Scripture: 1 John 3:2-3 Series: 2020
An Evensong message for December 20, 2020 on 1 John 3:2-3. Riffing on the childhood question ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ (be, not do), the preacher turns it into a question of ontology and identity. We are already God’s children now, yet not finished; the most we can ever hope to become looks like Jesus, the carpenter from Nazareth who, in Charles Wesley’s words, ‘emptied himself of all but love.’ Through God this self-emptying love is possible for us now, and the loves that do not belong in our lives need not remain. God is with us now.
Illustrations: supreme-court-justice-island-dream, rorschach-test, charles-wesley-emptied-of-all-but-love, carpenter-from-nazareth
December 20
Children’s Message
What do you want to be when you grow up?
God is not as concerned with professions and colleges as with your heart.
2 Dear friends, now we are God’s children, and it hasn’t yet appeared what we will be. We know that when he appears we will be like him because we’ll see him as he is. 3 And all who have this hope in him purify themselves even as he is pure.1 John 3:2-3
Message
We are God’s children but we are not finished yet. Questions we ask:
What do you want to be when you grow up? Not do, be.
Where do you want to go to college? My plan: Plan of being a Supreme Court Justice with an island on the Potomac or Chesapeake bay.
Some kids figure out they want to be teachers or doctors when they are 6 and go all the way through.
Who do you want to be when you grow up? This question in English gets to the nature of ontology What does it mean for us to be? How do we exist?
There is no ontological microscope, no way to see what the real really is.
For materialist, the question is avoided. The only thing that is is what we see.
What do you want to be?
John writes: Beloved, now we are God’s children.
Now, we are God’s children
The most that we can ever hope to be in this world looks like a carpenter from Nazareth born 2000 years ago.
Jesus can a Rorschasch test of sorts.
Charles Wesley hymn: he emptied himself of all but love.
That is possible for us through God. All those not loves in your life do not need to be there!
Beloved, now you are God’s children.
You can be this now. God is with us now.