(Please read this Scripture passage first, before the homily.)
I look at a picture of myself at my age and I see my Dad when he was this age. I fancy myself as following in his footsteps, which is probably an inflation of what I really do. I have this insight on human behavior from my experience, that all of us want to emulate our parents and have them proud of us. I have works with teenaged boy scouts and teenaged youth who have committed felonies and I find the same thing, that they all want approval from their parents.
This brings me to the letter to the Ephesians. Since we are God’s children, God must be our parent. If we truly are God’s children, then, of course, we want to imitate and be like God, our parent. Even if we are spiritual felons or sinners, we want and need God’s approval.
We have an example. Christ loved us and handed himself over for all of us as a sacrificial offering to God. Christ has shown us how to love. He came to earth and identified himself with us humans. He became our brother, a member of our human family so that he could make us members of his divine family.
This is what love is about. It is about including in our love all the members of our family. We learn how to love parents and sibling in our human family. We learn whom to love in our divine family from the example of our biggest brother, Christ.
Since all people are called into God’s family, our love has to embrace all. It includes our white neighbors and our black ones also. It includes all Catholics and all Christians. It includes all Jewish and Muslims peoples, who worship the one God of Abraham as we also do. It includes those of other religions and all atheists. It includes citizens, our indigenous people, all minority racial groups, all people of Europe, Asia, North and South America, Africa and Oceania. In fact, it excludes no one. It also includes loving both major candidates for President.
Since we are God’s children, we are to be imitators of God and love all people. This is the challenge presented to the first hearers of this letter to the Ephesians, and is the challenge presented to us now. Be kind to one another, compassionate and forgiving. Imitate God as God’s beloved children.