On a Saturday afternoon recently, Kim and I were listening to Harry Chapin’s music while we were working around the house. When the song, Cat’s in the Cradle, came on we both stopped what we were doing and just listened.
It’s one of his most famous songs. It tells the story of a father who has a son. It starts out:
A child was born just the other day,
He came to the world in the usual way,
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay,
He learned to walk while I was away.
He was talking before I knew it, and as he grew he said, “I’m gonna be like you, dad. You know I’m gonna be like you.
And the song goes on like that; in each verse, a different stage in the child’s development presents opportunities that are missed by this father, to be a part of his son’s life. Until, finally, the son is grown, the father is retired. And now when the father has time and wants to be with his son, the boy has grown into a man who is too busy for his father. And in the last line, the father realizes his son was just like him. He’d grown up just like him.
Kim remarked that it was such a sad song. A song of opportunities missed and relationships that drift apart, or just never happen.
A song about how we learn who we are … and how we should live … and what to value.
As we have been working through this letter to the Ephesians, we have been paying attention to what it is trying to teach us. So far, we have learned that God has drawn us into God’s family. That we are all, in a sense, adopted children of the Lord. We have learned that it is God’s divine plan to gather up all of his children into one big family. And that it is hard for us to be brought together, because we resist this lumping together of disparate parts. We don’t necessarily want to be in the same family as SOME PEOPLE. But, nonetheless, God has called us to put aside labels and judgments that divide us.
And we have learned that what it will take for us to be brought together, the thing that will finally be our common ground, is our brokenness. We are all, every one of us, broken – broken, but loved.
It is the power of God’s love that brings us together and makes us whole again, in the communion of God’s love. That’s the first three chapters: We are a beloved community of God’s children.
And we, the beloved children of God, may seek to be like our heavenly parent, if we remember who we are, whose we are.
But we don’t always remember who we are.
In our Tuesday Bible study a couple of weeks ago we talked about a recent poll that was taken in England in which almost half of the respondents thought the world would be a better place without religion. They were inclined to believe most of the wars that are fought are caused by religion. And even though they tended to acknowledge that these problems are largely caused by religious extremists, they seemed to feel that it would be best to just get rid of religion altogether.
As a community of people who gather around the table each week to study the word of God, to strengthen our faith, this was disheartening to hear. But I think we have to acknowledge that religion, particularly Christianity, has gotten a bad reputation in our society. Those who are on the outside of it, too often see us on the inside as being narrow-minded, judgmental, and failing to practice what we preach. In a word, hypocrites.
That feels like unfair criticism. We just aren’t perfect and we never will be perfect. But rather than be offended by it, perhaps we should be prompted to ask ourselves how well we are living into the calling to be a community of God’s grace.
If we are, indeed, the beloved children of God, how do we live in the world?
Some would say that the way to do it is to separate ourselves from the rest of the world – the pagan world. That to retain our identity as Christians, we must avoid contamination from non-Christian influences. However, I would say to them: show me where Jesus practiced that kind of lifestyle, because I cannot find it in any of the gospels. I’ve looked, and that’s not what I’ve found. Here’s what I’ve found: Jesus hanging around the fringes of Jewish society – the sick, the downtrodden, the homeless – and listening, healing, feeding, loving. Accepting.
And he said to his followers, Go and Do likewise.
We must go back to these scriptures to find and claim our identity as God’s beloved children. It tells us the kinds of things we should put away, or cast off – lying, bearing grudges, taking from others what is not yours to take; and the kinds of things we should put on – kindness, tenderheartedness, forgiveness. We get so far away from the gospel truth, and we must continually go back to the scriptures and seek to know how we shall live as God’s beloved children. To know what to cast off and what to put on.
It is as though we are children who are trying to dress just like their parents. We want to be just like them. When my son Joe was four, he had carefully observed how daddy dressed every day when he went to work: wool gabardine pants, a button-down shirt, and a tie. He wanted to be just like him. I had to search hard to find some nice gray dress pants for this little boy, to go with his oxford shirt and his clip-on tie, because he made it very clear that khakis just wouldn’t do. He felt that rough cotton fabric, looked at that wide elastic waistband, and looked at me. He said, “that’s not what daddy wears.” He wanted the real thing. He wanted to be just like dad.
How, then, shall we dress like our father or mother in heaven? How can we be most like our God of love?
The good news, you might say, is that it is the little things to which we should attend, the day-to-day behaviors that matter.
It is to be kind to others, even the strangers. It is to speak honestly, so as not to let lies become barriers between us. it is to avoid letting anger fester, but seek reconciliation with others. To be peacemakers.
And lest we should think that to make peace is to smooth over and tamp down differences and troubles –
That’s not peace. Not really.
True peacemaking, my friends, involves working through those disagreements, seeking better understanding, striving for compassion. This is, indeed, the only way we can be the one family God desires for us to be.
Seek to be imitators of God, beloved children, living in love. These are the words of the scripture. This is just what all the words that come before, from Genesis on, are leading us to.
Be kind, be honest, be forgiving. Let go of anger, seek reconciliation, share with those in need. Offer encouragement, give grace as you have received grace. The more we are doing these things, the more we are living into the likeness of God; the more we are representing the beloved children of God.
Know who you are: children of the living God. And seek to be just like him. Just like him. And when we live this way, imagine what the world would think of us then?
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Photo Credit: By State Library of Queensland, Australia – https://www.flickr.com/photos/statelibraryqueensland/6504265771/, No restrictions, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=53526373
