Looking inward; acting outward
Commentary
Object:
The Lenten season is a time for introspection. In the calendar of the church, it’s like New Year’s Day. We hit the pause button for ourselves and evaluate how we are spiritually. We try some spiritual exercises for ourselves. Maybe we’ve been meaning to try yoga or meditation; Lent would be a good time to start. Maybe we’ve been lax in prayer; Lent urges us to try to get in more solid touch with God.
As Pope Francis said in his Ash Wednesday sermon, Jesus calls us to step out and do for others. There is no healthy spirituality without service to others. Homeless shelters constantly need help; one of our local shelters has people come in for an evening and make bag lunches for the men for the next day. Maybe we could go shopping and deliver several complete meals to a local food pantry. Even if we are largely homebound, knitted caps and mittens and scarves are always welcome. There are a multitude of ideas and people in need. As pastors, we can lead our people into giving themselves to help others by making a few phone calls to local social service agencies and asking what they need.
Joshua is leading his people into the promises of God. This is going to be a land flowing with milk and honey, but it will also lead to wars and skirmishes for years as they settle into Canaan. Paul talks to us about the new attitude we’ll need to have to succeed in being God’s people. We can only see the work of God when we’re attuned to do so. And the parable of the Prodigal Son tells us that repentance can be real, and we can be changed. But if we’re certain that it’s others, rather than ourselves, that need to change, we probably won’t “get it.”
I received a revision of the Serenity Prayer on Facebook the other day, and it’s perfect for this Sunday: God grant me the Serenity to accept what we cannot change, the Courage to change what we can, and the Wisdom to know that that’s me.
Joshua 5:9-12
The book of Joshua is the story of the transition of the leadership of Moses to his adjutant, Joshua, and the entry of the people of Israel into the land of Canaan. Joshua would be the logical successor to Moses, having served at his side since he was a boy. He was privy to Moses’ knowledge and way of doing things in a way that no one else was. He clearly had the respect of the people. And most important, God had chosen to speak to Joshua as he had to Moses.
As they were coming into the land, they had spied on the city-state of Jericho, but they had not yet attacked the city. The people needed to be prepared for the battle. So under Joshua’s leadership, they act out the history of their journey from Egypt.
In today’s narrative they have crossed the Jordan River, but before they fully enter the land of Canaan God tells them that they must be circumcised, as their forefathers had been. So Joshua goes all over the camp and applies his knife to every man there. This is what is being referred to in verse 9 as removing (“rolling back”) “the disgrace [shame] of Egypt”: they had not been circumcised, as Abraham had been when he entered into the covenant with Yahweh. Their fathers were circumcised in Egypt, in keeping with that command, but this ceremony apparently had not been followed while they were in the wilderness. The name of the place became Gilgal, a play on the word galal,which means “to take or roll away.” Their shame of being uncircumcised has been taken away.
This play on words is the most common way for the Hebrews to name people and places. In the same way, the name Joshua is the Hebrew word for Savior (Yeshua). Joshua is the one who took up the leadership of the nation from Moses, and who will wage the wars necessary to establish the nation. As such a superhero, his name has been one of the most popular for boys for centuries -- including Jesus, which is the Greek form of Yeshua.
This story marks the end of the wandering in the wilderness and the beginning of the settled life of the people in the Promised Land. In chapter four, the priests took up the Ark of the Covenant and walked into the middle of the Jordan. As they did so, the waters parted so the people could cross the river on dry land, just as the Reed Sea had parted for Moses and the people leaving Egypt. Then they took 12 large stones and piled them up on the west bank of the River Jordan as a memorial of that miracle. Finally, just as the people partook of the Passover before they left Egypt, the Passover ends their time of wandering in the wilderness. In the future, when they celebrate the Passover, it will mark their escape from Egypt and remind them of the guiding hand of Yahweh in bringing them to the Promised Land. The next day (v. 11) the people “ate the produce of the land,” and the manna disappeared. From now on, they will not be magically fed; they will have to plant and harvest and tend to their crops in order to eat.
This business of moving into the land as God has promised and yet having a good deal of work ahead of them is a part of the Biblical story that we too often ignore. In the story of Adam and Eve we have a couple who wanted knowledge, and they get it, but it leads to sorrow and hard work. The people were enslaved in Egypt, and presumably wanted their freedom, but the difficulties of the wilderness trek and the uncertainty of knowing when and how they would find food and water led them to complain repeatedly to Moses. Slavery was hard, but they at least had had food in their hands at the end of the day.
The lesson is that with everything we yearn for there is a flip, dark side. We can have the freedom we demand, but it takes hard work to maintain that freedom. We complain about the food we have until we have nothing to eat. And every new start requires that we leave behind what we have been living with. As a painting by Mary Engelbreit says, whichever path we choose, all other possibilities, including going back, are no longer an option. There is no point in whining about it.
This is part of the reason that we have ceremonies that mark the major changes in our lives. Passover is one of those ceremonial occasions. In today’s society, weddings and funerals, confirmation and Quinceañera ceremonies, as well as New Year’s Day and Memorial Day, birthday parties and retirement parties all mark the changes that happen in our lives. The Passover in today’s scripture marks the end of the Hebrews’ wandering and celebrates their entry into the land they had been promised. And it reminds us that we too have been set free: free from enslavement to our sins, free to worship, free to tell others what God has done for us.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Paul is definitely the author of what we now call the two letters to the Corinthians. There is internal evidence in the letters that there were actually several more letters, and that what we have is a compilation put together by later editors. This shows how important Paul’s writings were to the early church. They wanted to preserve his teachings, even though parts of them may have been lost as they were sent around the various churches.
He was writing in a time when some of the original followers of Jesus were still alive. We know this from such comments as we see in v. 16: “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view” (the Greek says “according to the flesh”), meaning that the church was a mix of those who had known Jesus personally and those who came in as a matter of faith in the witness of the original disciples. Paul does not want to separate the two groups but to bring them together, to understand that they are part of the “new creation” together.
It might be an encouragement to today’s pastors to know that our problems seem to resemble the early churches’ problems. This is because the early church resided in a society much like ours today. Many people today have become cynical and there is a sense of alienation and mistrust. The threat of terrorism makes some people more accepting of brutality and torture; it can be difficult to preach love of neighbor, let alone enemies; and the effort required for reconciliation is often greeted with disdain. Paul was facing the same social background: power and position were the two great goals of life, and it was commonly held that one could and should use whatever weapons one had to achieve those goals. The corruption of the government was reflected in the behavior of Rome’s population. [See, for example, Acts 22, where the centurion, made aware that Paul claimed to be a Roman citizen, is afraid because citizens (as opposed to those over whom Rome rules) cannot be bound or flogged; he asks if Paul bought his citizenship (as the centurion had), but Paul says he was born to a citizen, which makes his status higher than the centurion’s.]
Even in this social setting, Paul insists that we “no longer view” anyone “from a human point of view” -- that is, we no longer go along with the crowd, cynically viewing others with an eye for our own gain. If we are in Christ, we are part of the new creation that Christ inaugurated. “Everything old has passed away... everything has become new!”
This is Paul’s description of what some Christians call “being born again” or “the new birth” and others call “a conversion experience.” When we become convinced that it is possible to get a new start in life because of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, anything is possible. The cynical among us don’t believe this; but God has said, again and again, that we can be other than what we have been. Even before Judea was carried away into Babylon, God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah: “Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23). This is a proverb nearly as old as time. But Jeremiah speaks for God: “Then... you can do good who are accustomed to do evil” (v. 24). God intends for us to change. This is the meaning of repentance: that we turn back from the path we are on so we can look at the face of God and be saved from the inevitable outcome of the evil -- individually and collectively -- we have done.
What must we do to achieve this possibility? We have to surrender. In many ways, we have been involved in a great battle. The world presses us to go in certain ways: to “look out for number one,” to “do unto others before they do unto you,” to “follow the money” (at the expense of family, peace, kindness, gentleness, generosity, and love [Galatians 5:22 and 2 Corinthians 6:6]). How many men have sacrificed their families so that they might advance in power within the firms where they work? How many women have thrown in their lot with a man they do not love in order to enjoy the fruits of his labor? How many parents hurt and angered their children because they have promised to spend time with them, only to break those promises to finish some project, sign another contract, sell another car or house, or pick up some overtime? We have been taught that the good life consists in things rather than people.
There are those who will object to God’s insistence that we change, saying that no one can really change. But if “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” then we know that whatever has happened to us, no matter how good or how awful, can all be used by God. When we surrender ourselves to God, sins and hopes and all, God can work miracles in our reconstruction.
Too often, we hear preachers telling their congregations that God’s anger against us because of our sins meant that Jesus had to come and die so that we might be saved from the punishment that is our due. God’s anger, they contend, must be satisfied. This puts us in the situation of saying that God the Son is at war with God the Father/Creator! But as Jesus himself said to the Pharisees, “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Matthew 12:25, Mark 3:25, and Luke 11:17). What Paul understands is that “all this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” so that our failings are no longer counted against us. Rather than coming to punish us, “God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” This is not a command, it is an urgent request.
When Paul goes on to say “he made him to be sin who knew no sin,” he is saying that the purpose of this was “that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We are not merely forgiven our sins. We are now put on a path where we are able to be righteous in a world where self-righteousness is the norm. This means that we have the responsibility to lean on God -- to learn how to bring about reconciliation rather thanwar; to help members of the same household to be kind and loving to one another; to live in a pattern of forgiveness rather than revenge.
“Well,” many people will say, “that’s ridiculous! How can you expect me to forgive my mother when she whipped me just about every day?” There are many things we can’t forgive, of course. Not of ourselves, anyway. There has been too much pain spread over too much time for us to simply let go of it all. “All this is from God...” When we avail ourselves of the enormous power of kindness, patience, gentleness, and forgiveness, God will move in us in ways we never hoped possible. If this were not the case, God would not have come to us in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. It would have been a waste of time and suffering -- on God’s part, since he was in Christ. That suffering was not inflicted by an angry God on a cooperative human. If the latter were the case, we would have no hope in Christ, because we would still be afraid of God.
Instead, God has made us “ambassadors for Christ.” Being an ambassador is a highly honored position. When the president of the United States asks a person to act as an ambassador to a foreign country, they go to the embassy in that country, which becomes, legally, the United States. What that ambassador does and says represents the United States as though our president and congress stood in that spot, and the words the ambassador speaks reflect what the president wants said. In that same way, Paul says, we represent the love God has for the world, and the reconciliation he has initiated is ours to carry out. This requires that change of heart, mind, and strength that is tied up in our conversion.
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker’s daughter during World War II. Her family built a hiding place in their home for Jews, to keep the Nazis from capturing them. Betrayed by a neighbor, she and her entire family were sent to concentration camps, and all of them died except Corrie. She was freed by a bookkeeping error. She wrote a book entitled The Hiding Place, describing the horrors of the camps and the death of her sister. Years later, after she gave a speech describing their experience, a man approached her.
“Do you remember me, Fraulein ten Boom?” Oh, yes, she remembered him. He had been a particularly sadistic guard at the camp where her sister died. He told her that he had repented of his sins and was trying to live a good life, but he hoped for her forgiveness. It would help him, he said, if she could forgive him.
Corrie stood and looked at the man. Inside herself, she asked God, “Forgive him? How can I possibly forgive this man? After all we suffered at his hands? I can’t.” But God said, “Hold out your hand, Corrie. That’s all you have to do.” So she took a breath and held out her hand. His gratitude was obvious as he grasped her hand and shook it. And suddenly, she said, she could forgive him. “I forgive you,” she said, and amazingly, she felt forgiveness toward him.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
A seminary professor I studied with said that this parable is the hardest in the New Testament for us to understand today. There are nuances that are not part of our view of the world. For example, when the younger son comes to his father and asks for his share of the property that “will belong to me,” he is asking for his inheritance while his father is still alive. This wouldn’t be acceptable behavior even today, because the son values wealth before his father. In New Testament times, the son was, in effect, wishing his father dead to his face.
Parables are not complete stories, so we know nothing about the conversation that in all probability would have been a long, drawn-out fight between the father and son. It would not be possible to give this son what he was asking for without selling part of his land, which was the only real wealth families had at that time. Nevertheless, the father draws up contracts and divides his property between his two sons. My professor, Henry Gustafson, said that in doing so, we know that the prodigal in this story is not the son, it’s the father. He is the one behaving recklessly, reducing his own situation, including the older son’s, in favor of his younger son -- an unheard-of, profligate thing to do!
The father’s actions are compounded when the younger son returns home, humiliated and hungry. He sees his son far off down the road, picks up the hems of his robe, and runs to greet the young man. No man of stature would do such a thing. He would not be seen running, for one thing; it’s not appropriate for a man of his age and position. Can we imagine seeing a member of the Supreme Court doing such a thing? He has given up his dignity for the moment, and this would be scandalous to his neighbors.
This returning son has been rehearsing his speech to his father as he was coming home. He has had enough denigration already. All he wants is to be home, to have a job, enough food, and a warm place to sleep. But here comes his father and a slave carrying a beautiful robe and sandals. When he and his father are face to face, he begins his speech. But his father cuts him off. “Thank God! You’re safely back home!” They will have a big celebration because of his son’s return, complete with a fattened calf.
Enter the older son. By his own words, we know that he has had to do the work of two sons since his brother left. Yet when this younger brother who took off with half the assets of the family returns, he is greeted with a party to end all parties. The older son is angry, and in his anger refuses to come into the house. The father, it seems, doesn’t “get it”! He begs his older son to welcome his brother back home, to come and celebrate the fact that he’s come to his senses.
The setting for this story explains it. Jesus has been teaching, and the tax collectors (read rich Wall Street bankers and brokers) and sinners (read drug dealers and prostitutes) are gathering around to listen to him. An interesting mix, yes? And here come the law-abiding and rule-making folks who were supposed to be the teachers of Judaism, and they are not a bit happy with Jesus being able to amass such a crowd of listeners. They are also unhappy that he is including in this crowd those whom most of us even today scorn: those who are not the patriots they should be; those who engage in activities we would rather see hidden; those who make their money by serving a government we have no respect for, and worse, adding fees onto taxes that are already onerous.
So this story is about those gathered together in Jesus’ teaching group. There are those who don’t deserve to be in God’s presence, and who are thoroughly excluded by the existing members of the Temple and synagogue, and then there are those who are the existing power structure.
The scribes and Pharisees are not bad people. We all know them. They are the pillars of the church! They put on dinners, participate in activities, mow the lawn, tend the boiler, run the ladies’ group and the stewardship campaign. But they don’t want a lot of new members (they’ll change things), they wish the young families would leave their babies in the nursery (children are so noisy), they are afraid of those with darker skin or foreign accents. They refuse to teach the younger members how to do some of the jobs around the church (they don’t get all the black marks out of the sinks in the kitchen, they don’t hang up the yard tools in the garage); they think that the young man who went to jail for drinking while driving doesn’t really belong in church; and they are more concerned with how so many of the young people dress when they come to church than that they actually show up; they offer criticism to the choir director and organist on performance and which hymns are chosen. They just know how things ought to be done and how they’ve always been done.
Just in case the scribes and Pharisees miss the lesson, Jesus includes the comment of the older brother: “But when this son of yours came back” -- not “my brother,” just “your son.” “Who has devoured your property with prostitutes” -- where did that come from? The prodigal was in a foreign country -- his brother couldn’t see what was doing. (Yes, Jesus says “he squandered his property in dissolute living,” but no word of prostitution -- after all, the girls are sitting right there.) That is all in the brother’s mind. So what he’s doing is making up sins for his brother to apologize for.
The point is obvious. It was this knack Jesus had, not only for making up stories but also of making a point. Unfortunately, the scribes and Pharisees, having caught his point, are going to plot to kill him. They not only do not like the message, they want to do away with the messenger.
As Pope Francis said in his Ash Wednesday sermon, Jesus calls us to step out and do for others. There is no healthy spirituality without service to others. Homeless shelters constantly need help; one of our local shelters has people come in for an evening and make bag lunches for the men for the next day. Maybe we could go shopping and deliver several complete meals to a local food pantry. Even if we are largely homebound, knitted caps and mittens and scarves are always welcome. There are a multitude of ideas and people in need. As pastors, we can lead our people into giving themselves to help others by making a few phone calls to local social service agencies and asking what they need.
Joshua is leading his people into the promises of God. This is going to be a land flowing with milk and honey, but it will also lead to wars and skirmishes for years as they settle into Canaan. Paul talks to us about the new attitude we’ll need to have to succeed in being God’s people. We can only see the work of God when we’re attuned to do so. And the parable of the Prodigal Son tells us that repentance can be real, and we can be changed. But if we’re certain that it’s others, rather than ourselves, that need to change, we probably won’t “get it.”
I received a revision of the Serenity Prayer on Facebook the other day, and it’s perfect for this Sunday: God grant me the Serenity to accept what we cannot change, the Courage to change what we can, and the Wisdom to know that that’s me.
Joshua 5:9-12
The book of Joshua is the story of the transition of the leadership of Moses to his adjutant, Joshua, and the entry of the people of Israel into the land of Canaan. Joshua would be the logical successor to Moses, having served at his side since he was a boy. He was privy to Moses’ knowledge and way of doing things in a way that no one else was. He clearly had the respect of the people. And most important, God had chosen to speak to Joshua as he had to Moses.
As they were coming into the land, they had spied on the city-state of Jericho, but they had not yet attacked the city. The people needed to be prepared for the battle. So under Joshua’s leadership, they act out the history of their journey from Egypt.
In today’s narrative they have crossed the Jordan River, but before they fully enter the land of Canaan God tells them that they must be circumcised, as their forefathers had been. So Joshua goes all over the camp and applies his knife to every man there. This is what is being referred to in verse 9 as removing (“rolling back”) “the disgrace [shame] of Egypt”: they had not been circumcised, as Abraham had been when he entered into the covenant with Yahweh. Their fathers were circumcised in Egypt, in keeping with that command, but this ceremony apparently had not been followed while they were in the wilderness. The name of the place became Gilgal, a play on the word galal,which means “to take or roll away.” Their shame of being uncircumcised has been taken away.
This play on words is the most common way for the Hebrews to name people and places. In the same way, the name Joshua is the Hebrew word for Savior (Yeshua). Joshua is the one who took up the leadership of the nation from Moses, and who will wage the wars necessary to establish the nation. As such a superhero, his name has been one of the most popular for boys for centuries -- including Jesus, which is the Greek form of Yeshua.
This story marks the end of the wandering in the wilderness and the beginning of the settled life of the people in the Promised Land. In chapter four, the priests took up the Ark of the Covenant and walked into the middle of the Jordan. As they did so, the waters parted so the people could cross the river on dry land, just as the Reed Sea had parted for Moses and the people leaving Egypt. Then they took 12 large stones and piled them up on the west bank of the River Jordan as a memorial of that miracle. Finally, just as the people partook of the Passover before they left Egypt, the Passover ends their time of wandering in the wilderness. In the future, when they celebrate the Passover, it will mark their escape from Egypt and remind them of the guiding hand of Yahweh in bringing them to the Promised Land. The next day (v. 11) the people “ate the produce of the land,” and the manna disappeared. From now on, they will not be magically fed; they will have to plant and harvest and tend to their crops in order to eat.
This business of moving into the land as God has promised and yet having a good deal of work ahead of them is a part of the Biblical story that we too often ignore. In the story of Adam and Eve we have a couple who wanted knowledge, and they get it, but it leads to sorrow and hard work. The people were enslaved in Egypt, and presumably wanted their freedom, but the difficulties of the wilderness trek and the uncertainty of knowing when and how they would find food and water led them to complain repeatedly to Moses. Slavery was hard, but they at least had had food in their hands at the end of the day.
The lesson is that with everything we yearn for there is a flip, dark side. We can have the freedom we demand, but it takes hard work to maintain that freedom. We complain about the food we have until we have nothing to eat. And every new start requires that we leave behind what we have been living with. As a painting by Mary Engelbreit says, whichever path we choose, all other possibilities, including going back, are no longer an option. There is no point in whining about it.
This is part of the reason that we have ceremonies that mark the major changes in our lives. Passover is one of those ceremonial occasions. In today’s society, weddings and funerals, confirmation and Quinceañera ceremonies, as well as New Year’s Day and Memorial Day, birthday parties and retirement parties all mark the changes that happen in our lives. The Passover in today’s scripture marks the end of the Hebrews’ wandering and celebrates their entry into the land they had been promised. And it reminds us that we too have been set free: free from enslavement to our sins, free to worship, free to tell others what God has done for us.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Paul is definitely the author of what we now call the two letters to the Corinthians. There is internal evidence in the letters that there were actually several more letters, and that what we have is a compilation put together by later editors. This shows how important Paul’s writings were to the early church. They wanted to preserve his teachings, even though parts of them may have been lost as they were sent around the various churches.
He was writing in a time when some of the original followers of Jesus were still alive. We know this from such comments as we see in v. 16: “even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view” (the Greek says “according to the flesh”), meaning that the church was a mix of those who had known Jesus personally and those who came in as a matter of faith in the witness of the original disciples. Paul does not want to separate the two groups but to bring them together, to understand that they are part of the “new creation” together.
It might be an encouragement to today’s pastors to know that our problems seem to resemble the early churches’ problems. This is because the early church resided in a society much like ours today. Many people today have become cynical and there is a sense of alienation and mistrust. The threat of terrorism makes some people more accepting of brutality and torture; it can be difficult to preach love of neighbor, let alone enemies; and the effort required for reconciliation is often greeted with disdain. Paul was facing the same social background: power and position were the two great goals of life, and it was commonly held that one could and should use whatever weapons one had to achieve those goals. The corruption of the government was reflected in the behavior of Rome’s population. [See, for example, Acts 22, where the centurion, made aware that Paul claimed to be a Roman citizen, is afraid because citizens (as opposed to those over whom Rome rules) cannot be bound or flogged; he asks if Paul bought his citizenship (as the centurion had), but Paul says he was born to a citizen, which makes his status higher than the centurion’s.]
Even in this social setting, Paul insists that we “no longer view” anyone “from a human point of view” -- that is, we no longer go along with the crowd, cynically viewing others with an eye for our own gain. If we are in Christ, we are part of the new creation that Christ inaugurated. “Everything old has passed away... everything has become new!”
This is Paul’s description of what some Christians call “being born again” or “the new birth” and others call “a conversion experience.” When we become convinced that it is possible to get a new start in life because of Jesus’ self-sacrifice, anything is possible. The cynical among us don’t believe this; but God has said, again and again, that we can be other than what we have been. Even before Judea was carried away into Babylon, God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah: “Can Ethiopians change their skin or leopards their spots?” (Jeremiah 13:23). This is a proverb nearly as old as time. But Jeremiah speaks for God: “Then... you can do good who are accustomed to do evil” (v. 24). God intends for us to change. This is the meaning of repentance: that we turn back from the path we are on so we can look at the face of God and be saved from the inevitable outcome of the evil -- individually and collectively -- we have done.
What must we do to achieve this possibility? We have to surrender. In many ways, we have been involved in a great battle. The world presses us to go in certain ways: to “look out for number one,” to “do unto others before they do unto you,” to “follow the money” (at the expense of family, peace, kindness, gentleness, generosity, and love [Galatians 5:22 and 2 Corinthians 6:6]). How many men have sacrificed their families so that they might advance in power within the firms where they work? How many women have thrown in their lot with a man they do not love in order to enjoy the fruits of his labor? How many parents hurt and angered their children because they have promised to spend time with them, only to break those promises to finish some project, sign another contract, sell another car or house, or pick up some overtime? We have been taught that the good life consists in things rather than people.
There are those who will object to God’s insistence that we change, saying that no one can really change. But if “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” then we know that whatever has happened to us, no matter how good or how awful, can all be used by God. When we surrender ourselves to God, sins and hopes and all, God can work miracles in our reconstruction.
Too often, we hear preachers telling their congregations that God’s anger against us because of our sins meant that Jesus had to come and die so that we might be saved from the punishment that is our due. God’s anger, they contend, must be satisfied. This puts us in the situation of saying that God the Son is at war with God the Father/Creator! But as Jesus himself said to the Pharisees, “a house divided against itself cannot stand” (Matthew 12:25, Mark 3:25, and Luke 11:17). What Paul understands is that “all this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ” so that our failings are no longer counted against us. Rather than coming to punish us, “God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.” This is not a command, it is an urgent request.
When Paul goes on to say “he made him to be sin who knew no sin,” he is saying that the purpose of this was “that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” We are not merely forgiven our sins. We are now put on a path where we are able to be righteous in a world where self-righteousness is the norm. This means that we have the responsibility to lean on God -- to learn how to bring about reconciliation rather thanwar; to help members of the same household to be kind and loving to one another; to live in a pattern of forgiveness rather than revenge.
“Well,” many people will say, “that’s ridiculous! How can you expect me to forgive my mother when she whipped me just about every day?” There are many things we can’t forgive, of course. Not of ourselves, anyway. There has been too much pain spread over too much time for us to simply let go of it all. “All this is from God...” When we avail ourselves of the enormous power of kindness, patience, gentleness, and forgiveness, God will move in us in ways we never hoped possible. If this were not the case, God would not have come to us in the form of Jesus of Nazareth. It would have been a waste of time and suffering -- on God’s part, since he was in Christ. That suffering was not inflicted by an angry God on a cooperative human. If the latter were the case, we would have no hope in Christ, because we would still be afraid of God.
Instead, God has made us “ambassadors for Christ.” Being an ambassador is a highly honored position. When the president of the United States asks a person to act as an ambassador to a foreign country, they go to the embassy in that country, which becomes, legally, the United States. What that ambassador does and says represents the United States as though our president and congress stood in that spot, and the words the ambassador speaks reflect what the president wants said. In that same way, Paul says, we represent the love God has for the world, and the reconciliation he has initiated is ours to carry out. This requires that change of heart, mind, and strength that is tied up in our conversion.
Corrie ten Boom was a Dutch watchmaker’s daughter during World War II. Her family built a hiding place in their home for Jews, to keep the Nazis from capturing them. Betrayed by a neighbor, she and her entire family were sent to concentration camps, and all of them died except Corrie. She was freed by a bookkeeping error. She wrote a book entitled The Hiding Place, describing the horrors of the camps and the death of her sister. Years later, after she gave a speech describing their experience, a man approached her.
“Do you remember me, Fraulein ten Boom?” Oh, yes, she remembered him. He had been a particularly sadistic guard at the camp where her sister died. He told her that he had repented of his sins and was trying to live a good life, but he hoped for her forgiveness. It would help him, he said, if she could forgive him.
Corrie stood and looked at the man. Inside herself, she asked God, “Forgive him? How can I possibly forgive this man? After all we suffered at his hands? I can’t.” But God said, “Hold out your hand, Corrie. That’s all you have to do.” So she took a breath and held out her hand. His gratitude was obvious as he grasped her hand and shook it. And suddenly, she said, she could forgive him. “I forgive you,” she said, and amazingly, she felt forgiveness toward him.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
A seminary professor I studied with said that this parable is the hardest in the New Testament for us to understand today. There are nuances that are not part of our view of the world. For example, when the younger son comes to his father and asks for his share of the property that “will belong to me,” he is asking for his inheritance while his father is still alive. This wouldn’t be acceptable behavior even today, because the son values wealth before his father. In New Testament times, the son was, in effect, wishing his father dead to his face.
Parables are not complete stories, so we know nothing about the conversation that in all probability would have been a long, drawn-out fight between the father and son. It would not be possible to give this son what he was asking for without selling part of his land, which was the only real wealth families had at that time. Nevertheless, the father draws up contracts and divides his property between his two sons. My professor, Henry Gustafson, said that in doing so, we know that the prodigal in this story is not the son, it’s the father. He is the one behaving recklessly, reducing his own situation, including the older son’s, in favor of his younger son -- an unheard-of, profligate thing to do!
The father’s actions are compounded when the younger son returns home, humiliated and hungry. He sees his son far off down the road, picks up the hems of his robe, and runs to greet the young man. No man of stature would do such a thing. He would not be seen running, for one thing; it’s not appropriate for a man of his age and position. Can we imagine seeing a member of the Supreme Court doing such a thing? He has given up his dignity for the moment, and this would be scandalous to his neighbors.
This returning son has been rehearsing his speech to his father as he was coming home. He has had enough denigration already. All he wants is to be home, to have a job, enough food, and a warm place to sleep. But here comes his father and a slave carrying a beautiful robe and sandals. When he and his father are face to face, he begins his speech. But his father cuts him off. “Thank God! You’re safely back home!” They will have a big celebration because of his son’s return, complete with a fattened calf.
Enter the older son. By his own words, we know that he has had to do the work of two sons since his brother left. Yet when this younger brother who took off with half the assets of the family returns, he is greeted with a party to end all parties. The older son is angry, and in his anger refuses to come into the house. The father, it seems, doesn’t “get it”! He begs his older son to welcome his brother back home, to come and celebrate the fact that he’s come to his senses.
The setting for this story explains it. Jesus has been teaching, and the tax collectors (read rich Wall Street bankers and brokers) and sinners (read drug dealers and prostitutes) are gathering around to listen to him. An interesting mix, yes? And here come the law-abiding and rule-making folks who were supposed to be the teachers of Judaism, and they are not a bit happy with Jesus being able to amass such a crowd of listeners. They are also unhappy that he is including in this crowd those whom most of us even today scorn: those who are not the patriots they should be; those who engage in activities we would rather see hidden; those who make their money by serving a government we have no respect for, and worse, adding fees onto taxes that are already onerous.
So this story is about those gathered together in Jesus’ teaching group. There are those who don’t deserve to be in God’s presence, and who are thoroughly excluded by the existing members of the Temple and synagogue, and then there are those who are the existing power structure.
The scribes and Pharisees are not bad people. We all know them. They are the pillars of the church! They put on dinners, participate in activities, mow the lawn, tend the boiler, run the ladies’ group and the stewardship campaign. But they don’t want a lot of new members (they’ll change things), they wish the young families would leave their babies in the nursery (children are so noisy), they are afraid of those with darker skin or foreign accents. They refuse to teach the younger members how to do some of the jobs around the church (they don’t get all the black marks out of the sinks in the kitchen, they don’t hang up the yard tools in the garage); they think that the young man who went to jail for drinking while driving doesn’t really belong in church; and they are more concerned with how so many of the young people dress when they come to church than that they actually show up; they offer criticism to the choir director and organist on performance and which hymns are chosen. They just know how things ought to be done and how they’ve always been done.
Just in case the scribes and Pharisees miss the lesson, Jesus includes the comment of the older brother: “But when this son of yours came back” -- not “my brother,” just “your son.” “Who has devoured your property with prostitutes” -- where did that come from? The prodigal was in a foreign country -- his brother couldn’t see what was doing. (Yes, Jesus says “he squandered his property in dissolute living,” but no word of prostitution -- after all, the girls are sitting right there.) That is all in the brother’s mind. So what he’s doing is making up sins for his brother to apologize for.
The point is obvious. It was this knack Jesus had, not only for making up stories but also of making a point. Unfortunately, the scribes and Pharisees, having caught his point, are going to plot to kill him. They not only do not like the message, they want to do away with the messenger.
