Sermon — April 14, 2024
Michael Fenn
One of the things I love the most about summer camp, particularly Christian summer camp, is that when you cross the line into camp–almost everything about who you are outside of camp does not matter anymore. Your varsity letter, your GPA, your parents divorce, your above-average reading level, your below-average reading level, the name of the school you go to, even your cat allergies don’t really matter once you cross from the outside world into the world of camp.
For many people, campers and counselors, this is a very freeing experience. Many sports people steer clear of the basketball courts at camp, many artists will never go in the arts and crafts shed, and the high achievers realize that there is actually nobody around to give them a grade for rock-wall climbing.
Of course, I will admit, there are some exceptions to this relatively utopian picture I have painted. A basketball star will continue to be a basketball star at camp, and they might gain a lot of notoriety for that. A skilled painter will still have people ooh and aah over their work. Musicians will get roped into being in the camp band. However, any of these things only go so far in the community. Your basketball skill, your paintings, your musical prowess are reduced to no more than what they are. To really parse it out, there are no grades given, no medals awarded, and nobody to put you on varsity. Any particular skill becomes less than what it actually is, and more what it does to foster joy, connection, or help your cabin win something (which is a form of joy and connection, actually).
I know this to be true because I have, honest-to-God, hand on heart, one of the most highly valued skills in the camp world. More than dunking a basketball. More than passing any swim test. More than fire building. I am not overstating this. I can start boondoggles. If you don’t know what that is I have brought one. For those you can’t really see it, it is one of those plastic lanyard things you or your kids likely made at school or a summer camp at any point in the last half century. Not only can I start them, I can start almost forty in just one minute. In the outside world, this matters unfortunately very little. However, in a world where collective joy is highly valued, such a skill is of critical importance.
I fear I may have digressed to deeply into the skills and talents that may give you notoriety at summer camp. But the point I have been trying to make is this: the beauty of camp is that when you cross the line from the outside world, the evaluations of the outside world fall away. Instead, you are judged differently, through a lens of connection, love, and joy. By your ability to start boondoggles.
In the letter of first John today–which is a lovely letter, and for those of who who may have missed the memo, it is the subject of our Easter-tide sermon series. One phrase in particular caught my attention. In his letter, John makes the extremely bold statement that “we are God’s children”. This designation–God’s child–at the time of this letters composition, was strictly reserved for emperors, heroes, and Jesus himself. It did not have the more acceptable, perhaps even jovial usage that we have today.
To make the statement that we are God’s children is a bold one–so bold in fact, that in the Eucharist prayer, before we pray the “Our Father” (a prayer where we reference God as a parental figure) the minister says “we boldly pray..” Listen for it if you haven’t noticed it before. Suffice to say it would be unthinkable, blasphemous, and even treasonous to call yourself a child of God in the way the author of 1 John uses it.
Even aside from the boldness of the statement, what does it actually mean? For the ancient world, it would seem to proclaim that–to quote a different epistle–that there is no more slave or free, male or female, Jew or Greek. In the ancient context, whereever you were born, and to whom you were born, pretty much determined how your life would look. For most people, this meant that their hard life, and low social status, were inherent to their very existence. Only now, the labels that get put on them by their society, by the empire they live under, are no longer their true identifiers. Instead, they are adopted by God, they are not lowly peasants, fishermen, or carpenters, they are beloved children of a God who cares deeply for them.
For us today, it is no different. We may have more democracy, more social mobility, and different occupations. But to be a child of God means that, just like when we enter camp, we leave all kinds of allegiances and memberships behind. It is a fundamental new identifier, one that exists deeper in us than any report card, evaluation, collegiate affiliation, or social club.
Maybe this new state of being is not obvious to the outside world. The letter says as much, the people who aren’t children of God don’t necessarily get what it is that is different–there are no physical changes and no huge jump upward into the higher social strata. However, it is something of an internal characteristic, a metaphysical change, that we understand about ourselves, and about the people we share community with–our fellow Cbristians.
But then, the letter gives us a more ambiguous message. After this really bold statement about what we are now–children of God. The author kind of says “we don’t really know what happens next–what we are going to be later, or what will necessarily happen to us. We get the general idea that it will continue to be something good, based in our new identity as children of God. However, we get what it is not in the next section–it is not lawlessness and chaos. The author of the John letters seems to think it is important to stress that just as much as we are beloved by God, that does not give us license to cause chaos and strife.
Interestingly, in the gospel today, Jesus makes his big first appearance to the expanded group of followers. And I am going to take this as a cue into the ambiguity of what we will be according to John. The very first thing Jesus says is “Peace be with you all”. The second thing he does, after calming down the disciples, is ask them if they have any food. Resurrecting is hungry work. They give him broiled fish, which I take to be the “ordering Dominos” of ancient Galillee. Then, Jesus sits and explains all the weird scary stuff that happened. Finally, he tells them that they are witnesses to all of this.
Here is where we have something of a touchstone in the ambiguity of what we will be. Just as we are children of God, we are witnesses to all that has been done. Maybe what we will be is witnesses to this wonderful thing and this good news in Christ. For now, maybe that means in the joyful wake of a bright Easter…we take some time….order dominos…and reflect on what this good news–that we are children of God, worldly titles be darned–means for us. Maybe in our lives as Christians, pulled in many directions as we stumble along, this ambiguity of not knowing what we will be invites us into knowing that as much as we try to do good in the world, we don’t really know what we will be.
And to return to the question we are exploring in the sermon series– maybe this is what it means to be a community of Christians in the light of the ressurection. To honor that fact that as Christians, we are given a fundamental new identity that usurps all of our other ones– children of God. To figure out how this fits into how we live our lives with one another. Of course, this is much easier at camp in a place away from typical pressures of modern life–no building job portfolios, no report cards, no quarterly reviews; where there is no rent to pay, and all your meals are cooked for you (for better or worse). But maybe we can look to that as an example for how to begin to think about it. To think about how we can uplift ourselves and others in ways that recognize that we are children of God–be it starting for starting boondoggles or something else. And also, to remember that in all of this trying and thinking, we still do not know what we will be or where God will lead us. We remain works in progress even as we are children of God. In the name of the one who loved us first.