The Bible says that we are children of God. Did you know that we are all also children of Charlemagne?

Yes, it's true. All of us are descendants of Charlemagne, distant relatives of this master of Western Europe known as "Charles the Great." He was born in 742, ruled as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, and worked tirelessly to spread commerce, education, and Christianity.

If you're a person of European ancestry, you've got his royalty in your blood.

But how can this BE? There are hundreds of millions of us, and only one Charlemagne. It seems so unlikely that we are ALL related to this emperor.

The secret is our shared genetic material.

Think for a minute about how many ancestors you have. Sure, you know that you have two parents and four grandparents, but as you go back in time the numbers grow quickly: You have eight great-grandparents, 16 great-great-grandparents, 32 great-great-great-grandparents. Go back 40 generations, or about a thousand years, and each of us has, theoretically, more than a trillion direct ancestors. And since our family trees are not independent, but are naturally going to overlap and intersect, we are all swimming in the same genetic pool. At some point, we're all sharing the same genetic material! We're family … like it or not!

But how do we connect to Charlemagne? According to The Atlantic Monthly magazine, we are linked to him through a common ancestor in Europe. Almost all of us have European blood, even if we come from African or Native American ancestry, because of the long history of intermarriage in the New World. Our European blood connects us to the most recent common ancestor of every European - a single man or woman who lived around the year 1400, according to statisticians. This common ancestor, a member of every European's family tree, was swimming in Charlemagne's genetic pool, and so it is through this person that every one of us has a connection with Charlemagne.

Now I know that I am describing a complex web of relationships, and all this talk of common ancestors is rather mind-boggling. But it is important for us to realize that we are all connected. In fact, statisticians can demonstrate that these links exist on a worldwide scale as well. The most recent common ancestor of all six billion people on earth today probably lived just a couple of thousand years ago. Through this single person we can all trace our family ties back to Confucius, Nefertiti, and just about any other ancient historical figure who ever lived.

At some point, all six billion of us are family. American, Iraqi, Brazilian, Ghanaian, Chinese. We all share some of the same genetic material. (Steve Olson, "The Royal We," The Atlantic Monthly, May 2002, 62-64)

In today's Scripture lesson from the First Letter of John, a very different kind of family is described. This family is not made up of people who trace their lineage back to Charlemagne or to Confucius, but is composed of those " who have been born of God" (1 John 3:9). These folks have been born not of flesh but of spirit, they have been born "not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God" (John 1:13). And yet, at the very same time, it has to be said that they do, in fact, share the same genetic material. There is something within them that makes them all part of the same family: Children of God (1 John 3:1).

So what are the characteristics of this particular spiritual gene pool?

For starters, we members of this family have the very same father, the one Lord God. As you know, it's often said that "you can't choose your parents" … and in the family of God this is certainly true. We have not chosen God, but he has chosen us. We did not first call God "Father"; instead, he first called us his children. We have not earned a spot in this family by our good deeds or by our noble thoughts or by our winning ways, but by one thing, and one thing only: The generous love of God the Father (v. 1).

The actress Jeanette George tells the story of a woman and her baby, flying home on a very turbulent flight. Every time the baby cried, the young mother fed the baby a little fruit and a little orange juice, but because the flight was so bumpy, everything that went down immediately came back up. At the end of the flight, the carpet was a mess, and the baby looked awful.

At the gate was a young man who had to be Daddy: White pants, white shirt, and flowers. Jeanette George thought to herself, "He's going to run to that baby, get one look … and keep running!"

Of course, he didn't. He grabbed the messy baby, held her against his white shirt, and whispered loving things in her ear. All the way to the luggage claim area, he never stopped hugging and kissing that baby, stroking her hair, welcoming her back home.

Jeanette George asked herself, "Where did I ever get the idea that my Father God is less loving than a young daddy in white slacks and white shirt?" Our God has chosen to make us his children, and he is going to embrace us and accept us with open arms, no matter how messy we are. (Jeanette Clift George, "Dad Meets the Messy Baby," Men of Integrity, January 18, 2000, www.christianitytoday.com/moi/2000/001/jan/18.18.html)

Another characteristic of the family of God is that it is made up of people who are always growing and developing and maturing. What we are becoming is not yet completely clear, but John tells us that when our growth is finished we will be like God's son Jesus (v. 2).

Growing in the image of Christ means finding new ways to share the gospel, speak the truth, serve the poor, heal the sick, and bind up the brokenhearted. It means walking the self-denying, cross-carrying path of discipleship, and following Christ's example of eating with outcasts, forgiving sinners, loving enemies, and turning the other cheek. It means swimming in the gene pool of Jesus, opening ourselves further to the movement of the Holy Spirit, and allowing ourselves to become ever more effective channels for the ever-flowing love of God.

I saw such a beautiful example of this last week, when Carrie Yearick and I took Jen Thalman out to lunch. Jen is a woman who grew up in this church, took part in youth group activities and mission trips, and then went off to college and started a teaching career. Now she has responded to the call of God to become a Presbyterian volunteer in mission in Guatemala. She will be teaching illiterate women to read, so that they can finally read the Bible for themselves, and will also be helping them to protect themselves from domestic violence. She will continue to grow in the image of Christ as she shares the gospel, serves the poor, and binds up the brokenhearted.

But Jen does not see this work as a purely personal venture. She feels such gratitude to this congregation for planting the seeds that eventually grew into full-time mission work. She says that every high school mission opportunity you gave her, every dollar you put in the offering plate, every bag of mulch you bought in a mission fundraiser, helped to lead her down the path toward becoming a volunteer in mission.

She simply wouldn't be where she is without you -- the members of the family of God. So thank you for helping her to grow and develop, and I challenge you to keep supporting the missions of the church. You just never know which young person's life you are going to transform.

A final feature of life in God's glorious gene pool is a commitment to purity and righteousness. In today's passage of Scripture, John challenges us to purify ourselves, because God is pure (v. 3), and he calls us to strive to do what is right, because God our Father is righteous (v. 7). The goal of everything we say and do is the advancement of God's goodness and justice, based on the vision we have of God's everlasting kingdom.

But hold on, wait a second: I think we need to give ourselves a quick " reality check." How can we EVER achieve a purity and righteousness that approaches God? We may be children of Charlemagne, sure, but none of us is as powerful as an emperor. And although we may be children of God, none of us is as pure and perfect as the one Lord God Almighty.

The key is good genetic material, and good divine parenting. God "is at work in you," says Paul to the Philippians, "enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure" (2:13). God is at work IN us, insists Paul, always at work in us -- this is the secret to any spiritual success. As Christians, we need to realize that our progress toward purity and righteousness is never an isolated human activity, but is instead a response to God's action in our lives. We cannot reach maturity on our own, any more than children can grow into healthy and responsible adults without good genes and good guidance. Like mothers and fathers who conceive and nourish and nurture and support their children, God is always working to mold us into the kind of people he wants us to be. The initiative is never ours -- it is always God's!

So let's feel good about our family tree. Just as everyone in the world is descended from Nefertiti and Confucius, everyone in the church is related to one gracious and loving Heavenly Father. Everyone in the church is also related to Jesus, the one whom we say in our mission statement is the one who " connects us to God and one another." Go ahead and pick up your worship bulletin, right now, and look at the mission statement which is printed at the top of the first page every week. It says that we are a Community of Faith sent to "Experience the Christ who connects us to God and one another."

That's powerful. That's profound. I hope you'll take it with you. It means that we're connected, people and God. It means that we're family. It means that we share the spiritual genes of God's own Son Jesus, and that we have the opportunity to grow in the faith right along with every other follower of Christ who has ever lived.

Charlemagne can keep his crown. We're children of an even greater king.

Amen.

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