Adopted into God's Family

 

Deacon David Previtali · Adopted into God's Family

Homily for Trinity Sunday, May 30, 2021. Readings: Romans 8:14-17, Gospel of St. Matthew 28:16-20. Theme: Adopted into God’s Family 

Today’s liturgy reminds us that as Christians we profess a key fundamental truth of faith that sets us apart us from all other world religions. I am referring, of course, to the mystery that we call the Most Blessed Trinity; the mystery of the One True God being a plurality of persons - Father, Son and Holy Spirit. And yet, somehow, this doesn’t mean that we have three gods who are intimately related, but only One Divinity who is three distinct Persons. How can this be? We’ll never really know because it’s something that our human minds simply cannot comprehend. And so, we call it a mystery, that is, a truth that has been revealed to us, but which is far beyond our finite understanding. We only know of it because it was revealed to us by God the Son himself, when he came down from Heaven and was made flesh. And so, we accept it and we profess it by faith alone, trusting in the fact that Jesus does not lie and cannot deceive us. 

And no matter how much time we spend thumbing through the pages of the Bible, we will never find any explanation of HOW God can be a Trinity of Persons…but what we will find is a reason WHY this can be true. You see, once we accept the word of Scripture that says, “God is love” (1 John 4:8) then it can begin to make a bit of sense to us that there must be more than just one Person who is Divine. The reason being that love is relational; it only happens within a communion or fellowship of persons. And so, our Faith teaches us that the Father loves the Son, and the Son loves the Father, and that this mutual love is so perfect and so powerful that it brings forth yet another Divine Person, the Holy Spirit. And that’s pretty much all that we can say with confidence about the Trinity. Anything else would simply be theorizing and speculating. 

But you know, there’s something even more wonderful, almost unbelievable about God that Scripture tells us and it’s this: the divine love relationship of the Trinity is not kept just among themselves, but it spills out on to and over all of creation! This awesome mysterious God who is love reaches out to us, to each one of us individually and personally, inviting us to enter into this threefold love relationship and share in it. Imagine that! The dynamic love of God, once it pulls us into itself and makes us part of the divine relationship, completely changes who we are and what we become. It makes us - as the Bible teaches - a spiritually new creation, a new type of being, transformed from the inside out. It elevates us from being simply creatures of God and makes us the very children of God. 

We see this beautifully proclaimed in today’s second reading from St. Paul’s Letter to the Romans. "For those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons and daughters of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you received a Spirit of adoption, through whom we cry, "Abba, my Father!" The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if we are children, then we are heirs, heirs of God our Father and joint heirs with Christ.” (Romans 8:14-16) I don’t think that we fully realize what this passage is really saying to us. 

You see, in the culture that the Letter to the Romans was written, to be adopted meant to be as much a part of the Father as were his natural children. There was absolutely no distinction made or permitted. As a matter of fact, it was easier to disinherit your natural child than it was your adopted child. The rationale behind this was that a Father personally chose the adopted child, while the natural one was simply given to him. And here’s another very interesting fact from that culture that sheds more light on what St. Paul is saying in our second reading. Ancient Romans were not typically adopted as infants but as adults and they were issued two certificates. First, a death certificate listing their old name. Then they received a birth certificate bearing their new name. The idea was that their old lives, their old selves were dead and gone. Now they had a new life, a new family, a new identity, a new beginning. 

This is precisely what was in the minds of those first Roman Christians when they heard the words St. Paul had written to them. They rightfully understood that he was telling them that the very same things about adoption happen to them, but from a spiritual point of view. Those Christians heard the very same words that we heard today and they thought to themselves, “My old life before knowing Christ is dead and gone. My old way of thinking and acting is over. This is the beginning of a new life. I have a new family now which is the Church, the community of God’s people. I am now a child of God the Father, a sibling of Christ the Son, and a temple of the Divine Spirit. All that rightfully belongs to Christ now also belongs to me and this includes Heaven, which is my birthright and my inheritance.” 

And the Good News is that our spiritual adoption is not just wishful thinking! It’s as true about us as the mystery of the Trinity is true about God. This opportunity for us human beings to live in such an intimate divine relationship is the great gift and beauty of Christianity. God has not done this for any other religion that exists or ever existed on planet Earth. Purely out of love and on no merit whatsoever of our own, has such an awesome gift of grace been given to us Christians. This is precisely why we begin and end all of our prayers, and hopefully every one of our days, in the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.