The Priest Who Tipped His Hat

When Desmond Tutu was nine years old, he was walking with his mother down a street in Johannesburg. Under apartheid, Black South Africans were routinely ignored or degraded by white passersby. But that afternoon, a tall white man in a black cassock approached them — Father Trevor Huddleston, an Anglican priest. As he passed, he did something that stunned young Desmond. He tipped his hat to Tutu's mother.

It was a small gesture. A simple act of respect. But in a society that told Desmond and his mother they were less than human, it was a revelation. Decades later, Archbishop Tutu would say that moment planted a seed deep in him — the realization that someone saw his mother, and saw him, as people worthy of honor.

That is the astonishment the apostle John writes about: "See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!" In a world that assigns worth by status or usefulness, the Almighty does more than tip His hat. He calls us His own children. Not servants. Not subjects. Children.

And John says this identity is not the end of the story. "What we will be has not yet been made known." We are seeds that have only begun to sprout. When Christ appears, we shall be like Him. Until that day, we hold to the dignity already given — children of God, awaiting the moment we see our Father's face and finally become all He created us to be.