Emphasis Preaching Journal

Children of pastors have their share of strange experiences. As a teenager, I went one day on an errand with my father, who was a minister. We were picking up some supplies for a church event. After we made the purchases, an employee at the store helped us load our station wagon and he started a conversation with me in which, at some point, he said, "Since your father is a minister, you must find it easier to be a Christian than the rest of us do." I think I looked at him with a dumb expression on my face, and finally said something like, "No, who my father is doesn't make it any easier for me." The man appeared unconvinced however, and said, "I bet it does."

Having lived a long time since then, I'm convinced my answer was correct. But it interests me that this man thought that somehow, Christian parentage gave me some kind of "in" with God.

That idea wasn't unique to that man. In fact, it figures into our scripture reading for this morning. The passage tells of Jesus in public confrontation with "the Jews who had believed in him." The "had" gives a past tense sense to this phrase, implying that his audience, made up of his own people, included those who initially found Jesus' teaching persuasive, but later had second thoughts. Thus, we can understand why Jesus says to them, "If you continue in my word, you are truly my disciples...." Furthermore, whatever doubts that now pulled them away from believing him would be satisfactorily addressed, but only if they plunged in and became his followers. Only then, would they "know the truth" and be made free by it.

Jesus' use of the word "free" in this context bothered these former believers, for as they pointed out, they were "descendants of Abraham." They were born under the Law of Moses and thus considered freedom their birthright.

In terms of political freedom, their statement was nonsense. Except for a period of independence lasting about 100 years, the Jews had been under the domination of one nation or another ever since the fall of Jerusalem to the Babylonians some 600 years previously. And at their present time, they were under the Roman Empire. But in terms of their faith, they were God's chosen people, and that had not changed. They were descendants of Abraham, the Old Testament patriarch who had received the covenant from God. As Abraham's offspring, they expected special treatment in God's kingdom. In other words, they were saying that because God made a covenant with Abraham, they benefited from the spillover effect. The covenant covered and protected them, they claimed, just as it did their ancestor Abraham.

Jesus' reply that "everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin" was a direct challenge to their assumption. He was telling them that their sin -- their reliance on their birthright -- broke the covenant, thus making them not spiritually free people, but slaves to sin, slaves who have no permanent place in the household of God, as the Son does. Jesus was calling them to continue to follow him, for as the Son, he had the power to make them free.

We can characterize the argument of these people this way: "Our father Abraham was God's child. So we, Abraham's descendents, are God's grandchildren. Therefore we are saved by God's covenant with Abraham."

We can characterize Jesus' reply as: "God has many children, but -- sorry -- God has no grandchildren."

To put Jesus' answer that way helps us to understand the impact of his words on his audience. He was insisting that nobody can become a follower of his secondhand. Jesus has no relatives "once removed." Every person must make his or her own decision about Christ. We are not Christians simply because our parents are. We cannot inherit Christianity or a personal knowledge of Christ.

We actually have that concept built into our church membership rituals. When we baptize or dedicate a child, we say that we recognize the child as a "member of the family of God." And that is true. Yet later, when the child is old enough to understand, we ask him or her to be confirmed. When the child arrives at sufficient age to think about and understand the call of Christ, we ask the child to make a personal decision. We say in effect, "God wants you to be his child, because he has no openings for grandchildren."

In our faith experience, we know this to be true. Other people can help us know about Jesus; they can introduce us to Jesus, but they cannot help us know Jesus. Certainly there are some people who discover the power of Jesus in one crisis experience or in a single moment, but most of us discover Christ more gradually.

Thus, it is important that we do things that get us acquainted with Jesus. We can hear about him from parents. In that sense, the man helping load our station wagon was right; my parents introduced me to Jesus. But I still had to choose him for myself.

We should also attend church. Our Sunday school teacher, our pastor, other church members, and friends there all play an important role in helping us know about Christ. All of that exposure to the ways of God helps us to discover Christ for ourselves. One reason children should be brought to church is to expose them to the raw material for personal discovery. Eventually, God calls us to make a personal commitment to what we have learned. At that point, we are invited to render our own verdict about Christ.

When Jesus first called the disciples, he said to them, "Follow me." It was not a demand for a declaration of faith, but an invitation to come and learn. Later, after they'd had time to learn, observe, and discover, they were asked to declare who they thought Jesus was.

This is Reformation Sunday, a day to recall the work of Martin Luther and the great reform he brought to the church, starting in the 1500s and resulting in the Protestant churches today. One way to describe the Reformation is that it taught people that they were children of God, not grandchildren of God. At the time, most people thought of their relationship to God and Christ as secondhand -- handled through the church with the priest as arbiter of all things spiritual, as if the church were the child of God and the people the grandchildren.

Two of the theological issues Luther perceived the Bible teaching were "justification by faith" and "the priesthood of all believers." The first means that our salvation is not something we can earn, but something God offers and we accept by faith, with no other mediator than Christ himself. The second means that we can talk to God on our own behalf. Neither of these comes as a great surprise to us today, but in the Middle Ages, they were revolutionary ideas. The Reformation helped people understand that they had direct access to God for themselves. "Justification by faith" meant that they could respond to God directly. "Priesthood of believers" meant that one could approach God directly. Those are the privileges of being children of God.

We should also look at this, insofar as we are able, from God's viewpoint. Why did he set things up so that secondhand faith won't do? The answer must be that God wants our personal friendship, our sincere love, and our individual commitment. That's why he has no grandchildren.

You probably don't know of Frances Sunderland, but she is a second generation United Methodist in a large Texas congregation. Her father had given a small fortune to the denomination, especially to the cause of evangelism, and Frances herself was president of the United Methodist Women.

But one day someone asked her if she was a Christian. She was startled and even a little angered. With her heritage, how could they even raise such a question?

But then she realized that "God has no grandchild." She needed to accept Christ's call to follow him for herself, not on the basis of her parent's faith. At that point she consciously began following Jesus.

I mentioned confirmation earlier. One of the times I think about this matter of consciously deciding to follow Jesus is when I take a group of young people through confirmation classes. We have workbooks that tell us what Christians are and what our denomination is and what the Bible is and so forth. But when we are done, have the young people made a clear choice to follow Jesus? When we come to the actual confirmation service, the question I put to each person -- right out of our confirmation ritual -- is:

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,
put your whole trust in his grace,
and promise to serve him as your Lord...?

So far, everyone has always answered, "I do," and of course, in the end, that is a personal decision each individual must make. For my part, however, I don't want to be guilty of not giving everyone to whom I am a pastor the opportunity to make that choice.

I am aware, too, that many people make their decision for Christ in settings other than their home church. Some do so at church camp or alone in their home or at a spiritual retreat or in some other place, but that doesn't excuse us in our church. We must each have the opportunity to decide. We have so many adults in mainline churches who are faithful church members but who feel that they have missed something because they can't remember when they became a Christian. They have no moment they can remember when they actually took the plunge.

It is neither my style nor my inclination to make altar calls part of our worship services. I much prefer that you make the decision to follow Christ in the calmness of reasonable thought, rather than in a gush of emotion that sometimes does not last.

In any case, I'd like for you to hear the invitation to follow Jesus. If you haven't made that commitment, I'd invite you now in the altar of your heart and the temple of your mind to examine that invitation, and if God is directing it at you -- whether you be a young person or an adult -- I'd encourage you to answer it.

(Written by Stan Purdum and reprinted from Sermons For The Gospel Readings, Series II, Cycle B, CSS Publishing Company, 2005, ISBN 0-7880-2370- 5.)