I. God's Other Children

God’s Other Children

 

This article introduces a series about members of God’s family whom we do not know. I will be posting these every week for the next few months. My hope is that they will enlarge our view of Christ’s church and stir us to greater unity and mission. 

 

Most of us have never met these other children, though they number in the millions. They have remained out of our line of vision, as though living in a separate world. Of special interest to us as Christians is the simple logic that as they are God’s children, they are our brothers and sisters. We may be strangers, but the DNA is the same. In our family, the church, there shall be no barriers, but the reality is that we have been lazy about looking over the fence to notice these other children. 

 

Let me set the scene by taking us to a probate office in Virginia. I was there with my sisters shortly after our mother died to begin processing her will. All went pro forma until the officer asked us a totally unexpected question: “Did your mother have any children other than those in your family?” Well, the answer was easy (“No!”), as were our amused reactions.

 

God has a different answer. “Yes, I do.” His answer unsettles us, bringing reactions of shock and curiosity. The shock would almost be embarrassment.  Should we not know these people who are so dearly loved by God? The curiosity would urge us to find out who they are. What are they like, why are they out of sight, and how can we get to know them?

 

Actually, Jesus tells us who they are. He names them in his parable of “The Sheep and the Goats.” As he tells it, he counts himself as included in four groups. The first one he mentions are those who are hungry. In the astonishing but heavenly logic he tells us that when we have fed them, it is as if we have fed him! If Jesus is found as one of the hungry, then the hungry are his family. The connection fixes the hungry as brothers and sisters of our Lord. They are kin to him as they are to us.   

 

He extends this privileged relation to the others whom he mentions in the parable. These would be: the poor, the strangers (refugees), and the captives (slaves). There are three other groups included: the persecuted, since their persecution comes by bearing his name; children, for to them belongs the Kingdom of Heaven; and those who have yet to hear the gospel, since the believers will be adopted as his children as we have been. 

 

This makes seven groups where we find God’s other children: the hungry, the poor, refugees, slaves, children, the persecuted, and those still unreached. God pledges himself to be the protector of his children, promising to bring justice to their oppressors and the defeat of all their enemies. 

 

Within these groups that Jesus identifies with, he doesn't distinguish those who ultimately follow him and those who don't. That means we can look at them all as God's children and leave their future to him.

 

 

Over the next few months I will be profiling these brothers and sisters. I will relate how they face abuse and oppression, violence and exploitation. I will also recount tales of their courage, witness, and hope.  We will find them in brick kilns and brothels, on the streets and in camps, in their homelands of North Korea and Syria, as well as places of refuge like Greece and Sweden.

 

My sources are some who have escaped and testified to these experiences, and also workers and friends who serve them and share their plights. Several agencies are advocates and supporters of these children. They provide essential insights and facts. Reading accounts from all of these has been a humbling experience for me. 

 

God’s children bring double sorrow to him. First, these other children live in distress—in hardship, separation, and affliction. By God’s mercy their faith has brought the compensation of storing up treasures in heaven, while in the midst of the world that hates them.  Second, we live out our faith as best we can but without much discomfort, while making payments on things that moth and rust corrupt and thieve break in and steal. 

 

If we can envision a family gathering that could somehow bridge places and circumstances, our role would be to listen and learn. Our natural reaction would be to want to help, to find ways to marshal our resources, to engage our entrepreneurial skill and help. To our faith God wants us to add virtue, and to virtue knowledge. With these qualities, I believe the motivation is there and we would step forth.  

 

What will make our heavenly Father gladder, though, would be a double exchange, one that also moves riches from them to us. We do anticipate that heavenly feast where we will be seated together and served family-style. If that experience can be a mirror of how we have lived here on earth, we would have much surprise and joy. 

 

As God’s children show unity in truth, mission, and faith, the world will see God more clearly. We will become a living illustration of that venerable expression from Ephesians, “to live to the praise of his glory.” We will better share his likeness, love with his love, and see shades of his glorious majesty. In the bonds of that mutual love, God will have a people through whom he is able to do far more than we can desire or think. In the life of that church, mercy and truth will meet, righteousness and peace will kiss. 

 

I do hope that my weekly postings will assist those bonds and that witness.