William Joseph Smith July 19th 1980 - December 3rd 2018 RIP

Sunday the 19th July 2020.

It is a date. Not an especially significant date for many.

It is the 6th Sunday after Trinity known as Proper 11.

Whilst lots of things happened on July 19th's throughout history it is not an outstanding date, no wars broke out, no armistice's were signed, no great historic figures, sportsmen or women, no records were broken, no life changing discoveries made. 

Generally a quiet day, in July in each year that passes or has passed, it remains quiet.

But 40 years ago on this day my Son was born.

We named him after my Grandfather and Father: William Joseph.

So today I reflect on a life cut short. A death that happened before its due time.

As a Father I had to bury my Son.

So today is a day for quiet reflection, thinking about a life that has passed and didn't fulfil its promise.

In the lesson we read to day from Romans, St Paul reminds us of this whole business of being born.

in Chapter 8 vv 22 Paul writes of the whole of creation 'groaning in travail' as we await our adoption by God as Sons. The redemption of our bodies:

“For we know that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now“ (v. 22). In verse 19, Paul said, “the creation waits with eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” Now he tells us that the “revealing” will be a birth. Creation’s discomfort is not the result of death pangs, as some people would have us believe, but birth pangs. Its’ longing and groaning are hopeful signs—not reasons for despair.

William's birth was not quite so dramatic, in fact my wife's observation was that if they had all been that easy 'I could have had one a year'. In fact rather than groaning, there was laughter, and rather than travail, the easy birth of an unexpected but delightful gift of a Son, after three daughters, s/he was going to be called Isabelle, until the midwife declared 'it's a boy, so the family name will live on' 

As Smith surely will!

But Paul also described another wonderful gift of the spirit, in vv 15, 'When we cry, Abba, Father!' as indeed our new child did.

As he through his crying of Abba, or Dadda or Mamma, bore witness that he was our child and we were his family. So, says St Paul, when we cry Abba, Father!, it is the Spirit himself bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children then heirs, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ'

We Christians are God’s adopted children.  While “adopted” might seem to suggest a second-rate status, that is not so when God is the adoptive Father.  I especially like the story of the mother of two children––one natural born and the other adopted.  When someone asked, “Which child is adopted?” the mother gazed for a moment into the distance and then answered, “I can’t remember.”

“by whom we cry, ‘Abba! Father!'” (v. 15c). “Abba” is what a Jewish child calls his/her father—an intimate word like “Papa.” Jewish people are sensitive about using God’s name, lest they somehow use it wrongfully (Exodus 20:7; Deuteronomy 5:11). The idea that anyone would address God so familiarly as “Abba” would astonish anyone raised in that tradition. However, Paul tells us that we are permitted this intimacy because we are children of God—not just God’s people, but God’s children.

In our Bible Study during lockdown using Whpay, we have explored the full significance of Paul's letter to the Roman's.

Focussing as it does on Faith, Hope and Love.

The first four Chapters help us focus on faith, faith in God, our faith, there is for Paul no 'cheap grace' his life and future is at risk as he preaches the good news, we are reminded of concepts that are challenging and provoking both for the apostle and his audience in Rome, made up as it is of converts both Gentile and Jew, so Paul introduces the challenging idea that we need to have faith in God as Abraham did, prepared even to sacrifice his Son because it is through our faith that we are justified.

From Chapter 5 we focus on Hope. St Paul describes the hope before us, the hope that new parents have in the birth of a child, the hope that is laid before us. The future for Gentiles. The future for Jewish people. Our future hope when creation no longer groans and travails the future hope that we have right now that this pandemic will end and we can live life fully again.

From Chapter 12 the Epistle encourages its audience in Rome to Love. It's easy to Love the child that you bring into your home. It is easy to love a son or a brother. But for Paul it is that costly, christian love that we are commanded to share with one another as brothers and sisters in the same fellowship.

So Faith, Hope and Love. But as I know, as I visit my Son's grave on what would have been his 40th Birthday, there is a cost to faith, a cost to hope and a cost to Love.

But again in our reading from Romans today Paul acknowledges that there is a cost to discipleship.

In verse 18 Paul uses a phrase 'for I consider', the Greek word, logizomai, is an accounting term to do with assets and liabilities.

As the PCC will struggle with the financial uncertainty that the closure of the Church through the pandemic has brought in its wake. Accountants will try to determine by assessing the 'books' of a business, the financial records, as the Chancellor has to address not just the medical cost of the pandemic, but its impact on our economy and the depression that most certainly will follow.

So St Paul is making a comparison with the future sufferings experienced by those who risk becoming Christians in Rome. He compares our present sufferings with the Glory promised by God as sons, as heirs as adopted children. That Glory outweighs the suffering and so we have no need to resort to despair.

When I was studying at the Episcopal Divinity School in Cambridge, Massachusetts I audited a course called 'The Costs of Discipleship'.

Someone might suffer because of a decision to serve as a missionary in a dangerous place, another might suffer as a consequence of failings or of sinfulness. There is noble suffering but there is also painful suffering that might bring a sinner to repentance.

I have yet to work through the suffering that comes with the loss of a Son but I come to rely on the guidance of Paul and the Gospels that all suffering leads to repentance and rebirth and brings with it the potential for us in God's good time to be moved in the direction of the Glory that is promised.