I’m not adopted: my parents had nine home-grown children, and I’m the fifth. Normal birth. Two parents, married and monogamous, fertile. Still, I have wrestled with the idea of adoption for decades, with a restless that suggests a semi-conscious tension about my own identity. For some reason, I really desperately want to know that adoption works, that it is a real and enduring relationship, not just a temporary social construct, like getting into the gifted and talented program at school.
So I find it personally comforting to read the most boring section of the New Testament: the genealogy of Jesus. One part of the repeated and immensely significant identity of Jesus is that he was a “son of David.” And the genealogy asserts that Jesus was descended from David through Joseph, his foster-father, not through Mary, his mother. The statement that Jesus is a “son of David” includes, in the background, the assumption that adoptions, or even foster-parent arrangements, succeed, are real. To put it negatively (to assert the contrapositive), if foster parents aren’t “real” parents and adoptive parents aren’t “real” parents, then Jesus is not really a “son of David.” If I am confident that Jesus is the son of David (and I am), then adoption is real.
What comes out of this? Jesus, who was described in John’s Gospel as “the only begotten son of God,” has invited us to address God as our “Father.” What does that mean? We aren’t begotten by God. So is this a delightful metaphor, or is it something real? If this invitation is to become a reality, then we will have to be adopted. Adoption has to work, has to be a solid and lasting reality. Or, to put it another way, in order to pray the prayer that Jesus taught, in order to grasp that God is indeed my father, I need to believe that adoption works.
If adoption works, then migration is a no-brainer. Families share genes, and bringing someone into a family means crossing over a boundary that is objective, measurable, specific, concrete: an adopted child does not have the same genes as his siblings. But national boundaries are made up. If adoption works, then incorporating immigrants into society is a piece of cake.
I mean, if I am a child of God (adopted), and this stranger from El Salvador or Peru is also a child of God (adopted), then we are brothers and sisters (for real). And if we are brothers and sisters, then how can I reject these strangers, firmly and even angrily: “I am an American, and you are not! Go away, go home, go to hell!” How can this person be a member of my family, but not welcome in my nation? What kind of family are you from? What kind of family do you think God is trying to run?
I fathered three biological children in my first marriage, and then, after divorce and several years of singularity, I contracted Hodgkins Disease and as a result lost my ability to generate any more children. I then remarried, and we wanted children. The big and very deep question was: could I adopt a fourth child and feel just as completely the familial ties as I did with the first three?
ReplyDeleteI was sure that the answer was Yes. And now, over 19 years later, I assure you that this remains the answer. Love is not flesh-bound.
I enjoy your thoughts, and the rhythm of your writing. Love is not flesh-bound!
DeleteWell, I really hate that I am poking at your essay. But here goes: I'm pretty sure I've heard from someone much more knowledgeable than me that Mary was from the Davidic line, too. I've been wondering about evidence for that lately, too, so I'll check.
ReplyDeleteVery thought-provoking here, especially from an adoptive mom's perspective. From that perspective, I can tell you that adoption works! Then again, my children might not agree, especially since they can't have all the material possessions they think they need.
However, it seems that the parent/child relationship is defined by the parents and not by the children's acceptance/rejection of it. I'm thinking that the parents as creator/maintainers of the parent/child relationship is what is modeled by God's adoption of us. He creates us, adopts us (if we are lucky enough to be Baptized!) and remains our Father, even if we reject Him. Wow. Sorry to be wordy and probably unclear, but I'm stealing time from my kids.
Please poke. What breaks wasn't truth.
DeleteIt may well be true that Mary was of David's line. Actually, 80 generations later, we may ALL descended from David by some tangle. But the point is, Matthew identified Jesus by reference to Joseph's ancestry.
Nobody can have all the material possessions they think they need. Nearly every thing we get arrives packaged with geometrically expanding desires. But your children live with music!