The man who began his letter by identifying himself as a slave …
‘Paul, a slave of Jesus Christ’ …
and who has at times in his epistle called his readers to be …
‘slaves of justice’ …
comes to the heart of his correspondence by writing …
‘For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear,
but you have received a spirit of adoption …’
Slaves of Christ, even slaves of justice, but for those very reasons, not captivated by a spirit of slavery.
Obviously the apostle is playing with this (and many other) metaphors in this letter.
If he has taken us back to the story of Abraham in chapter five,
and then to the primeval story of Adam in chapter five,
and from there to story of traversing exodus waters in chapter six,
then here in chapter eight he will deepen and broaden what that exodus story,
indeed, the whole biblical story, is all about.
And it comes down to whether we are slaves or children,
whether we are illegitimate bastards or adopted sons and daughters,
whether we are motherless children or cry out ‘Abba, Father,’
whether we have nothing or we are heirs of promise,
recipients of the whole world.
The stakes are high.
Jamie Howison knows something about being a bastard.
You see he was also once a bastard.
But he is now an adopted son.
So we’ve invited this one-time bastard to come and preach for us at Wine Before Breakfast this week.
Jamie is the pastor of st. benedict’s table in Winnipeg,
and has come to Toronto to share out of his experience in that community.
We kick off the week with Jamie on Monday night at 7.00 with an “Urban Remixed” event at Church of the Redeemer that we are calling,
Room at the Table: Urban Ministry from Imagination to Justice.
Members of the Wine Before Breakfast bandhood will be helping to lead that event.
Everyone is, of course, most welcome.
Heck there are even refreshments!
And then on Tuesday morning, we’ve invited Jamie to preach at Wine Before Breakfast on being bastards or children (or anything else he wants to say arising out of the first half of Romans 8).
Jamie will be doing a bunch of other stuff for Wycliffe and Trinity throughout the week, but he concludes his time in Toronto at Graduate Christian Fellowship on Thursday evening (dinner at 6.00, discussion around 7.15 or so) by talking about Christian disciplines, especially for Advent. This would be a great way to prepare for Advent.
So it is a busy week for Jamie Howison, and a busy week for our campus ministry community.
I hope to see you on Tuesday morning and perhaps at other events with Jamie throughout the week.
Slaves, bastards, children, those who belong and those who aren’t so sure, are all invited!
In Christ,
Brian
Wine Before Breakfast
Tuesday, November 27 @ 7.22am
Wycliffe College Chapel