mothers day and the sacramental work of adoption
In the divine economy of god, biological parenthood is just as legitimate as being an adopted parent
Over the past two years, my monthly column in Sojourners has touched on several key aspects of my identity: Indianness, disability, evangelicalism, and more. But one foundational piece of identity I hadn’t yet covered was my experience as an adoptee.
I wasn’t sure if a moment would arise when I could write a piece on adoption. My thoughts on the subject—socially, politically, theologically—were scattered and lacked a necessary throughline.
But, after watching a viral clip from Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R.-Ga.). essentially demand that an adoptive parent denounce her status as a mother, I immediately opened my email and drafted a pitch to my editor.
As I mentioned in a recent piece, I don’t make a habit of letting divisive and outlandish rhetoric take up much space in my mind. Those who speak solely to stir up controversy are not worth engaging.
Yet, Greene’s words, which were intended to promote hate, helped me to finally write a piece I had been longing to write. Even more, this piece was not written out of rage or anger, but a deep love for God, my family, friends who are fostering children, and the adoptive families I have had the privilege of knowing.
You can find the full piece on Sojourners’ website, but here are a few excerpts:
This unlikely combination of names was forged through adoption. Before I was a year old, I was ushered across the world from a cradle in Northern India to a new home in Green Bay, Wis. My body and soul were nourished and cared for by my parents who loved me and claimed me as their own kin long before we ever met face to face. (It is important to acknowledge here that not all experiences of adoption and foster care reflect this).
I am not a second-tier child to them, and they are not substitutionary parents to me. I am proud of both my names. I am not one without the other.
…
For the Christian, our divine adoption into the family of God is the precondition for our salvation. In the opening words of Ephesians, Paul reminds his audience that they have been blessed “in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” just as God chose them “in Christ before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless before him in love” (1:3-4). Paul continues: “He destined us for adoption (huiothesia) as his children through Jesus Christ, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of his glorious grace that he freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace that he lavished on us” (v. 5-8). Without biological necessity, God’s divine adoption of us makes our position as children of God and joint heirs with Christ legitimate (Romans 8:17).
Paul makes a similar claim in his letter to the Galatians when he explains that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children” (4:4-5) In other words, it is our adoption in Christ that makes redemption possible. If our adoption is illegitimate, so is our salvation.
…
However, when at its best, the practice of adoption offers us a sacramental participation in Christ’s redemptive action in the world. In a constructive essay on social movements and spiritual motherhood, Joshua and Chelsea Bombino articulate another sacramental practice: wombing. Identifying the wombing work of God, the authors draw from the gestational process of biological mothers to speak to a spiritual reality found in the Bible. In a podcast episode on the same topic, the Bombinos also draw heavily from the image of God as our mother who wombs us within Godself. This is not a biological wombing (rekhem), but it is a compassionate one (rakhum). In the divine economy of God, biological parenthood is just as legitimate as being an adopted parent.
…
Adoption allows us to bring near to us those who hold in themselves the kingdom of God (Luke 18:16). By invoking the language of “sacramental” here, I am naming the ongoing dialectic between the ordinary and the theological. As a sacramental practice, earthly adoption does not hold the same consequences or eternal import as our salvific adoption in Christ. However, these two realities can speak into one another. This is what a life marked by the sacramental looks like: finding spaces where the ordinary, mundane things of life are instilled with a greater sacred significance of liberation and love; and, in return, point us to divine realities that we are invited to participate in.
…
The theological and practical implication here is that adoption is not a secondary status of parenthood or childhood. Families that include adopted children are not of a lesser tier. God’s eternal adoptive work makes legitimate our adoptive work, even while the consequences of this adoption operate on different scales. In other words, just as our adoption in Christ makes us children of God, so too does familial adoption make Randi Weingarten a mother and my own mom a mother.