Children of Adam and Abraham

Earlier this year, I heard a sermon in which the pastor said, “It’s God’s job to lock the doors and set the security system. It’s my job to be a kid.” On the 23rd of December, I came across an Instagram Reel saying that the magic of Christmas from our childhood is still within us, we just have to shed our adulthood to recapture it. I wondered what it might look like to reexperience Christmas with childlike wonder. All day, I tried to experience Christmas with fresh eyes: unaware of the stress, drama, or strain that accompanies the holiday season.

What would it be like to envision our irreconcilable differences through childlike eyes?

It is a myth of our own making that children are innocent and unlike us. We believe them to be neutral and friendly, unaware of the prejudices and irreconcilable differences that divide us. These patterns are things that happen to us, not something we are born with. In truth, children learn almost imperceptibly the differences between racial groups and sexes, who is like and unlike them. They prefer people and faces like themselves. They develop rigid rules about human behavior that soften over time.

It is an evolutionary advantage to think this way, to quickly decide who is most likely to help, and who is most likely to hurt. It is human to be this way, to pick fruit off a tree or demonize someone acting strange because we know better. We are in constant pursuit of the truth. We are in constant certainty.

The difference, then, between childhood and adulthood, is not that we make or notice differences, but the degree to which we weaponize them. Children bully one another. They pull their hair and call someone names. They spread lies that attack a person’s social network. Kids can be mean, but adults can be crueler.

We don’t just call someone names; we invent slurs and then apply systems like slavery in which a slur can justify ownership of personhood, culture, and land. We do things like free slaves and then invent an unwritten legal code that permits the hanging of a person for smiling at a White woman. We abolish unwritten laws and then rewrite the written ones so we don’t have to talk about the sins of our past and our present because it might be difficult for our children to hear that their parents were and are depraved. What can this baby, this Nazarene, do for adults and children who think this way?

The popular Christmas carol, O Holy Night, written by Placide Cappeau and Adolphe Adam reflects one idea:

Truly He taught us to love one another;

His law is love and His gospel is peace.

Chains shall He break, for the slave is our brother;

And in His name all oppression shall cease.

O Holy Night

This verse of O Holy Night has been controversial and omitted from hundreds of thousands of church services over the years, a manifestation of the reluctance, even in our churches, against difficult truths. Our tribalism, deciding who is like us and who is not, serves not just an evolutionary purpose, but also for the Jews of Jesus’ day, a religious one. Paul writes about this shift in his letter to the Galatians:

Now before faith came, we were imprisoned and guarded under the law until faith would be revealed. Therefore the law was our disciplinarian until Christ came, so that we might be reckoned as righteous by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian, for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith. As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Galatians 3:23-26 NRSVUE

In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul characterizers our shift from tribalism to unity this way:

For he is our peace; in his flesh he has made both into one and has broken down the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us, abolishing the law with its commandments and ordinances, that he might create in himself one new humanity in place of the two, thus making peace, and might reconcile both to God in one body through the cross, thus putting to death that hostility through it. So he came and proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near, for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then, you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone; in him the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

Ephesians 2:14-22 NRSVUE

The old way of tribalism, of delineating who was and was not a Child or person of God, was obliterated in Christ’s coming. All who make the choice to belong to Christ belong to His Father. There are no differences. There is nothing irreconcilable. We are one family with many parts. We are one body and one bride. We belong to each other: the salve to the free, the men to the women, the near to the far off.

Thus, as we seek to rekindle childlike Christmas wonder, we need to rekindle wonder that belongs to children of God, and not to children of Adam. Children of God claim their siblings in Christ at the risk of their own lives, while children of Adam define their enemies in order to protect themselves.

Our cruelty, though, is also not a dead thing. Believing it is is another myth of our own making. We watch the news of bombs dropping on children in the Middle East and wonder why peace is elusive for people “over there.” Meanwhile, we issue ultimatums to our friends and families, severing our relationships if they don’t meet our demands. We stop talking to our gay children. We deride our lazy coworkers, mock our politicians, and end our marriages. Because the carnage caused by our own choices looks so much different than the mass destruction we see on cable news, we trick ourselves into thinking that our destruction doesn’t matter. We habituate cruelty and hatred in our lives because everyone else has. What we misunderstand is that war, mass shootings, murder, are not esoteric concepts with no tangible cause. To convince your populace to drop a bomb on a child, you have to first convince them that the other side has no children: they are inhumane and deprave creatures.

When we picture the very worst atrocities, the massacre of millions during the Holocaust, we picture demonic sociopaths deranged and blood thirsty. We do not picture ourselves or our neighbors, living ordinary, wartime lives. We are the thing we fear. We are the thing we hate.

We may very well bring about global peace in political demonstrations and protests, but we are the sole providers of peace and war in our own lives and in the lives of those closest to us. Thomas Merton, in his book New Seeds of Contemplation writes:

Instead of hating the people you think are war makers, hate the appetites and disorder in your own soul, which are the causes of war. If you love peace, then hate injustice, hate tyranny, hate greed – but hate these things in yourself, not in another.

Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

Our power to turn the tides of oppression in intangible systems is limited, but our power to turn the tides of oppression in ourselves is limited only by our own idolatry for hatred.

The first epistle of John also wrestles with our tendency to boast about our love for God, something intangible, while making a wreck of the tangible love we can show for others:

Those who say, “I love God,” and hate a brother or sister are liars, for those who do not love a brother or sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their bothers and sisters also.

1 John 4:20-21 NRSVUE

As children, we must first recognize our sibling in the person we would rather not be related to. Then, as children, we must weaponize our egocentrism for good. Children are egocentric. Adults are too, but to a lesser degree. Egocentrism is the logical error in believing everyone thinks exactly like us; it is centering our own selves (ego) at the detriment of others’ perspectives. This is why children come off as selfish or unempathetic; they’re literally unable to take another person’s feelings into account. As adults, egocentrism might show up the same way, but we can also use it to attack ourselves. For example, if you’ve ever felt self-conscious about something you were wearing, and you stumble across two people whispering together, you might incorrectly assume they’re talking about your outfit.

There are obvious drawbacks to egocentrism, the obstinate denial of other people. But there are benefits to, intention in how we are designed. You can form an identity and opinions about the world when all you’re thinking about is yourself. In some ways, a return to thinking about our own selves, our own perspectives, our own behavior, might be beneficial. There is so much terror in the world caused by evildoers. But if we’re honest, there is just as much terror in ourselves.

As we leave the Christmas season, the celebration of a King who forfeited heaven for the misery of Earth, let us remember that the Prince of Peace did not obliterate war with his coming. In fact, his very body was fed into the political system of his day, crucified on a cross for the sin of threatening the empire. But the Prince of Peace did make a way for systems of oppression to cease for children of God who serve as peacemakers.

Christ gave up comfort to be God with us. What sacrifices are we willing to make now that Christ is in our midst? What comforts need to be forfeited to bring about peace in our households, families, neighborhoods, and nations?

You cannot heal the divisions across the world or solve global conflicts or bring peace to the peaceless. But you can, today, right now, seek reconciliation with those you have severed. You can remember that you yourself were irreconcilable to God so He came down to be among us and reconcile us back to Him. You can offer forgiveness despite the profound and painful wrongdoing. You can offer mercy and grace despite the foolishness of another. God is with us, right now, moving and breathing. That should change us. Don’t let this tiny baby come and go. Grab ahold of his mercy and share it with everyone you know.