GOD DOES NOT ISSUE RECALLS!

(Preached on Sunday, August 14, 2005)

... for the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.                                                                                                   -Romans 11:29

 

This is a day of promise.  It is a celebration of life and of the great potential that life carries.  Most importantly, it is a celebration of the gifts and promises of God.

 

As we baptized Christian today (his name is so appropriate) we were remembering and celebrating God’s call in his life, God’s claim on his life, and God’s gift of love, forgiveness and acceptance for his life.

Baptism does not bestow God’s grace upon this child, it celebrates and bears witness to the grace already poured out on him, since long before today, before he was born, before he was even conceived. God has loved Christian for all the ages, since before time began, and God continues to love Christian today, and will love him for all eternity to come.

Through Jesus God has promised to be with him, as guardian and guide, as companion and friend, as Shepherd, Divine Parent, Shield and Protector, Anchor and Rock, as a light on his path, and as Savior, loving him and caring for him all his life long, and beyond.

All that and more are the promises God has made to Christian which this act of baptism symbolized today.

 

And other promises were made to him as well.

German and Maggie, you and the godparents, have promised to love him and raise him to know himself a beloved child of God, on whom all these promises have been bestowed.  You have promised to share your faith with him and help him to know God and God’s love and acceptance in his life.  And all of us, the gathered people of God, have also promised to share God’s love with him as well — to help him as he grows to know that he is loved and accepted by God and that forgiveness is always available.

 

Yes, this is a day of promises, and Christian is a Child of Promise and carries within himself much promise, too.

Not vows that he is making, but the possibilities of the future.

German and Maggie, you certainly have dreams for him.

I don’t know what those might be specifically.

You certainly hope he will grow strong and healthy, with a joy and excitement for life.  Perhaps you hope he will become a star athlete, or a creative musician, perhaps you hope he will one day be President, or become a physician and heal many people.

Very likely you hope he will one day meet the right girl, marry and continue your family, providing you the joy of grandchildren.

All of his future stretches out before him full of promise.

And God certainly has dreams for Christian as well — dreams that he will be a loving, compassionate, fair and just man who will do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God, fulfilling God’s desires and will in his life.

 

Yes, this is a glorious day, full of joy, full of hope, and full of promise and dreams.  I don’t want to cast a shadow over this day, but I do want to raise one question.  What if Christian does not fulfill those hopes and dreams we carry for him, that we believe is his promise?

It happens.  For our lives are not programed.  They are not mapped out.

Each and every one of us has choices to make as we move along the pathway of our lives.  Plus, circumstances change, the environment around us changes, life changes, and often that changes the possible choices we face, and the promise we carry inside.

 

Every parent of adult children knows this truth.

Every adult knows it about themselves.

What happens when we don’t fulfill our promise?  What do we are parents do when children turn out differently than we dreamed?

What does the parent do who watched their energetic, talented, budding athletic prodigy, star of the soccer field at 8 years old, grow up and become a classical musician; or a bookish accountant?

What about the parents whose sweet-faced daughter with so much promise in school that you just knew she would go far in education and possibly become a lawyer, or doctor, or a future CEO, but instead she becomes pregnant at 17, drops out of school, has the baby and gets married?

What about the parents whose dreams of grandchildren seem to disappear with the announcement by their gentle and sensitive only son that he is gay?

When the promises of our children turn out differently than we dreamed them, what do we as parents do?  Do we still love them?

Do we stay true to our promises to them to help them always to know that they are beloved children of God, accepted, forgiven, and loved?

 

And more importantly, what about God’s promises to them?  If they grow up in the church, but are never confirmed, and they discover that a different faith — perhaps that taught in Buddhism, or Islam, speaks more to their heart and spirit and connects them to God — are God’s promises then removed?

What about the child so lovingly held over the font who grows up and somehow ends up in prison after harming somebody else, are God’s promises of love, acceptance and forgiveness still valid?

Is there anything we can do that will ever lead God to turn God’s back on us and say, “That’s it, I’m done with them, no more are my promises of love, acceptance, forgiveness extended to them.”?

 

We are not the first to wrestle with that question.  The Apostle Paul struggled with it and we heard this morning part of his resolution of it.

For Paul the question arose regarding the standing of his people, the Jews of his day, with God.

It was a vital question because Paul himself was a Jew.

It was also a vital question because Paul understood that the answer to that question had serious implications for his message about Jesus.

 

Paul had met the risen Christ, had seen his life turned around forever.

Christ had become Paul’s everything.

He now understood that Jesus was the fulfillment of all God’s promises to the Jews through all the ages.

Yet not all the Jews of his day agreed.  In fact, most did not.

And Paul struggles.  What about his relatives and friends, fellow Jews, who look at Jesus and do not see what Paul sees?

Has God rejected the Jews and the special covenants God had made with them through Abraham, and Moses, and King David?

Israel’s story with God was a long story of God’s entering into a special relationship with the Jews and then over and over again, the people of Israel breaking their promises to God, going off in the wrong direction, putting their trust in false gods, disobeying the commands of God.

Truth be told, that is our story as well, each and every one of us.

We are not the people we promise to be, we fail to keep our end of the bargain, we say we will be better people when we’re here in church on Sunday and then, once we’re back out on the street on Monday, we stray.

 

But not God.   God is faithful, says Paul.

God will keep the promises God has made.

Though we may fail to keep our end of the bargain, though our faithfulness may waver, God is faithful.

God’s mercy to us is not dependent upon our love and faithfulness.  God’s mercy is steadfast because God is that way with us.