"In Praise of St. Joseph and All Adoptive and Foster Parents"

Sermon for Adoption Sunday, 3rd Sunday in Advent, Dec 13-14, 1997

by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman, Presiding Bishop, United Catholic Church

Esther 2: 5-7, 15-17

Psalm 31: 2-25, Psalm 103:13

Acts 7: 17-22

Matthew 1: 18-25

A few weeks ago, on October 20th, our 18th grandchild was born. This is a picture of her. Pass it around. Maria Susanne Bowman is special in many ways, and her story fits in well with the themes of last Sunday and this Sunday. You see, Maria was born to an unwed mother, and adopted by our oldest son and his wife.

Last Sunday, we celebrated the Feast of the Unwed Mother, and we honored Mary and all unwed mothers for saying "Yes" to God and choosing life. We are particularly grateful to Maria’s birth mother, Courtney, for her willingness to do what was necessary to give life to a beautiful baby girl whom she will never get to enjoy. Giving birth and choosing adoption, so the child can have a better life, is true unselfish love at work. Thank you, Courtney.

Maria is also special because she combines at least two racial heritages, or perhaps (like Tiger Woods) even more. This racial mixing produces some of the world’s most beautiful people (like the Hawaiians, for example). But in this screwed up, self-centered society of ours, it also makes babies difficult to place for adoption.

So we should also salute the courage and sacrificial love of the adoptive parents, Rob and Cathy.

Today, the third Sunday of Advent, we in the United Catholic Church celebrate Adoption Sunday. We honor St. Joseph and all adoptive and foster parents for their willingness to raise and support and love children they did not produce. They are parents by choice, not by chance.

The act of adoption is particularly praiseworthy when, as in the case of Rob and Cathy, they already have biological children. So it’s not a case of gratifying basic instincts and needs of their own. It is selflessly meeting the needs of others.

St. Joseph, of course, is the most famous adoptive parent in history. But he’s not the only one in the Bible. In the Old Testament, there are two wonderful adoption stories.

The first reading was from the Book of Esther. It tells the story of how Esther and her adoptive father, Mordecai, save the life of the king. Together they succeed in foiling an evil plot against the Jews, and saving all the Jewish people in the kingdom from death. Because of his courage and sacrificial love in raising Esther, Mordecai’s whole people were blessed, and he became second in honor to the king. Esther, herself, savior of her people, became queen of all the land.

To be honest, it doesn’t always work out that well. Adopted children, like the other kind, can be difficult, ungrateful, know-it-all, self-righteous, lazy, selfish, and in general sources of great heartbreak. But like Esther, they can also be the instrument of salvation, joy, and great blessings. Either way (and it’s unually both), what we do as parents is probably the most influential and important work we do on earth, and it will not go unrewarded.

Our second adoption story was in Acts, chapter seven. Here, St. Stephen is preaching to the Jewish people, and relating salvation history right through to Jesus. In this part of the chapter, he is telling the story of Moses. (The full story is in the second chapter of Exodus.) This, by the way, was the sermon that got St. Stephen stoned to death as the first Christian martyr.

He reminds the Jews how Pharaoh’s daughter rescued Moses from death and raised him as her own. And Moses turned out well. He was popular among the Egyptians, and (of course) eventually saved his Jewish people from bondage and led them to the promised land.

What a debt the Jewish nation, and indeed all humanity, owe to the unnamed daughter of Pharaoh who adopted Moses, saving him so that he in turn could save his people.

Then we come to the New Testament and St. Joseph, the ultimate foster father. What a debt we owe him for sheltering and preserving the child Jesus!

Isn’t it interesting how God was able to use these three ordinary people — Mordecai, the daughter of Pharaoh, and St. Joseph — as adoptive parents to some of the most important children the world has ever seen. In all three cases, their adoptive children became saviors of the people.

Esther saved her people from death. Moses saved them from bondage and slavery. Jesus saved them from both death and bondage, and from their own sins as well.

Today’s psalm contains parts of psalms 31 and 103. You may want to read all of psalm 103 when you get home. It’s all about how wonderful God is — how good, how kind, how merciful, how patient, how forgiving, how loving, how gracious. But the author knows how inadequate all those adjectives are. So he uses an example, an analogy. He says, "You know how a father treats his children? That’s how God treats us! That’s what God is like, a father."

Think of the awesome responsibility that gives us fathers. Our job is to show our children what God is like!

Boy, can we come up short. Fortunately, God is more patient and merciful than we are.

We can take comfort in the fact that even St. Joseph came up short once in a while. He was a good man. But (thank God) no one has ever claimed he was immaculately conceived and perpetually sinless.

The scriptures don’t tell us much about him. They certainly don’t advertise his faults, like they do for poor Peter and James and John. Yet we can be pretty sure he had them. Joseph was a man — a very human man, like us. Yet Jesus turned out OK. And though it seems that Joseph passed to his reward before Jesus went to the cross, his parenthood was not without heartbreak.

Can you imagine what he was going through when they travelled for a whole day before realizing Jesus was not with them? They went back to Jerusalem and still couldn’t find him for three whole days. Now Jerusalem wasn’t exactly New York City, but it was just as depraved and perverted. Can you imagine what you would be feeling if you lost your twelve-year-old son in the big city for four days?

Joseph also had to go through the flight to Egypt. It meant being homeless, unemployed, and on the run from the authorities (sort of like being an illegal alien).

The bottom line is that Joseph, an ordinary human like us, trusted God and God used him to protect the Savior of the world. If we trust in God and let Him use us, there’s no telling what God can do — yes, even through very human and imperfect us.

Jesus was homeless. Joseph and Mary were homeless during the flight to Egypt. If you look on the back of today’s program, you’ll see that we in the United Catholic Church advertise ourselves as a "Church Home for the church’s homeless." And if it wasn’t for Bruce and Lois, who have adopted us, our church itself would be homeless. Our host church, Christ United Methodist, was ordered by its hierarchy to stop allowing us to use its facilities.

We are still looking for a church to let us use some space. The search has been complicated by the fear of several of these churches that granting us asylum would endanger their relations with the Roman Catholic Church and its local parishes. One pastor told us that this was the one and only reason he could not let us use his church. Until he spoke with a local Roman Catholic pastor, he had been very enthusiastic about sharing his sanctuary with us.

If we are being singled out for persecution, we can celebrate that fact, for Jesus told us that this was a mark of those faithful to him, that they would suffer persecution.

As God closes doors to us, allowing us to be homeless orphans, we can be confident that somewhere he is opening a window and opening hearts to adopt us. "As tenderly as a father treats his children, so Yahweh treats those who have faith in Him." Let us pray.

O God, we thank you for Mordecai, Pharaoh’s daughter, St. Joseph, and all adoptive parents who share your role as sustainer and supporter of life. We also thank you for natural parents, who share you role as creator. All of us who are parents acknowledge the responsibility you have given us. We accept and embrace it. Continue to forgive us our shortcomings in the way we represent you to our children. Shower us with your mercy and your grace, and empower us to persevere in the roles you have laid out for us.

When our children, adoptive or otherwise, cause us heartache, help us bear it, remembering that we have caused you heartache too.

We thank you for making us orphans and then adopting us as your children. You are Mother and Father to us all.

Amen.

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