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That most famous of our Disciples of Christ preachers, Fred Craddock, tells a story to start our reflections on this morning’s scripture reading.

“In a certain village the school bell rang at 8:30 a.m. to call the children to class. The boys and girls left their homes and toys reluctantly, creeping like snails into the school, not late but not a second early. The bell rang again at 3:30 p.m., releasing the children to homes and toys, to which they rushed at the very moment of the tolling of the bell.

This is how it was every day, with every child except one. She came early to help the teacher prepare the room and materials for the day. She stayed late to help the teacher clean the board, dust erasers, and put away materials. And during the day she sat close to the teacher, all eyes and ears for the lessons being taught.

One day when noise and inattention were worse than usual, the teacher called the class to order. Pointing to the little girl in the front row, the teacher said, ‘Why can you not be as she is? She comes early to help, she stays late to help, and all day long she is attentive and courteous.’

It isn’t fair to ask us to be as she is,’ said one boy from the rear of the room.

And an orphan will find some kind of family. We have to or we shrivel up. An orphan will find some kind of family, some kind of teacher, some kind of parent. It’s not always where you would expect.

Families are central to our being human. In our age, we rightly bemoan absentee fathers…and kids running wild on their own recognizance. We decry the lack of quality family time. And when it comes to those children that have been so rebellious or so mistreated that the government has taken them from their natural homes to live in – often a series of- foster homes, our eyes turn down, knowing in our hearts that the prognosis for that child is not good at all!

But you know, for some of those kids the broken welfare system does work. It works for those who learn to make their own wholesome families… out of whoever they can cobble together. It is a kind of miracle.

As all families are, I suppose. The old TV show “Leave It to Beaver” still runs on syndication here every week, a testament to our undying hope in the mythical, nearly perfect, nuclear family which is still our model. The reality of family is most often so much more trying.

But I’m not cynical about family. As a friend who pastors a church in New Jersey puts, “Many families are good, but other families are good enough.” Thank God for them, too, because everyone needs a family. And not just any family.

Eph. 1:3-5 “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children…”

So if I’m hearing Paul right, that means that we all are family, one big family, one very non-traditional family! We are all brothers and sisters, but it is important to note, we are all adopted. Every one of us in the same boat. None of us has some hereditary claim, whether Jew, Christian, Muslim, Hindu, or Buddhist. We are family, we become family, as we turn to God as our common Parent. And we know from our personal experience, from the teachings of Scripture, and from Jesus’ own words, that God’s desire is that all of us children find what we each need to make family satisfying and fair, and to find life good, indeed.

Family. Those of you who are newcomers here today, may feel a bit uneasy because you are sitting next to folks

some of whom grew up in this church and never knew themselves to be anything but members here… You know what. I’ll you something that they sometimes even forget. They’re adopted, too. They belong because God invited them to be here, just exactly as God invites you to be here. No more. No less.

How many of you saw the movie, Cider House Rules, of a few years back – or read the novel of the same name by John Irving. I just saw an ad saying that it will be on cable TV again soon. I believe it takes place in the early 20^th century in an orphanage in the state of Maine. Michael Caine does a masterful job of playing the role of Dr. Larch., the director of the orphanage.

Larch is a troubled man who wrestles with his own personal demons, but nonetheless manages to develop a good, even a very good, home of sorts for his young charges. The key to his magic is what he believes their place in the world is to be; a perspective that he drums home every day by standing in the dormitory doorway and offering a day closing blessing, a benediction: “Goodnight you princes of Maine, you Kings of New England.”

Princes? Kings? Where does he get off make such outrageous claims? Dr. Larch believes it! His living, his teaching, his regular announcement take that idea and instills it in many of those youngsters.

Still the children yearn for a real, a regular home. They long for the day when someone will claim them and take them to a new, safe, normal home. In one poignant scene, a young soldier in uniform and his wife drive up to the orphanage, to look the children over and choose one for their own.

The children quickly tidy up, spruce themselves up, dress as best they can. Naturally, just one child is chosen. The others glumly mope back to the dormitory, inwardly and impatiently yearning for a next time when they will be the chosen one.

Jesus knew himself to be a chosen one, chosen by God for a special calling, a particular ministry. God was his “Daddy,” His earthly family wasn’t that important. He stunned them near the very beginning of the Gospel of Mark in chapter 3:

Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, "Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you."

And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."

Family is finding yourself in the midst of a community—almost any strange configuration of community you can think of-- but who together know that they are living out God’s particular call to them. Being adopted into the family, provides strength and welcome, a place to rest and a place to be challenged to reach that high and holy potential. That is family. Anything less, just isn’t.

I began with a story of Fred Craddock, and now I’d like to close my remarks with another story, but unlike many of his stories that are a kind of modern day parable, this story is an historical true story.

Craddock and his wife were on vacation in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. They were eating out in a restaurant. They fell into conversation with an older man, who asked Fred what he did for a living. He told him he was a minister. The man responded by saying that a minister once did something very important for him, and pulled up a chair.

Oh no, said Fred to himself, hear it comes! And I’m on vacation! But the story the man told was fascinating....

The man said he’d been born just a few miles from that very spot. His mother had not been married to his father, and – it being a different era from today – this son of a single mother grew up as an outcast. His schoolmates ridiculed him, and he quickly learned to sit by himself at lunch and recess. Every time he went to town with his mother, he could feel the looks and the shaking of heads, and he could hear the unspoken question, “I wonder who his father is?”

“In my early teens,” the man said, “I began to attend a little church back in the mountains called Laurel Springs Christian Church. It had a minister who was both attractive and frightening. He had a chiseled face and a heavy beard and a deep voice. I went to hear him preach. I don’t know exactly why, but it did something for me. However, I was afraid that I was not welcome since I was, as they put it, a bastard. So I would go just in time for the sermon, and when it was over I would move out because I was afraid that someone would say ‘What’s a boy like you doing in a church?’

One Sunday some people lined up in the aisle before I could get out, and I was stopped. Before I could make my way through the group, I felt a hand on my shoulder, a heavy hand. It was that minister. I cut my eyes around and caught a glimpse of his beard and his chin, and I knew who it was. I trembled in fear. He turned his face around so he could see mine and seemed to be staring for a little while.

I knew what he was doing. He was going to make a guess as to who my father was. A moment later he said, ‘Well, boy, you’re a child of...’ and he paused there. And I knew it was coming. I knew I would have my feelings hurt. I knew I would not go back again. He said, ‘Boy, you’re a child of God. I see a striking resemblance, boy.’ Then he swatted me on the bottom and said, ‘Now, you go claim your inheritance.’ I left the building a different person. In fact, that was really the beginning of my life.”

“I was so moved by the story,” Craddock continued, “I had to ask him, ‘What’s your name?’ He said, ‘Ben Hooper.’

I recalled, though vaguely, my own father talking when I was just a child about how the people of Tennessee had twice elected as governor an illegitimate child by the name of Ben Hooper.”

” just as he chose us in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love. He destined us for adoption as his children”

. [Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 16.]

Many of the ideas and some of the content of this sermon is reliant on “Who’s Your Daddy?”, a sermon by Carlos Wilton delivered , June 15, 2003 at Point Pleasant Presbyterian Church.

[Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), pp. 156-157.]