The Family Way
This past Easter Sunday, I enjoyed dinner with my parents and my brother’s family. These meals bring back memories. I remember when I was a child, how I would finish my meal before before the adults and then wonder how long I needed to remain at the table before I could make the reasonable request to be excused. I remember the lure of my grandparents’ basements, where there were all sorts of special wonders, like marbles, a nerf basketball hoop, and at one point in time a ping-pong table. Truth be told, my mind was often already in the basement (so to speak) before the meal even started.
All of this to say, I can sympathize my five-year-old nephews, Nathan and Matthew. About halfway through the meal, they hastily excuse themselves and remove themselves to the back room where there sits a floor table and on it the pieces to a wooden train set. This past Easter, during a lull in the conversation, we happened to overhear Nathan and Matthew playing in the back room. It was a pleasant surprise, actually. No bickering, no yelling. Rather, we heard Nathan thoughtfully suggesting things that Matthew might like to do. “Matthew, maybe you would like to operate the crane? Maybe you would like to move Thomas?” Now, Nathan may have had ulterior motives, such as keeping Matthew on the other side of the table. But what tickled us—and pleased us—was that Nathan was, knowingly or not, reproducing the same kind of behavior that his parents and grandparents have employed with him. That is, when he seems upset or restless, they offer suggestions for constructive activities that he might enjoy doing. “Nathan, maybe you’d like to do this? Or maybe you’d like to do that?”
Nathan was mirroring what had been modeled for him. He had learned this behavior from his family, even though they had never purposely taught it to him. He learned it by experience. He learned it by being with them. He naturally imitated the family way, the good way he had seen modeled for him.
I’ve seen this imitation in other ways in Nathan. Oftentimes when I am watching them for an evening, Nathan will correct me when I’m walking them through their nighttime routine. “That’s not how my daddy does it!” The family way—it is a powerful but often unseen and unacknowledged force in our lives.
The First Word
Our scripture today follows a pattern that I see all throughout scripture. To put it simply, I would say it like this: sin comes second. Think about it. Creation begins with God’s love, with God looking upon all the world and seeing that it is good and giving it God’s blessing. Second comes the story of sin. The sacrificial rituals described in Leviticus likewise begin with God’s love and goodness. The first sacrifices described are the voluntary sacrifices, the ones that symbolize communion, in which a worshiper draws near to God because they want to, and God accepts them because God wants to be with them. Second come the instructions for the sin offering, in which a person repents of their wayward behavior. I think too of the signs in the gospel of John, how the first sign is done at a wedding, an event of love and joy. Second come the signs of healing, signs that address the reality of sin and death in the world.
Sin comes second. The traditional doctrine of original sin can mislead us to think that sin has the first word, but in scripture it does not. In scripture, the first word is God’s goodness and love. And today’s scripture is no different. Even though the writer will address the reality of sin, he begins with an altogether different word: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God…. Beloved, we are God’s children now” (1 John 3:1-2).
The first word is not sin. The first word is love. It is a reminder of our loving God, who calls us God’s children.
About Sin
Now John does get to the second word. He does address sin. At first glance, it probably sounds familiar. “You know,” John writes, “that he was revealed to take away sins” (1 John 3:5). Ah, yes, I do know about this. Christ is like a sacrificial offering. As Paul writes, Christ is our Passover lamb, who saves us from death (1 Cor 5:7). Or as John the baptizer proclaims in the gospel, “Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).
You’ll have to pardon me, as one who received training as an Old Testament scholar, for taking issue with John the baptizer here. Technically speaking, John is mixing up his sacrificial metaphors. To be clear, the “lamb of God”—the Passover lamb—does not save the Israelites from sin. It saves them from the plague of death. There are no lamb sacrifices that take away sins. Bulls and goats take away sin, not lambs.
If I haven’t lost you already, hear me out. This might seem pedantic, but I think it’s actually quite significant. My point is not that John the baptizer got it wrong or that he confused his sacrificial offerings. Rather, I think he was doing what any good rabbi did. He was drawing from the strongest, richest metaphors at hand to describe the salvation of Jesus. In one deft phrase, he mixed two of the strongest Hebrew metaphors, namely the Passover lamb that saved the Israelites from death, and the sin offering at Yom Kippur that cleansed the temple and the land of sin. By combining these metaphors, he was also combining the ideas of sin and death, suggesting that sin is the real death, the real bondage from which we need delivery. He was anticipating Jesus with this move, who would say, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt 10:28). For Jesus and John the baptizer, to be saved is not just to have some literal shackles broken (although that certainly is part of it), but also to have the spiritual shackles thrown off. We all know this truth, intuitively. We all know about spiritual shackles. Anyone who has been eaten up with envy or bent on revenge; anyone who has been consumed with getting more or obsessed with winning; anyone who has been afflicted with addictive thinking or dysfunctional relationships—anyone knows that we have a host of bad patterns of thought and deed—that is, sin—that are like chains holding us back from “abundant life” (John 10:10), from “the life that is really life” (1 Tim 6:19).
Live in Christ
Likewise, we all know, again intuitively, that there is no quick fix for this sin, for these chains. Yes, symbolically, there is a quick fix. In the Old Testament, sacrificial offerings symbolized God’s forgiveness. In the New Testament, Jesus’ love unto death on the cross symbolizes God’s forgiveness. But the important thing to remember here is that symbols are symbols. They point to a reality, but then that reality must be accepted, must be lived out, must be given flesh—incarnated. The prophets in the Old Testament knew this well. They regularly chastised the people for believing that sacrifices alone would take care of any problems. They reminded them that sacrifices can be hollow. They reminded them that they are only meaningful if they are offered in good faith, by people who are earnestly seeking and following God. Jesus is quoting one of these prophets when he says, “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice’” (Matt 9:13; Hos 6:6). Or we might remember how David says in Psalm 51, “You have no delight in sacrifice; if I were to give you a burnt offering, you would not be pleased. The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit” (Ps 51:16-17). The symbolic significance of sacrificial offerings would only become real, would only find flesh, among people who were broken and honest enough about their sin.
In our scripture today, John provides his own explanation for how Jesus’ atoning sacrifice becomes real in our lives. And this is what strikes me as really good news. John doesn’t tell his listeners, with regard to their sin, “Stop it! Don’t do it!” Negative advice like this usually turns a person’s mind toward shame and the sinful behavior, so that they persist. (What we resist, persists.) It’s like telling a toddler not to do something. Your prohibition sometimes functions more like an encouragement!
Instead, John’s advice is positive and simple. “No one who abides in him [Christ Jesus] sins” (1 John 3:6). In other words, live in Christ. It goes back, I think, to the first word in today’s scripture, namely that God loves us and we are God’s children. The good news is not only that God already accepts us as we are, but also that we are part of a family. In Christ, we have special access to what might be called “the family way.” When we see the hurtful patterns of thought and deed (i.e., the sin in our world), we can like Nathan remind ourselves, “That’s not how my daddy does it!” We have more than negative advice; we have a positive example.
In Christ, we have the opportunity to learn how our daddy—our heavenly abba and eema—does it. This, I think, is how Christ “takes away the sins of the world.” Not through some magical sacrificial equation, but through modeling for us—even unto his death—the eternal way of love. Christ shows us the family way, a way of goodness, a way out of sin. “No one who [lives] in him sins” (1 John 3:6).
If the way of Christ is anything like “the family way” that we learn as children, it is not so much something we learn by someone telling us, but by someone showing us. Which is why gathering in community with brothers and sisters in Christ can be so important. Here, where are two or three are gathered in his spirit, Christ is indeed present, and we model and mirror for one another the family way. A way of forgiveness instead of retribution. A way of openness and listening instead of control and having the last word. A way of acceptance and gratitude instead of resentment and greed. A way of mercy and compassion instead of judgment and merit. A way that is gentle and humble and gives rest to our souls.
Friends, we are the beloved children of God. It is good news. We are accepted as we are even as we are shown by Christ how we might grow into our true selves as God’s children.
Prayer
Who takes away the sins of the world—
We are ever needful of your help.
Sometimes we forget we are God’s children,
And confuse ourselves with our sin
…
Remind us again of the first word
In your good news:
That we are already God’s beloved.
Lead us joyfully
In the family way.
Amen.
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