Children-of-God Sunday
1 Samuel 26:2, 7-9, 12-13, 22-23; 1 Corinthians 15:45-49; Luke 6:27-38.
A name is important; at least, it refers to someone or something concrete. More so, when it is a descriptive name, it reveals something hidden, some hope and potentials. David calls Saul the “Lord’s anointed”, in our first reading. The treatment David recommends and metes out to Saul takes into account Saul’s hidden name — “the Lord’s anointed”.
The “hope” is that the Lord’s anointed will behave like the Lord himself. It was when Israel rejects God as their King, that Saul becomes King, to represent God — a visible King. The “anointing” Saul receives gives him the power to represent God as Israel’s King. David sees, respects and commands those with him not to harm the Lord’s anointed — Saul. That is, those the Lord anoints deserve special deference!
What David teaches us is the responsibility to protect the Lord’s anointed from every harm, and to oblige others to do the same. What Saul teaches us is the struggle necessary to reflect the image of God in us against our desires for power, fame and recognition. In short, sin and its proclivities tarnish God’s anointing! Saul’s recognition that David too bears the image of God in him, and he might be king, stirs the jealousy that impedes Saul from living up to his hidden name —the Lord’s anointed, and his title — King of Israel. Instead of ruling as a protector of lives as God protects, he seeks to kill those he needs to protect. But David, having the opportunity to kill Saul, refrains from it, spares Saul’s life, and reminds Saul of his dignity as King and as God’s anointed. Saul’s murderous pursuit of David shows the forgetfulness and abandonment of Saul’s dignity and anointing by God. God’s anointed must only seek and do the will of God, to save human lives and not attempt to destroy them!
If our first reading talks about Saul as the Lord’s anointed, our gospel goes beyond Saul to teach us how to become “children of the Most High”. God started with the “image-of-God” (Genesis 1:28) and continues in the “Lord’s anointed”, he completes in us, “the children of the Most High”. The intention of God is always to have every human being as his child. Saul is not the only one anointed, we are also, but in Christ Jesus!
Instead of the “anointed one of God” referring to Saul in our first reading, Jesus refers to us as “Children of the Most High” or “Children of God”. Rather than consentrate exclusively on “anointing” or what makes a person the “anointed of God”, Jesus makes human behavior that conforms to God’s behavior the measure that qualifies a people as “children of God”: “love your enemies and do good to them, and lend expecting nothing back; then your reward will be great and you will be children of the Most High , for God himself is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful”. It is only by behaving like God that one becomes like God. God begets those who behave like Jesus, and God becomes a Father to them, and they children to him.
If it was sufficient to call Saul the “anointed one of God” in our first reading, despite the murderous evil that animated him, today, Jesus disqualifies him and people like him because of their moral bankruptcy! Jesus invites us to a higher moral ground of being the “children of God” who combine “anointing” with “morality”.
The good news on “Children of God Sunday” is that the nature that failed in Adam triumphs in Jesus Christ; this is the message of our second reading. If Saul went after David to harm him, David shows him the power of love and forgiveness. David’s example is what we need to emulate! If we put on weak human flesh like Adam, Jesus strengthens that flesh and divinizes it for victory over sin and death. Thanks be to God, what appears insurmountable (our weakness) in Adam is now possible through the Holy Spirit (the power to do all things good in Christ Jesus).
“Children of God Sunday” is an invitation to reveal the divine in us and to treat everyone with the respect worthy of the Children of God that we are and the image of God we bear. As human beings, we see and meet God in one another. Saul is not the only one with God’s anointing; we all have God’s anointing, through our Baptism and Confirmation. God’s Spirit in us makes us say “Jesus is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3) and we call God “Abba-Father” (Galatians 4:6). The challenge is, do will behave like God who does not kill sinners (his enemies), but forgives, redeems and continuously offers them opportunities for repentance? If we do, then, “there is neither Jew nor Greek, neither slave nor freeborn, neither male and female, you are one in Christ” (Galatians 3:28).
Lest we forget our identity as God’s children, just the way Saul forgot that he was the anointed one of God called to reflect and represent God, we need to return to the hope God has in creating us as his regents or images on earth, with the hidden potential in us to be unleashed for goodness and compassion: this is the only way to make God present in our world and in human affairs. Indeed, each one of us is a child of God called to radiate forgiveness and compassion to all. When our morality is conspicuously godly, we will not need to tell others about our anointing. Any claim to “anointing” that needs defence, apart from our good works and morality, is fake and counterfeit. The world must be able to testify to our moral identity as God’s children, without our canvassing for it. We disgrace God, ourselves and our identity as children of God, when we fail to represent God on earth as his children and images through our exemplary lives. This “disgrace” is what “children of God Sunday” challenges us to avoid!
Assignment for the Week:
Do something that will promote your faith or make others think of you as God’s child.