Those of you who followed our World Champion Boston Red Sox last season will recognize the title of this morning’s sermon. “Who’s your Daddy?” became the chant of New York Yankees fans last fall whenever the Bronx Bombers played our soon-to-be World Champion Boston Red Sox. It all began with Pedro Martinez, a pitcher on last year’s World Champion Red Sox team. Frustrated after losing a second time to the Yankees in late innings during the close division race, he commented: “I just tip my hat and call the Yankees my daddy,” implying that the Yankees were his "master" or that they owned him.

Well, we know which team ultimately prevailed. But I think the question “Who’s Your Daddy?” is good one for this Father’s Day, and I’d like to begin by sharing with you a story from noted preacher Fred Craddock.¹ :

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 families 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 families and toys, to which they rushed at the very moment the bell sounded.

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 and put away supplies. And throughout the day, she sat close to the teacher, all eyes and ears for the lessons being taught.

One day when the 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’t you be more like her? She comes early and stays late to help, and all day long she is attentive and courteous.”

The room fell silent for moment, and then one of the students spoke up from the back of the class. “It isn’t fair to ask us to be like her; she has an advantage,” the boy protested.

“What’s her advantage?” asked the puzzled teacher.

“She’s an orphan,” he replied in a whisper as he sat down.

The orphan girl in this story looked to her teacher to stand in for her missing parents, because she knew that family is where you make it. Many of us are blessed to be born into families with mothers and father and brothers and sisters. Others of us are blessed to be adopted into loving families. And in some cases, children have to look to people like teachers and coaches to stand in for missing family members.

But when it comes to being part of the family of Christ, it doesn’t really matter whether you are raised in a classic, TV-sitcom, “Father Knows Best” kind of family, or in a one-parent household, or in a blended family, or even in a foster home. That’s because as children of God, we are all adopted.

That’s what the apostle Paul is saying in this morning’s lesson from Romans: “For … you have received a spirit of adoption.” We’re not born Christians; we’re adopted into the faith. It is as if at our baptism, God signs our adoption papers.

When Paul speaks of adoption, he has a very specific image in mind. Paul was a scholar not only of Jewish law, but of Roman law as well. He and his Roman audience knew that, in the Roman empire, family ties were all-important. Moreover, Roman society was rigidly patriarchal. The family you were born into – or, more to the point, who your father was – made all the difference.

But there was a way around it – adoption. A man other than your birth father could adopt you, and it was permanent and for all time; nothing could undo it. The boy or young man who was adopted – and it usually was a male -- became a child of the adoptive father in every sense of the word. Being adopted could not only change your life, it could change history. For instance, the Emperor Claudius adopted Nero so he could succeed him on the throne. Paul is saying that, in the same way, being a Christian – being adopted into God’s family -- is forever and always, and it can change your life.

In Roman adoption, the old life of the adopted person was completely wiped out; he was regarded as a new person entering into a new life. And Paul says the same thing happens when we are baptized. Earlier in his letter to the Romans [6:3-4], Paul speaks of baptism using the dramatic image of dying and rising as a new creation in Christ. And when we celebrate the sacrament, the water, words, and actions convey this idea of rebirth and new life.

But Paul’s imagery doesn’t stop there. In Roman adoption, the child adopted stood to inherit the father’s property in equal portion with the father’s natural children.² Paul reflects this in the next verse: “When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ...” [Romans 8:15-17a].

We are not only “children of God,” but also “heirs.” You and I are written into the will, so to speak, and the inheritance we will receive one day, by God’s grace, is eternal life.

The adoptive relationship we Christians have with our God is like a child to a parent. And the relationship is so close, so loving and devoted, that Paul uses an intimate form of address, “Abba,” which is a term of endearment from the Aramaic language, which Jesus himself spoke. “Abba” means not “Father,” but “Dad” – maybe even a young child’s “Daddy,” some scholars think. Paul is saying that when Christians pray to God, we’re not writing a formal business letter to some impersonal bureaucrat somewhere far away. We are addressing a Father who dearly loves and cherishes us, who wants to be personally involved in our lives, and who is always close at hand.

I began with a story from Fred Craddock, and I’d like to end with another one. A number of years ago, Craddock and his wife were on vacation in the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. While they were eating out in a restaurant, they fell into conversation with an older man, who mentioned that a pastor had once done something very important for him. The man explained to the Craddocks that he had 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 – he 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 his early teens, that man began attending a little church in the mountains. He enjoyed the pastor’s preaching although he was afraid that he would not be welcome because he didn’t have a father. So he would go just in time for the sermon, and when it was over he would leave before anyone could say to him, ‘What’s a boy like you doing in church?’

One Sunday after worship, before he could get away, the boy felt a heavy hand on his shoulder. It was that pastor, and when he looked at him, the boy trembled in fear, dreading that the pastor would take a guess at who his father was. Then the pastor began to speak: “Well, boy, you’re a child of...” and then the pastor paused. The boy knew what was coming; he knew it would hurt and he would never be able to go back to that church. The pastor began again. “Boy, you’re a child of -- God. I see a striking resemblance.” Then he patted the boy’s shoulder and said, “Now, you go and claim your inheritance.”

The boy left the building a different person. He was to say later that his interaction with that pastor marked the real beginning of his life. The boy’s name was Ben Hooper, and he grew up to become the Governor of Tennessee.

The Apostle Paul tells us: “For You have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ...” [Romans 8:15-17a].

On this Father’s Day, we celebrate and give thanks for our earthly Daddies and we also give thanks for God our Father, our “Daddy” in Heaven.

“Who’s Your Daddy?” You know who it is; you are each a beloved child of God. Now go and claim your inheritance. Amen.

¹Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories (St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2001), p. 16.
²Daily Study Bible: Romans, Romans 8:12-17 (Edinburgh: St. Andrew Press, 1975).

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