I played tennis with Jessica this morning. Afterward, while she stretched, I grabbed a basketball from our car and went next door to shoot a few hoops while we were out. Other than me, the only ones on the court were a young mom and her two elementary aged boys. I was impressed by the little one especially. Though I had been content to shoot at the shorter hoops when I was his age, this little guy was feeling bold. He repeatedly heaved the ball from his chest at the big ten-foot goal. Several shots were so close to going in that he would gasp in frustrated exhilaration, and then - feeling confident - he would call out to his mom, who had her own ball, saying - "Mom, watch me!" So many years older than him, I was struck by the distant memory of that same yearning, and thought that if my mom were there at this court, I would be too embarrassed to call out to her. After all, how many 33-year olds have you heard call out, "Mom, watch me?" Still, does that feeling ever really die? There is a deep sense of knowing who we belong to, and wanting to make them proud. "Mom, watch me!"
This makes the conversation between Jesus and the festival-goers in chapter 8 truly heartrending. Jesus is attending one of the great 'family reunions' of the Jewish faith - the Festival of the Tabernacles, or the Festival of the Booths. It is a time of national thanksgiving, and a commemoration of the gift of the Promised Land. People have gathered in Jerusalem from all over Israel to celebrate God's promises to his people. On days of celebration, passions can run hot. Especially in any discussion about Abraham, the father of the chosen people. Jesus' words actually appear quite harsh upon our reading of 8:31-59 because these people aren't totally opposed to him. They would like to believe that Jesus is telling the truth. But there is a danger and spiritual blind-spot that comes with being this close to true faith, and yet hesitant to go all the way - "When a (person) is both orthodox and self-assertive, believing the Gospel but not believing in it - a very familiar spiritual state - he is not recognizing and making acquaintance with the truth. He is probably quite unconscious that he is in any bondage. He may preach the Gospel of redemption to others, and never know that he needs it himself. Pharisaism is not an exclusively Jewish phenomenon. The first of our needs is to know what our first need is - to be set free from bondage; but then we must accept and confess the fact that we are in bondage, and the more complete the bondage, the less we are aware of it." (William Temple, Readings in St. John's Gospel, p. 142)
Though these folks are sincerely convinced that they are children of God by heredity, Jesus presents to them - and to us - a call to repentance - "do you really know who you belong to?" Their growing opposition to Jesus illuminates the real distance between all humanity and God, maybe especially when we believe ourselves to be so close to God.
What comes so naturally to those children in the playground is the hardest thing to learn spiritually. It is so hard that we cannot learn it. We simply do not call out to God as his children. We must submit to an adoption process. Here, John 8 is right in key with Romans 8. We only become children of God through the ministry of the one true child of God - Jesus. Through his rightful Sonship, we become children of God, heirs to his throne, and are liberated from the slavery of our sin.
But if we take him seriously and take him at his word, we are left with a most comforting phrase - "If the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed." (8:36) Think of it this way: you can try to persuade yourself that you are a child of God. You can list all of your pleasant qualities. You can repeat the words "I am a child of God" as though they were a mantra. But life can change so quickly, and so do our moods and our tempers. The wrong phone call, the wrong sequence of events can easily make any of us perfectly unpersuasive - even to ourselves. But if Jesus speaks to you, he will tell you what freedom really means - freedom from wickedness, vanity, greed, and selfishness, and freedom for giving, loving, respecting, trusting, forgiving, renewing, and growing. We are destined to be kings and queens - real, live children of God. If he persuades you with his own righteousness and beauty, you will be set free.
Quite simply, none of us can set ourselves free. Only Jesus - the truth, the one on whom we depend for both our existence and our salvation - can set us free.
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