mind, perhaps we can now accommodate the well-founded precept that we are daugthers and sons, siblings to Jesus, and children of God, to Whom we might cry, "Abba, Father" (Rom 8:15). This is the great revelation disclosed by the perfect prayer: "My Father, Which art in Heaven." Yes, the Greek text from St. Matthew's Gospel reads, "My," not "Our," for personal, individual intimacy between child and Father is the great lesson Jesus teaches .... perhaps the greatest lesson, for only in this revelation lies salvation; this is how we are saved. The Kingdom of Heaven is a Kingdom of Family. And we are all to be brothers and sisters. Do you hear the Two Great Commandments here? We love our father and mother above all from the time we are tiny children, and are to love our brothers and sisters in the Kingdom. These are our neighbors. At the Hermitage that is our state of life. We live as brothers and sisters, and we cherish that bond.
This is no metaphor, nor is it 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 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 bringing her children to church, Jesus declares,
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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) |
According to St. Luke's Gospel, Jesus 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) |
The point is that biological ties cannot interfere with Divine and absolute inheritance. And yet it is family which prepares us for this Divine love. Familty is God's sacred building block for our entire lifeworld. And He blesses it with high distinction. For 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. We see Him on a far horizon. His glorious harbingers precede Him. He is resplendent in regal array and hailing from a distant Kingdom. Is not such a figure the one that Jesus Himself depicts in His parables: "There was a great king from a distant land ...." But the Father took special pains to send His Son into a human family and in humble conditions: outcast and lying in a barnyard feeding trough amidst dung-stained hay.
As a child singing Christmas hymn I imagined a manger to be a comely barnyard building with fresh hay. Perhaps some churches prepare such a fragrant shed around Christmastime. But a manger is filthy feeding trough, rarely scrubbed and cleaned, where bacteria and mold of all kinds no doubt grew .... as would anything made of wood that was left in the dark. He was an outcast, lying in a mãnℨe amongst dung-stained hay. The Holy in this lowly scene is only to found in the love and devotion of His earthly Mother and father.
Isn't this true .... those of you who have served in mean circumstances, in hovels, in filty tenements in the inner city, throughout the third and fourth worlds, we see children covered in the dirt. Yet they are surrounded with the holiness of a mother's love.
It does not surprise us that His Mother should be Divine, and Joseph His stepfather should be elevated to the highest place by virtue of his love. It is in the pulling together of several golden strands that we come to the essence of our feast today.
Jesus holds aloft marriage in 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 ever after 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).
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 it? Nothing is greater on earth than this. For it is God's design preparing us to be His children revealing Him to be our Father. You see, without this family love, the language of Heaven could be spoken on earth. We are formed in it during our earthly preparation. This is a great mystery.
During seven years of seminary, I commuted often six hours a day. My car became, therefore, an oratory, a lecture hall (with taped lectures), a library (with audio Bible), and a meditation room. It became a holy place. I reflected on the Scriptures in new ways. One a day I appointed relationship with God to be my new contemplation. I started systematically. "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 forests, creeks and streams, sitting for hours beside 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, knowing that he or she is part of something very great. It is natural to ask, "Who made all this? Who made me?" .... except that its not an open, searching question, for only God could have crafted each of these beautiful things.
And when I heard the hymn "My Father's World," I was touched 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. This 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 in it. He is Father to all of us, yet each is the apple of His eye (Ps 17:8). 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. Yes, I knew the generalities: God made us. God loves us. But what I sought the particularities, the nerves and sinews of actual relationship. As I approached the God with all of this love, what exactly do I call myself? What is my name on the letter of introduction? What is my identity in this living, breathing relationship?
The answer was already in the New Testament though I had not accorded it its proper dignity. The word is adoption, found throughout St. Paul's Correspondence. We are actually God's children, not as a concept, but as a substantial reality. It is our birthright, something we can stand on, something we can hold up and claim. Why could I not see this?
The problem was .... 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 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, this mind-blowing passage from Hebrews:
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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: Jesus 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. You see, every knee shall bow at the sound of His Name according to His adoption although He was a Son. Adoption .... I had no idea.
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. You know, the conduct of life for us lies in two words: "Follow Me!" He has already set the course with the example of His life. He did not claim Son-ship with the Father as something to be grasped. He strived, He perfected Himself through obedience, and by that fact He became author of our faith. We can do no less to follow Him: to be called, to strive, and to be made perfect.
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) |
It is through His holiness that Jesus is declared to be the Son of God.
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 in our estimate.
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. Jesus' birthright to the House of David is accorded by way of Joseph's 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 to be 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 Father, Son, 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 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: the traditions 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.