Children of God

I promise our Meetings aren’t going to permanently turn into vocabulary lessons where we only talk about the new words I’ve picked up like Syzygy and selenelieon. But I did learn another new word from an article from the New York Times that was making the rounds on Friday and I can’t help reading the headline:

“Bad News for Friggatriskaidekaphobes: 2026 Has Three Fridays the 13th”

Friggatriskaidekaphobes. That’s a good mouthful. Apparently in common years, that is to say, years that are not leap years, when the year begins on a Thursday, we have three Friday the thirteenths, and this happens to be one such year. And apparently there is always at least one Friday the thirteenth every year.

What had especially gotten me started thinking about Friday the thirteenth was remembering Friday, March 13 six years ago, which was the first day I didn’t go into the office during the pandemic. I looked up our Notes for Meeting from that day, and my notes inspired me to revisit some of the same topics. We opened with a reflection that our family was especially lucky, because our school and church and farm weren’t being too interrupted:

Since it was already our practice to do these things at home, we’re just kind of continuing on as we were, except with less driving, right?

Remember that we didn’t have any idea at the time it was going to last as long as it did, or that so many people would die. It’s strange to look back on it. At the time, my artful transition from “hey we’re in a global pandemic” to “let’s talk about Lent” was this:

One of the things that I really love about Lent is that it’s a practice that anyone can do completely on their own.

As you kids have all gotten older, I’ve been delighted how intrigued you seem to be by organized everything. Organized school, organized clubs, organized religion, organized sports. I sometimes wondered when we started homeschooling if there would be lingering disdain for such things, but there doesn’t seem to be so far. But it is also nice to remember that you don’t need a school to learn things, you don’t need a church to worship as you please, you don’t need a team to go for a run, and you don’t need to go to an office to get work done.

Fasting during Lent is a practice that’s mostly done at home, or really wherever you are, and I like it for that. But it’s also like many of those other things on the list we might do on our own; I’m not the only one doing it, and I feel a sense of community and purpose with everyone else who is doing it with me. When I run, I do think about other runners and then sometimes I even get together and run with them! When I learn, I learn from someone else who once learned the same thing. When I fast, I fast together with everyone else who is fasting, this season it’s even more together than usual, with Lent and Ramadan coinciding. Close to two billion people around the world who might keep some level of a fast.

Last Sunday, Katie and I went down to Annapolis and met Tomi in the morning, and we all went to St. Anne’s together. The service was different from our family’s usual Sunday night routine, but it shared all the same themes we talk about at home. Importantly, it reminded me of another thing that Christians all over the world do as we celebrate our Lenten fasts, reflecting on the life of Jesus.

With that in mind, right where each of us are, on our own, but also together, here are a few verses from the Gospel of John to get us started:

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.

John is probably my favorite of the four Gospels. I wonder if I’m supposed to have a favorite Gospel? The author dives right into our controversial topic.

In the Gospel of Mark, Jesus asks, “Who do people say that I am?” but here in John, it’s just “I and the Father are one.” John records that Jesus narrowly escapes being stoned for blasphemy by the religious authorities who say this:

“We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.”

I want to reflect for a moment on the truth that Jesus was a known blasphemer, and it made people mad, mad, mad. It’s not the first time such a thing happened, and it won’t be the last. Socrates was famously killed for the same reason. And in the Gospel of John, Jesus extricates himself from the situation by quoting scripture, but it doesn’t work, so he runs away.

It’s a foreshadowing of what happens later, when he doesn’t run away, and we should think about that during Lent, as well. Jesus dies. But we haven’t come to that part yet, we’re still in John where Blasphemer Jesus quotes the Psalms to a group of men who are getting ready to stone him, and the quote he picks is this one, I’m going to quote it from the King James Version like I learned it as a kid:

I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.

There is in fact a long history of our most ancient scriptures reminding us we are the children of God. In the book of Deuteronomy, chapter fourteen starts with, “You are the children of the Lord your God.” From the prophet Hosea we read, “In the place where it was said to them, ‘You are not my people,’ they will be called ‘children of the living God.’”

Jesus quoted the Psalms, “all of you are children of the most High.”

I like to imagine Jesus with a message that’s actually far more radical and blasphemous than, “I alone am the special-est special one who is specially particularly only the one who can talk to God.”

Instead, I imagine the message to be, “Of course I am the Son of God, because obviously. And so are you, also obviously.”

And before anyone accuses me of blasphemy, because I’m like the Jesus in the book of John, I really will just run away across the river, but before anyone tries to accuse me of blasphemy, here’s what Jesus hisownself said in the Gospel of Matthew, and as I read this I wonder if maybe that’s my favorite Gospel, but I digress, here’s what Jesus said in the Gospel of Matthew:

Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.

I love you all so very much. Let’s light our candles and reflect on how much we can learn from ancient blasphemy, together and completely on our own.

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