“An ancestry that repeats itself?”
By Rev. Michael Stonhouse
Meditation – Tuesday, August 30, 2022
John 8:33-47 (Forward, p. 32) CEV p. 1112
Advertising blurbs on the genealogy site Ancestry.ca always tout the rather serendipitous, thrilling and reaffirming discoveries that some interest or trait in an ancestor has repeated itself in the present generation—in that particular researcher in fact.
This idea that history, ancestry, repeats itself is picked up in today’s discourse from John’s Gospel. Jesus had previously said, in verse 32, “You will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” This particular mention of freedom has really set the crowd off. It has really struck an emotional and sensitive chord, as they are rather proud of the fact that as Jewish people they have never been slaves. They reply that they are ‘children of Abraham’ and have always been free. “We have never been anyone’s slaves,” they reply.
Jesus then goes on to present the sad truth that anyone who commits sin isn’t really free but is a slave to sin, which means that such people don’t really have a lasting or permanent place in the family. The people Jesus is addressing think that Abraham is their father and that they belong in his family, but in reality they don’t. Satan—the devil—is really their father and influences everything that say or do. In fact, he, the father of all lies, has blinded them to the truth. So, in reality, in that they cannot accept the truth of Jesus’ words, they are just like him. The spiritual ancestry of his family, rather than God’s family or Abraham’s family, is simply repeating itself in them. If God, or Abraham, was truly their father, they would have listened to what Jesus was saying, and so come to believe in Him.
These are very hard and disturbing words, hard for the crowd back then, and hard for us. For one thing, all of us, no matter who we are, are in the habit of sinning. Indeed, as the apostle John says in his first letter, “if we say we have not sinned, we make God a liar, and his message isn’t in our hearts” (1 John 1:10). He goes on to say that he doesn’t want them to sin, but then, when they do sin, they have the atoning sacrifice of Jesus to wash away all their sins and forgive those sins.
For a long time, I had grave problems with this—not with the idea that Jesus can deal with our sins—but with the mere prospect that we could ever expect to be totally without sin. But then I discovered that what John, and Jesus, is talking about is habitual, ingrained, persistent sin, sins that we know fully well about, and yet are intentional and persistent in perpetrating and continuing. It is here that we can be slaves to sin, and thus influenced by the devil. Indeed, the apostle Paul intimates that people can be led by Satan and do his work without even being aware of it. “For we wrestle not with flesh and blood [that is, other human beings—though it may seem to be so], but powers and principalities in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 6:12).
But, this question of spiritual parentage or ancestry, it still troubles me. Is it something that is merely a question of DNA or of random circumstance, as some would have us believe? Or, is there some element of choice in the matter? Here the Prologue of John’s Gospel is most helpful. It says, “some, however, did receive him and believed in him, so he gave them the right to become God’s children” (John 1:12). So, the question of how we become part of God’s family and have God as our Father is solved. We choose to do so.
And I would suggest that the opposite is also true: we choose, bit by bit, increment by increment, to become part of Satan’s family. I would suggest that it comes by our choosing to sin, choosing to go our own ways and disobey God’s commands, choosing to neglect spending time with God and getting to know Him. And so, our spiritual ancestry, our parentage, is not something necessarily set in stone for all time, but something we choose to work on and so is a bit more fluid. And so, let us choose to press on to know God as our Father and fit in more perfectly with the rest of His family. Amen.
Forward notes: “Jesus said to them, ‘If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God, and now I am here. I did not come on my own, but he sent me’” (verse 42)..
“We all know what it means to be sent somewhere. We are sent to the grocery store, sent to school. Above all, we are sent to do God’s will. This last, however, can be difficult. It is harder than shopping for our mothers, harder than studying, because before we go, we must listen for the call.
“For Jesus, being sent means confronting an angry crowd with God’s truth. This truth, based on love, may run counter to everything we profess. When Jesus declares what he has seen in the Father’s presence, he is telling them, telling us, that ‘Whoever is from God hears the words of God.’
“If we listen to what Jesus says, we are called to tell the truth of God’s presence, no matter the consequences. And being called, we must answer.”
Moving Forward: “Share with a friend or family member what you understand as God’s call for your life. Spend time in discernment about how to answer that call.”