We Are All Joseph

Just past Independence Day is a good time to take stock of dependency. We depend upon the very air we breathe, the Sun that grows our food, the light from the Moon, the water we drink. We also depend upon something more, for we also depend upon our Creator. We may not know this Creator, and we may not believe in our Creator, but there it is. We are created and so depend upon our Creator to have created us so that will, belief and even hope can be, or not, related to and intrinsic to our thoughts of our very status as a product of Creation.

In the Beginning...there was the Word, there was the Creator of the Word, and there was the Word made flesh. The very substance of belief in those words. That is, belief in a Creator. That Creator made us, all of us, sons and daughters of His own. Our Creator sent us a Son, the very Substance of that Creation, as are all of us, and made us in that moment of infusion of life, the very spark of Creation. Bright eyes, bright soul, bright future, bright light. We are. We are created.

Sometime back there was a Chosen People announced. A tribe of sub-tribes, clans and groups. Chosen. Headstrong, stubborn, stiff-necked. Trust me, I am not speaking of Presbyterians, the stiff necked of the Reformation.

And then, long before John Calvin, we had that veil rending, earthquake causing, hypocrite caller, very embodiment of the best of Creation here on Earth with us. In a flash, he lived, died and returned. He walked among us as if he were the baker, the carpenter, the preacher, the brother we all wanted to have with us forever. Whoosh, and we were left alone, yet not alone. For in leaving, he left us not.

At his birth, this babe was adopted. The father that begat him not, took this babe into his arms, loved him and declared him his own. The one man on the planet who had not conceived this child loved the child as his own flesh. As such, a child who was not in the genealogy was in the genealogy. So to speak. Adoption does that.

Growing up, that child had brothers and sisters and playmates. Just like us. Of course, by the time we hit our third decade, few among us have disciples, but I digress. Think of them as friends with a following, fishing nets, bread baskets, and loyalty.

That child also had legends. Travel to Britain, perhaps a trip to the New World, as stint in India? Who knows for sure. And again, I digress.

Those journeys mean nothing. Centuries later, that child, the adopted son, would be known to many groups, tribes and nations. Adopted into the histories of many places and people. Adopted.

There it is again. That adoption.

Today, so many of us think of that child as so mighty, royal and highly placed, we cannot think of such a person as an adopted child. But that is what he was and is. Those of us who ignore this put ourselves in peril. We lose the point.

What? Whaddya mean we are in peril? Good of you to ask.

We forget the whole point. We forget the reason for the veil splitting in two that spring day in Jerusalem so many centuries ago. We forget the reason for the birth of that adopted child. We forget that now, rather than only the Chosen few among us, all can be part of the family by having the faith enough to adopt that once adopted baby as our own brother. And by that adoption, as happened with Joseph, it happens to us.

We adopt a child and are in turn adopted. We are adopted by faith into the Chosen Family. The Chosen Tribe. The Chosen People.

The Chosen are now redefined. It is not we who are chosen, but we who choose. It is our act of choice. And it is a choice that we must make each day. Choose me. Please choose me.

Oh, how we remember that phrase from playgrounds and pick up softball games, team sports, volleyball or Monopoly. This time, it is not we who cry out "Choose ME!"

This time it is another who cries to our very soul, adopt me. Pick me. Choose. Decide.

Of course, once done is not completely done. A good start, but not the end of the game. So to speak.

First we become like Joseph. We adopt and by our choice are chosen. Seems somehow backwards. After we are born we adopt and are adopted. Our independent choice makes us a dependent. A part of the family. A member of the tribe. A part of the Choosing People. Our choice.

Of course, once you adopt, you have to take next steps or adoption becomes a tragedy of inhuman scope. But that, as they say, is a topic for another day. For today it is but one choice to make, or not. Is adoption, the following in the steps of Joseph, who married his betrothed and adopted that son, not his? It is a choice, adoption is. It is a choice. Choose to be like Joseph, or not. Just a choice. A first choice to be sure, but a choice.

Choose wisely. The choice is yours and yours alone.