May 2, 1982

What I want to say today was first entitled "Faith Basics." It has wound up being named  "Being God's Kid Isn't Easy." And it's not, and that's basic. 

Talk about people being God's children has been around so long and has become so familiar, we hardly give it a second thought. But for early followers of Jesus, say around AD 100 when our scripture passage was penned, at a time when it wasn't the "in" thing to be a Christian, being a child of God had some teeth and took some guts. Those early Christians understood their baptism to be the point where they became God's children. At baptism, they confessed that Jesus was the Messiah, the Christ, that his way of life IS the way for living, although to most, most of the time, it seems like anything but.

What follows are some quick basics about being God's kid. It should become clearer and clearer why it isn't easy. 

1. Being God's kid keeps you on the road in a faith journey with God all of your life. Being a Christian does not mean that we have God all figured out; it does mean that we commit ourselves to searching for him all of our lives until he finds us.

It means that even when the strongest connection we have with God is our questions and doubts about him, we know that our lives and deaths will never have any peace or make any sense without him. After the first week of the first grade when I was six, I wanted to quit school. I argued with my parents that I didn't need any more school because I could write my name, say my ABC's, and could count to 100. I was just beginning, even though I did not realize it. If you or I ever reach a time in our lives when we feel we have all the God business figured out, then that is the sure proof that we have not and do not. 

There are two types of people who think they have God in their back pocket that scare me. On one extreme, there is the super holy person who crams at least 14 "praise the Lords" into every 5 minute conversation. You know the kind, the ones who make us feel they are doing a heresy check on everything we say, measuring if we believe like they do. It is the kind who Mark Twain said are religious in the worst sense of the word. The kind someone else called walking arguments for atheism. God doesn't need enemies with buddies like that.

On the other extreme, there are those urbane and cool sophisticates who look down their noses at religion as sentimental and superstitious – that stuff is for people less smart and less strong. I am here to tell you that God is not anybody's buddy. What's more, there is a lot more to the life giving and life saving force we call God than meets the eye, a lot more than the brain can contain.

John says, "it does not yet appear what we shall be. Being God's kid means being on the road again and again and again constantly moving and growing in our understanding of God. 

2. Being God's kid means making your own faith decisions about what you believe. I have heard some people say that the church should tell people exactly what to believe with no ifs, ands, or buts. And there are some denominations who do that. In the United Methodist way, however, a lobotomy is not required to become a Christian.

Let's compare the formation of our beliefs to learning to paint. One way to paint a picture is to buy a paint by numbers set. Put the number paint on the numbered spots on the canvas and pretty soon, you'll have a picture. It really is someone else's picture, but you did follow the instructions. The other way to learn to paint is a little harder. You learn the principles of painting: forms, shading, colors, oil, and watercolors. Then you use the art basics you have learned to create your own painting. It may be good or not so good. Be it will be yours. You will know why you put this here and that there.

In our confirmation-membership classes, we have used the second method. We have tried to teach our youth to use the Bible, their brains, their experience, and the help of the church to decide what they believe. I would not only be surprised but also very troubled if any one of these young men and women had their belief system all put together at this point. More than they probably realize at this point, they have been given some life-long tools telling them not what to believe but how to decide what they believe.

What do you believe about Jesus? What do you believe happens after death? What really is a sin? How important am I to God? How should I treat other people? Is God for real? What is the relation of God to the bad things that happen to people? What does it mean to believe in God as creator? What is the Holy Spirit? No one can tell you that! Each of us must join with others in the church using the Bible, our experience, and reason to decide and form for ourselves beliefs we can live by and die by. 

3. Being God's kid is not so much having the right beliefs but living rightly. God wants not so much lip work from us as leg work applying his fierce love to the thorny problems of human life. 

John lays it on the line. "He who does right is righteous....He who commits sin is of the devil." I don't think John, anymore than you and I, believed in the devil as a semi-comical character is red long johns with a pitchfork who makes Flip Wilson and us do bad things. The reality of evil inside us and afoot in the world is more serious and subtle than that. The demonic crops out in individuals, groups, and nations whenever we try to do it our way with selfishness and violence instead of God's way of love and peace.

No, Charlie Brown, it isn't okay just as long as you are sincere. It does matter when we cut corners in our businesses, overcharge for our services. It does matter when we lie to each other and are unfaithful to those who trust us. It does matter what we do about the hungry. It does matter what we do to this earth and each other with armaments. These areas call for tough Christian loving translated into forgiveness, food, and risks for peace. It is not easy to be God's kid. No one likes to be called naive. But they'll know we are Christians, if they are ever to know it, not by our doctrine but by our love.

4. Being God's kid means not so much having beliefs about God but being in relationship with him. What does it mean to believe in Bill Morgan? That I exist? That's no big deal. The question of whether you believe in me has to do with whether you can trust me, can count on me to be there when you need me. Belief between people and belief of people in God has to do with whether you can trust the other. And the only way to find out if you can trust me or God is to risk a relationship.

Think about your deepest human relationships with husband, wife, child, parent, and other such intimates. They have their ups and downs. Sometimes they are smooth sailing. Sometimes you wish you had never seen that other face. Anger and hurt make their way sooner or later into any relationship that is worth the effort. Sometimes you don't know how much the relationship means to you until you almost lose it or weather a storm together. The human relationship with God is something like that.

Sooner or later, you or someone you love will have something that happens which hurts so bad. And you'll wonder: "God, how could you let something this awful happen?" If a person is to have a mature and durable faith, then they must grapple with the issue of how there could be a loving God and such hurt in the world.

I think it was Leslie Weatherhead who told the story about a little boy who got to watch his father, a surgeon, perform an operation. After it was over, someone asked him what he thought about it. "At first, I was mad, because it looked like my Dad was hurting the person with the blood and everything, But then I thought, I know my Father, and he wouldn't do anything to hurt someone.” Only a relationship with God – full of questions to be sure – can derive a faith that knows God is at work in the world to help us not hurt us despite often appearances to the contrary.

Being God's kid doesn't provide you a bullet-proof, pain-free cocoon in which to live. It means you have help to live in the dangerous-wonderful-tearful-joyful existence God has given us. 

I have good news: you are God's kid, not an orphan in the universe, God's kid, live like it! Amen.