Good Riddance
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
The apostle Paul tells us in this week’s lectionary epistle passage that once we are “in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” But in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Dean Feldmeyer points out that all too often we are reluctant to embrace new realities. Instead, we remain attached to the familiar routine of things as we have known them and even tend to actively resist change -- or, alternatively, to yearn for the return of a nostalgic past that only exists in our imaginations. The key to overcoming our suspicion of change, Dean tells us, is understanding the source of the new -- something Paul makes abundantly clear with his contrast between an outdated “human point of view” and “the new creation,” which “comes from God.” What Paul is trying to tell us, of course, is not to let our sentimental attachments crowd out being open to God’s healing work in the world... for, as he puts it, we are “ambassadors for Christ” -- and as Paul reminds us, that means being agents of reconciliation in the world.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on God’s boundless forgiveness of sins -- a main theme of both the psalm and gospel texts. In our world, however, that seems to be a far cry from how celebrities and public figures are treated in an age where misdeeds are easily recorded on video for posterity and social media encourages snap judgments based on superficial knowledge rather than nuanced understanding. Mary ponders whether we need to be as willing to forgive celebrities for their misdeeds as we are those close to us -- even if we are continually reminded of their sins on a repeating film loop. As the prodigal son parable illustrates (especially the reaction of the older brother), forgiving perceived slights can be difficult spiritual work.
Good Riddance
by Dean Feldmeyer
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
I once had this old Buick. It was a beat-up, rusty old thing -- the header was held up with duct tape, and the seats were stuck in one position. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t completely eradicate the residual smell of cigarette smoke from the previous owner.
But man, was that car fun to drive -- five-speed on the floor, quick pick-up, tight steering, and a boss sound system. And best of all, I never had to worry about it. Grocery cart ding? Where? Fender bender? The fender was already bent. No problem.
I loved that car.
But like I said, it was rusty. So rusty, in fact, that one day I went over a railroad track too fast and then heard a loud CRACK! and a funny noise -- so I took it to the shop, and the mechanic came out shaking his head. “Dude, you broke the frame right in half.”
“You mean?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, man. She’s gone.”
I followed the tow truck to the junkyard. The guy gave me $35 for the scrap metal. We both stood there looking at it, broken, forlorn, sad.
Finally he sighed and said, “Kinda like shootin’ a horse, ain’t it?”
No matter what my wife may tell you, I didn’t actually cry.
In this week’s passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us that “everything old has passed away” and he expects us to accept that as good news. Oh really? Well, I’m sorry, Paul, but “you got some ’splainin’ to do.”
In the News
“Make America great again.”
Thus read the placards hoisted aloft by members of the audience who have been placed behind Donald Trump for his various television appearances. And well they should hoist it. It cost the Donald $100,000 to buy the trademark for that phrase so only he could use it. So he had better use it.
That’s roughly $25,000 per word, for those of you keeping score at home. Four words.
Just four words first coined as a political slogan by Ronald Reagan -- and if we look closely, we see that it is a sentiment that comes in two parts, each deserving of closer consideration: 1) Make us great; 2) Again.
“Make America great.”
Those holding these signs want to be made great. This assumes that a person or group of people can be made great by another. It is not an achievement which they attain by themselves for themselves -- no, it is something done to them or for them. The underlying belief is that Americans can be made to be great collectively by a single person.
This, of course, begs the question: What do we mean by “great”?
Mahatma Gandhi said, “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” Can someone else make us humane? Is this even what the people holding those placards want? To be made humane? As a country? As individuals?
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.” But if that is true, why do we need someone else to make us great? In fact, if this is true wouldn’t it be just about impossible for one person to make us great? Wouldn’t greatness be something that, by definition, we would have to achieve for ourselves?
Okay, maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe we need to look not at what Gandhi or King meant by greatness but at what these people, the people holding the signs, mean by greatness. What is this special greatness to which they aspire, and from where can it be gotten?
The final word in their four-word plea (demand?) gives us a clue.
“Again.”
Apparently they feel that they once had a sort of greatness, or knew a kind of greatness, or felt a greatness -- and it has somehow slipped out of their grasp. Perhaps it was stolen from them. Perhaps they were tricked out of it. Or maybe they just mislaid it, put it down somewhere and can’t remember where.
So it is to the past that we must look to find this greatness for which they long.
They underlying belief here is that, as a country, we were once collectively great -- and they want to be great like that again. There was, within the span of their memories, an American greatness to which they want to return.
So, given the apparent ages of most of these signholders, this greatness must have been the case in the past 50 or so years.
So was it in the 1950s? What was it about the ’50s that made them great? There’s no denying that some pretty great stuff happened in the ’50s. Television became popular, and color TV came onto the scene. James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Lucille Ball, and Buddy Holly were all products of the ’50s. But then, so was the Korean War, Joseph McCarthy, Emmett Till, and the Cold War.
So we could fairly say that the 1950s decade was good, maybe even very good -- but great? Emmett Till might have a different opinion.
We could go through this exercise for every decade between then and now, but let us here cut to the chase: this time of pristine, perfect greatness is a figment of the imaginations of those who long for it. It is a Norman Rockwellesque fantasy that never existed except on painters’ canvases, television sitcoms, and in the pages of fiction.
And now even the fantasy is gone, taken away by the gritty reality that has been thrust upon us by the threat of nuclear war; religious extremism and terrorism; HIV, H1N1, and Ebola; global climate change; unbridled greed; unscrupulous capitalism; the sexual exploitation of children by pseudo-religious leaders; blind nationalism; and racism, open and hidden.
No wonder they are angry!
“Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
In the Scriptures
The grace of God makes us into new people.
Thus says Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 -- “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
Paul assumes that this will be received as good news -- and we, along with Paul, always just sort of assume that it is good news. But is it? Is it really good news for everyone?
There’s something kind of scary about the new and the untried. It sits before us like an empty horizon and it is up to us to fill it, not with just anything that will fill up the empty space but with something good, something better than that which was before.
Faced with this challenge, it is not surprising that we might turn to the past or some fantasized version of it. We don’t have to create the future ex nihilo, from nothing. We can use the past as our template, and if the past isn’t all that great, we’ll fill in the holes with some fantasies, some ’50s sitcom characters, some Norman Rockwell paintings, and some apocryphal stories.
But wait! We need not busy ourselves with this creativity born of desperation.
In the next verse (v. 18) Paul tells us with what we are called to fill that empty new horizon that is spread out before us. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Bingo! In one single word, we are given both our ends and our means: reconciliation.
There’s no need to make up a future for ourselves, a calling, a vocation, a job to do, or a ministry to undertake. God has given it to us. Because we are reconciled to God through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are called to be agents of reconciliation in the world.
We are called to close the chasms of separation and estrangement that divide us and set us apart from God, from each other, from our essential and potential selves, and from God’s wonderful and beautiful creation. And we are called to close those chasms with the very stuff of God, the cosmic DNA that is grace and acceptance and unconditional love.
In the Pulpit
Years ago, when my now adult children were in grade school, I was moved to a new church in a new town. Jean, my wife, was present when I got the news so she found out about it as I did -- but it was left for us to tell the kids.
Family dinner was a ritual with us, so we waited until after the meal was over that evening and then asked the kids to stay at the table for a minute as we had something we wanted to talk to them about. They sat in solemn anticipation and we broke the news as gently as we could.
They knew that I had told the district superintendent that I was ready for a new challenge, and they knew that a move was possible -- but now the reality loomed before us. They took it better than I expected. They looked at each other, shrugged, and said “Okay.”
I heard myself say, “Change is good.”
They responded again with “Okay.” Then Ben added, “Can I have some ice cream?”
I think that Baby Boomers were the first generation to believe, really believe that change was good, a value in and of itself. Change was not a means to get to something else -- it was an end in itself, a value to be pursued for its own sake.
Our parents viewed change as an unfortunate necessity to be accepted and dealt with when there was no other choice.
Their parents viewed it as an evil to be avoided at all costs, and there’s something of that attitude that remains in us -- yes, even us Baby Boomers.
We value, we take comfort in the old, the familiar. Even if it is inferior or second-rate it is familiar, so we tend to cling to it.
“I lusted after a 1968 Ford Mustang until I finally got it so I’ll thank you not to tell me it was anything other than a superior automobile in all respects.”
My mother owned an Electrolux vacuum cleaner, so it must have been the best that money can buy.
The Magnificent Seven was one of the great action movies of all time, right? Well yes, until you actually watch it again and discover that it is about 90% dialogue with only a couple of quick, lackluster action sequences.
But we hold onto those stories, those myths, those mental images that we have created about the past because we are afraid that if we erase them we will be faced with nothing but an empty future waiting to be filled.
We become spiritual hoarders, filling our spiritual houses with so much stuff that there’s no room left for anything new or authentic.
The challenge which Paul lays before us is the challenge of cleaning house. We are called to let go of all that stuff that his chaining us to our past -- our problems, our mistakes, our possessions, and our sins -- so that the love and grace of God can enter our lives and change us, and we can, in turn, change the world.
Get rid of it.
Let it go.
And good riddance.
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” the psalmist writes, recognizing the relief that comes along with the gift of forgiveness. True forgiveness feels like a weight that disappears from our shoulders, an easing of the acid in our stomachs. It lightens the spirit, and allows us to lift our heads again. Forgiveness restores us to the people around us.
God’s forgiveness is assured, but the forgiveness of the people close to us feels even more important if we want to start again. For well-known figures, public forgiveness is part of the math of new life. We ordinary folks only have to re-earn the trust of the people we know, but celebrities and sport figures have the weight of public scorn to manage too.
The congregation I serve has its fair share of wronged spouses, survivors of violence, and people who have suffered unjustly in abusive jobs. We talk often about forgiveness and its power for the forgiver. We laugh ruefully at the Anne Lamott quote that says “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” We talk about how you can forgive, deeply and powerfully, but not forget the lessons learned in this painful version of spiritual graduate school.
And yet I wonder if some form of amnesia is necessary for forgiveness to happen.
Former Baltimore Ravens football star Ray Rice, famously caught on video in an act of domestic violence, might have had a different future if the NFL had followed its original plans. According to ESPN, when reports of the Rice video first emerged “Ravens executives -- in particular owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass, and general manager Ozzie Newsome -- began extensive public and private campaigns pushing for leniency for Rice on several fronts: from the judicial system in Atlantic County, where Rice faced assault charges, to [NFL] commissioner [Roger] Goodell.” Their hope was to suppress the video. “When evidence of it surfaced anyway, the NFL and the Ravens quickly shifted gears and simultaneously attempted to pin the blame on Rice and his alleged lack of truthfulness with Goodell about what had happened inside the elevator.” The NFL was willing to back Rice until the public storm became too great -- their issue was apparently less with his behavior than with damage to the image of the NFL.
In contrast, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was twice accused of rape, and no charges were filed. He continues to play for the Steelers, albeit with a diminished reputation. Ray Rice would like to play football again, and is finding that no NFL team will take a chance on him. He’s eager to play but “seems to be coming to the realization that it’s a long shot that someone will give him a second chance after he became America’s domestic violence poster boy. Rice said that he was thinking he’d get a call to go to a team’s training camp, and when that didn’t happen, he started to realize most NFL teams weren’t interested in him.” At the time, Rice said: “I know that a lot of people out there have lost respect... maybe not like me anymore. That’s my fault. I have to own that.” Without excusing his behavior, and fully understanding the level of violence against his fiancée (now his wife), if Rice has learned from this incident should his public punishment go on forever? Or does our ability to rewatch the video any time mean that we can’t forgive enough to forget?
Pop star Ariana Grande recently got in trouble for a donut-licking incident caught on videotape. Her popularity took a hit, and she took to YouTube to apologize, fitting the medium of the apology to its message. “In the second of her two YouTube apologies posted last week, the 22-year-old singer said she was ‘disgusted’ with herself and wanted to ‘disappear’ after TMZ posted the [donut] video. She said, ‘Seeing a video of yourself behaving poorly that you had no idea was taken is such a rude awakening.’ ”
Public forgiveness may differ from forgiving people close to us, a question explored in the New York Times. Kurt T. Dirks, a professor of managerial leadership at Washington University in St. Louis who studies violations of trust, says that when we ponder forgiveness “[t]he question is how much you’ve been personally harmed and what’s at stake for you in the future. It depends, also, if we have something to gain by interacting with the person or business again.” Professor Dirks’ research reveals that “repairing trust is generally more difficult with groups than individuals.” Dirks also says that we are more willing to forgive what he calls “errors of competence” rather than mistakes that reflect character. We believe people can learn to do better, but it’s hard to believe someone has fundamentally changed their character.
Public relations experts say that the rise of social media and countless gossip sites means that transgressions fade from the public eye more quickly. “While the growth of the scandalmongering business has made life more difficult for stars, it has also brought one big upside, according to celebrity handlers: All but the most serious scandals (Bill Cosby) burn off more quickly.” There’s less need for forgiveness, as we forget more quickly.
Forgiveness also relates to the gap between image and reality -- the difference between how we see someone and what their behavior reveals about who they really are. Part of America’s anger at Bill Cosby is because we believed the image he presented on television -- a genial, principled father figure. The first women who accused him of sexual assault were vilified, and many in the African-American community rallied around Cosby, refusing to believe the accusations. Jewel Allison, also a victim, struggled with whether to tell her story, fearing it would do damage to a black icon: “Even as the number of Cosby’s accusers has mounted to more than 25, many African-Americans struggled to part with their idealized image of him. Several celebrities publicly defended Cosby.” For many years, Allison kept quiet, not wanting to damage the reputation of a man who had done so much for black America.
In the other text for this week, Luke gives us the parable of the younger son’s return home and the father’s gracious forgiveness. Or maybe it’s just a “welcome home” party, and the forgiveness comes later. Or maybe once the son is home, the father remembers what was so aggravating about him in the first place. The story reminds us that forgiving is deep spiritual work. Holding a grudge forever says more about us than about the other people involved. The things we can’t seem to forgive are a mirror for the places of rage and disappointment that live in us.
Perhaps our calling is to turn off the computer and put down the magazine, sending a prayer of grace to public figures and then giving our time and attention to the people in our own lives. We can watch for the places where they -- and we -- need forgiveness. If we can manage this difficult work at home, maybe we can extend it more widely -- casting a net of forgiveness that allows friends, family members, and even celebrities to have another chance to prove themselves.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Discovering Forgiveness that Covers Sin
It’s been 17 years, yet the horror of the Columbine High School shooting continues to be a living nightmare for its victims -- including the parents of one of the perpetrators. Sue Klebold, the mother of shooter Dylan Klebold, recently released her memoir of the shooting and its tragic impact on her life. A Mother’s Reckoning reveals how little Klebold actually knew about her son’s descent into darkness. Sue Klebold wrote the book not in an attempt to forgive her son, but rather to forgive herself: “ ‘Forgive Dylan? My work is to forgive myself.’ ...I was the one who let him down, not the other way around.”
As Klebold struggles with trying to understand her son’s murderous rage, one of his victims has taken the bold step to forgive her. Several weeks ago, Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was paralyzed in the shooting, wrote an open letter on Facebook that seems to live into the spirit of Psalm 32 (“let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them”). Hochhalter’s letter tells of receiving a handwritten note from Sue Klebold after the attack, and ends:
Just as I wouldn’t want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard. It’s been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you. A good friend once told me, “Bitterness is like swallowing a poison pill and expecting the other person to die.” It only harms yourself. I have forgiven you and only wish you the best.
*****
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
What Did the Servants See?
Most of us interpret the parable of the prodigal son from one of three angles. Either we interpret it from the point of view of the younger son, the older son, or the loving father who is eager to forgive. Yet there may be at least another possibility which is often missed -- the point of view of the servants who are watching this family drama unfold. It’s not quite Downton Abbey, yet these servants are placed at a pivotal point. They are witnesses to sin and its consequences, and they are also witnesses to grace.
Their perspective could help us to ask: “What sort of God is this who forgives even the most despicable behavior?”
The servants are in a unique position to see the pain experienced by the older brother. In a sense, they are like the reporters in this year’s acclaimed movie Spotlight, which won the Oscar for best picture. The film recounts the story of child abuse by priests in the Boston archdiocese, and the quest for justice by scores of victims. It raises disturbing and distressing theological questions about grace, forgiveness, and the quest for reconciliation.
As the reporters begin uncovering the horror of the priest abuse scandal, the impact of the story and the concerted efforts taken to keep the story hidden take a toll on their lives. Each of the journalists must confront the scandal and its impact on those who had been abused.
One critic noted:
Ultimately, I would argue, the toll of bringing the truth to life, and the sheer horror of that truth, while never expressly stated, is evident in each character’s numbed, pained incredulity. If it is true, as Shakespeare once wrote, that the evil men do lives after them, perhaps one of the greatest goods we can enact is to finally acknowledge that evil and speak the truth about it.
*****
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The Runaway Bunny
On a much lighter note, the parable of the prodigal is also a story of God’s unrelenting grace. Margaret Wise Brown’s classic children’s story The Runaway Bunny (click here for a wonderful narration of the book) narrates a similar parable of grace. A little bunny decides to run away from home -- yet is constantly confounded by his mother’s counter-arguments. No matter where he goes, she tells him, I’ll be right behind you. In the end, the baby bunny suggests that he will run away and become a little boy. His mother says that she’ll follow him, swooping him into her arms and hugging him forever. “Shucks,” the bunny says, “I might as well just stay home.”
It’s a delightful story about the possibilities of grace.
*****
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Managing New Perspectives
In the parable, all the parties involved must learn how to manage different perspectives about their interactions with each other. Flexibility in relationships is the key to discovering grace and learning about forgiveness -- yet when we become entrenched in our perspectives, it is nearly impossible to move toward reconciliation. Mary Sellon and Daniel Smith discuss what is involved in managing perspectives for church leaders and congregations in their book Practicing Right Relationship (Alban Institute, 2005):
How we think about people, events, and life situations makes a difference in how we experience them and interact with them. Whenever a person throws up his (her) hands and says, “that’s just the way it is,” it’s a strong clue that the person is trapped in a perspective.... Once we set our mind in a particular direction, alternative ways of viewing the situation disappear and we are left with what feels like the one and only truth. Walls box in our mental capacity; we lose flexibility to consider options. And while there is always some truth to the perspective we’re trapped, there are always other ways of looking at the same situation that also have some truth to them (Practicing Right Relationship, p. 37).
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Everything Has Become New!
Brie Larson won the Oscar for best actress for her leading role in Room, a movie about a young woman who was kidnapped, raped, and held captive in a garden shed for more than five years. The story involves how Larson is able to cope with her captivity and also nurture her young son, who was conceived by the rapist. It is an intense story of coping, hope, and discovery. Larson’s character prompts her son (played by the amazingly precocious actor Jake Tremblay) to pretend to be dead in order to escape. Yet young Jack has never seen the world -- for him, this is truly another birthing experience. Everything becomes new as he adjusts to the brightness of the sun, the breadth of open spaces, and the experiences of playing with friends in the safety of a backyard. Room is a powerful illustration of what it means to experience the reconciling power of God that leads us into new life.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Justice Anthony Scalia, who recently died, took great pride in the opinions he wrote for the Supreme Court. Yet writing those opinions was not easy. Scalia described the process this way: “Writing is painful. It’s exacting.... You have to do it, redo it, and then do it again.”
Application: Living as a new creation in Christ is exacting -- we have to constantly review our behavior to be sure that it is Christ-like.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia was known for his “originalist” interpretation of the United States Constitution, which he defined as believing that “the Constitution means what the people felt when they ratified it.” Scalia maintained that a justice should not reinterpret the Constitution to place upon it one’s own policy and values.
Application: As Christians who are a new creation in Christ, we are to be originalists -- we are to live our lives as Christ originally did.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia took seriously his role as a teacher of young law students. He knew that his written opinions were not sufficient, so he frequently made appearances in classrooms. Michael McConnell, a Stanford Law School professor, said of Scalia’s classroom lectures: “He said that one of the ways to get people to pay attention to ideas is to get people to pay attention to you.”
Application: As Christians we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. In witnessing to bring others to Christ, we are going to have to first get them to pay attention to us.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia was very vocal and outspoken on the court, noting that “I really do enjoy oral argument... the intellectual thrust and parry. It’s almost like an English play.”
Application: As Christians we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. In the process of witnessing to bring others to Christ, we are going to have to enjoy oral argument.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Popular author John Grisham, who has written 37 novels of courtroom drama, has recently released a book in which there are no bad guys and no lawyers in the courtroom. The Tumor, his 38th book, is about a young married father who has a brain tumor and is treated with focused ultrasound -- a medical treatment which decreases the size of brain tumors with focused energy rays. This process may not cure cancer, but it can prolong a patient’s life. Grisham, an advocate of this treatment, believes it is so important that he is offering his book free of charge -- readers can download it from Amazon or from the website for the Focused Ultrasound Foundation. Grisham hopes that his book will make the public aware of this procedure and help raise money for its development. Grisham said of writing this book, which is outside his usual genre: “I write escapist popular fiction that entertains. It’s entertainment. It doesn’t pretend to be literature or anything else. But The Tumor has the potential to one day save or prolong millions of lives.”
Application: The ministry of reconciliation is not merely for entertainment; it is serious business.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Jenna Fagnan, the president of Tequila Avion, says that she learned the importance of giving her employees autonomy when working on an assigned project. After sharing her vision, Fagan realized that the employee knows “what it is that they specifically have to do make that vision happen.”
Application: When we become a new creation in Christ we keep our autonomy, but we also have the vision of what it means to be a part of a ministry of reconciliation.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
When asked about her hiring practices, Jenna Fagnan, the president of Tequila Avion, said: “You try to understand if the person has the passion and the energy.”
Application: As a new creation in Christ, we must have the passion and the energy to be a part of the ministry of reconciliation.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Lew Wallace conceived of the idea for the novel Ben Hur in 1905 while on a train ride in which he was arguing for and supporting Christ’s divinity against the famous agnostic Robert Ingersoll.
Application: In the ministry of reconciliation, we must be able to argue for and support the divinity of Jesus.
*****
Joshua 5:9-12
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture will open this coming September in Washington, DC -- and its director, Lonnie Bunch, is excited about the educational opportunities the museum will offer. Bunch noted that one of the museum’s most meaningful artifacts is a piece of wood taken from a slave ship off the coast of South Africa. Upon receiving it, Bunch said that the community’s tribal chief asked him to take some soil from Mozambique, where most of the people came from, and sprinkle it upon the ship and the piece of wood. Then, the chief said, for the first time since 1794 our people will sleep in their own land.
Application: With the Passover meal, the Israelites will always remember the land from which they came.
*****
Joshua 5:9-12
Director Lonnie Bunch said that the forthcoming National Museum of African-American History and Culture “is crucial for us to help people realize that history is not nostalgia. History is this amazing tool that helps people live their lives to understand the challenges they face.”
Application: The Passover meal for the Israelites will never be for nostalgia, but it will always be a meal of remembrance of their difficulties in Egypt and their deliverance to the land of Canaan.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven.
People: Happy are those to whom God imputes no iniquity.
Leader: God is a hiding place for us and preserves us from trouble.
People: God surrounds us with glad cries of deliverance.
Leader: Be glad in God and rejoice, O righteous.
People: Shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
OR
Leader: Come and discover the new things that are coming!
People: Change and new things can be scary.
Leader: These changes come from our loving God.
People: We trust God to be bringing us only good things.
Leader: God is making all creation new and redeemed.
People: We rejoice in God’s re-creating work!
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“This Is a Day of New Beginnings”
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
“God of Grace and God of Glory”
found in:
UMH: 577
H82: 594, 595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
Renew: 301
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”
found in:
UMH: 127
H82: 690
PH: 281
AAHH: 138, 139, 140
NNBH: 232
NCH: 18, 19
CH: 622
LBW: 343
ELA: 618
W&P: 501
AMEC: 52, 53, 65
“Be Thou My Vision”
found in:
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELA: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151
“Lift High the Cross”
found in:
UMH: 159
H82: 473
PH: 371
AAHH: 242
NCH: 198
CH: 108
LBW: 377
ELA: 660
W&P: 287
Renew: 297
“Ye Servants of God”
found in:
UMH: 181
H82: 535
PH: 477
NCH: 305
CH: 110
LBW: 252
W&P: 112
“Jesus Calls Us”
found in:
UMH: 398
H82: 549, 550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171, 172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
“O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee”
found in:
UMH: 430
H82: 659, 660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
“Change My Heart, O God”
found in:
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
“Sing Unto the Lord a New Song”
found in:
CCB: 16
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who calls us to a new home and a new future: Grant us the courage to leave the old behind and to see the glorious future you are building with us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
Come among us, O God, with your vision of the world as you are re-creating it. Fill us with your Spirit and enable us to live into your dream. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to anticipate that you are bringing good changes to our world.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We fear things that are new and different. We don’t like the way things are, but change scares us even more. We forget that you are working to bring about a renewed and redeemed creation. We fail to understand that we are hanging on to a broken world. Renew us so that we might welcome your new creation. Amen.
Leader: God in love is reaching out to us and inviting us to enter a new realm, a new creation. Receive God’s loving gift and be renewed in your hearts.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for you have created all things to be good. We praise you as you re-create them and renew them.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We fear things that are new and different. We don’t like the way things are, but change scares us even more. We forget that you are working to bring about a renewed and redeemed creation. We fail to understand that we are hanging on to a broken world. Renew us so that we might welcome your new creation.
We give you thanks for all the blessings of this life. You have truly made all things well, and creation is a delight and a wonder to us. When all is broken, you continue to work to renew it and us.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all who suffer from the brokenness of this world and their own brokenness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about change. Ask if any of them have had to move and go to a new town and a new school. Change can be fun, and it can be scary. But when we know the change comes from someone who loves us, it helps us not to be afraid. God is bringing a change to our world. Because of God’s love, God wants the pain and the bad things to go away and for there to be peace and joy.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
That’s Not Fair!
by Chris Keating
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Ahead of time:
* Read over the story of the prodigal, and begin imagining how you might retell the story to the children.
* Prepare a list of things that happen to children which may not always seem fair to them. (See this blog posting for a great starter for some ideas!)
* Make two-sided signs -- one side with a happy face, and the other a sad face. Make enough on brightly colored paper for all the children.
As the children gather, greet them by telling them you are going to tell them a story about a time when a father was not fair -- he did something nice for one brother that he didn’t do for another. (Depending on the age of the children present, this idea may take a bit of time to unpack. Remember that young children will have very concrete ideas of what is “fair” and what is not.)
Can you remember a time when you told someone “That’s not fair!”? Ask the children to name things that happen which are not fair. (You go to the doctor for a sore throat and have to get a tetanus shot instead, you have to do homework instead of playing outside, you have to go to school instead of staying home, your little brother eats the last donut, and so forth.) Have some fun with them! Share some of the things you’ve written on your list of what is fair and not fair.
Today you will be telling them the story of the prodigal son. It is a story that Jesus taught that shows us that God’s love for us never ends. It is a story that teaches us about grace, and that grace is even better than knowing something is “fair.” As you tell the story, pause and ask the children to hold up their signs, voting for whether or not what just happened was “fair” or “not fair.” (Remember, happy is “fair”; sad is “unfair.”)
*****
One of the hardest lessons to learn is that sometimes life is not “fair.” Sometimes the rules at school or home may not make any sense to you -- you just want to do things your own way. As you listen to this Bible story, tell me what you think is fair or unfair. (You may consider shortening the story, depending on your context.)
Jesus said there was once a father who had two sons. The younger son decided he wanted to leave home. He wanted half of his father’s money right now. (Ask “Is that ‘Fair’ or ‘Unfair’?”)
So the father split his money evenly between the two boys. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) The one boy ran off to a place far away from home. Meanwhile, his brother worked hard every day for their dad. The younger brother went out and partied. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?)
Eventually the younger boy ran out of money. He didn’t make good choices, and had to get a job. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) But it was an awful job! He had to feed the man’s pigs. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) He thought, “The pigs have more to eat than I do.” (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) Then he decided to go home and tell his father he was sorry for being selfish.
When he was still a long way from home, the boy’s father saw him. The dad threw down the hoe he was using and ran out to the boy. The boy started to cry and tell his dad how sorry he was. But the father loved his son. He hugged him. He then told some of his workers to go and get a party ready. “We need to celebrate! My son has come home!” (“Fair” or “Unfair”?)
Meanwhile, the older brother was watching -- and he was mad! He told his father: “I work hard for you every day, and you have never, ever, given me a party. It’s (invite the kids to say it with you) NOT FAIR!”
But the father said, “I love both of you the same. Everything that I have is yours -- remember, we divided the money evenly. But today your brother came home. I thought he was gone forever. We had to celebrate! (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) Let’s go to the party together!
God loves us always -- even when life seems unfair. We call that “grace.” We don’t always understand it. But Jesus teaches us that God is always willing to love us, even when we have been unfair to God and others. That is the meaning of God’s great forgiveness.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 6, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Team member Mary Austin shares some additional thoughts on God’s boundless forgiveness of sins -- a main theme of both the psalm and gospel texts. In our world, however, that seems to be a far cry from how celebrities and public figures are treated in an age where misdeeds are easily recorded on video for posterity and social media encourages snap judgments based on superficial knowledge rather than nuanced understanding. Mary ponders whether we need to be as willing to forgive celebrities for their misdeeds as we are those close to us -- even if we are continually reminded of their sins on a repeating film loop. As the prodigal son parable illustrates (especially the reaction of the older brother), forgiving perceived slights can be difficult spiritual work.
Good Riddance
by Dean Feldmeyer
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
I once had this old Buick. It was a beat-up, rusty old thing -- the header was held up with duct tape, and the seats were stuck in one position. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t completely eradicate the residual smell of cigarette smoke from the previous owner.
But man, was that car fun to drive -- five-speed on the floor, quick pick-up, tight steering, and a boss sound system. And best of all, I never had to worry about it. Grocery cart ding? Where? Fender bender? The fender was already bent. No problem.
I loved that car.
But like I said, it was rusty. So rusty, in fact, that one day I went over a railroad track too fast and then heard a loud CRACK! and a funny noise -- so I took it to the shop, and the mechanic came out shaking his head. “Dude, you broke the frame right in half.”
“You mean?”
“Yeah, I’m sorry, man. She’s gone.”
I followed the tow truck to the junkyard. The guy gave me $35 for the scrap metal. We both stood there looking at it, broken, forlorn, sad.
Finally he sighed and said, “Kinda like shootin’ a horse, ain’t it?”
No matter what my wife may tell you, I didn’t actually cry.
In this week’s passage from 2 Corinthians, Paul tells us that “everything old has passed away” and he expects us to accept that as good news. Oh really? Well, I’m sorry, Paul, but “you got some ’splainin’ to do.”
In the News
“Make America great again.”
Thus read the placards hoisted aloft by members of the audience who have been placed behind Donald Trump for his various television appearances. And well they should hoist it. It cost the Donald $100,000 to buy the trademark for that phrase so only he could use it. So he had better use it.
That’s roughly $25,000 per word, for those of you keeping score at home. Four words.
Just four words first coined as a political slogan by Ronald Reagan -- and if we look closely, we see that it is a sentiment that comes in two parts, each deserving of closer consideration: 1) Make us great; 2) Again.
“Make America great.”
Those holding these signs want to be made great. This assumes that a person or group of people can be made great by another. It is not an achievement which they attain by themselves for themselves -- no, it is something done to them or for them. The underlying belief is that Americans can be made to be great collectively by a single person.
This, of course, begs the question: What do we mean by “great”?
Mahatma Gandhi said, “The greatness of humanity is not in being human, but in being humane.” Can someone else make us humane? Is this even what the people holding those placards want? To be made humane? As a country? As individuals?
Martin Luther King Jr. said, “Not everybody can be famous but everybody can be great, because greatness is determined by service.” But if that is true, why do we need someone else to make us great? In fact, if this is true wouldn’t it be just about impossible for one person to make us great? Wouldn’t greatness be something that, by definition, we would have to achieve for ourselves?
Okay, maybe we’re looking in the wrong place. Maybe we need to look not at what Gandhi or King meant by greatness but at what these people, the people holding the signs, mean by greatness. What is this special greatness to which they aspire, and from where can it be gotten?
The final word in their four-word plea (demand?) gives us a clue.
“Again.”
Apparently they feel that they once had a sort of greatness, or knew a kind of greatness, or felt a greatness -- and it has somehow slipped out of their grasp. Perhaps it was stolen from them. Perhaps they were tricked out of it. Or maybe they just mislaid it, put it down somewhere and can’t remember where.
So it is to the past that we must look to find this greatness for which they long.
They underlying belief here is that, as a country, we were once collectively great -- and they want to be great like that again. There was, within the span of their memories, an American greatness to which they want to return.
So, given the apparent ages of most of these signholders, this greatness must have been the case in the past 50 or so years.
So was it in the 1950s? What was it about the ’50s that made them great? There’s no denying that some pretty great stuff happened in the ’50s. Television became popular, and color TV came onto the scene. James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Lucille Ball, and Buddy Holly were all products of the ’50s. But then, so was the Korean War, Joseph McCarthy, Emmett Till, and the Cold War.
So we could fairly say that the 1950s decade was good, maybe even very good -- but great? Emmett Till might have a different opinion.
We could go through this exercise for every decade between then and now, but let us here cut to the chase: this time of pristine, perfect greatness is a figment of the imaginations of those who long for it. It is a Norman Rockwellesque fantasy that never existed except on painters’ canvases, television sitcoms, and in the pages of fiction.
And now even the fantasy is gone, taken away by the gritty reality that has been thrust upon us by the threat of nuclear war; religious extremism and terrorism; HIV, H1N1, and Ebola; global climate change; unbridled greed; unscrupulous capitalism; the sexual exploitation of children by pseudo-religious leaders; blind nationalism; and racism, open and hidden.
No wonder they are angry!
“Everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
In the Scriptures
The grace of God makes us into new people.
Thus says Paul in 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 -- “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”
Paul assumes that this will be received as good news -- and we, along with Paul, always just sort of assume that it is good news. But is it? Is it really good news for everyone?
There’s something kind of scary about the new and the untried. It sits before us like an empty horizon and it is up to us to fill it, not with just anything that will fill up the empty space but with something good, something better than that which was before.
Faced with this challenge, it is not surprising that we might turn to the past or some fantasized version of it. We don’t have to create the future ex nihilo, from nothing. We can use the past as our template, and if the past isn’t all that great, we’ll fill in the holes with some fantasies, some ’50s sitcom characters, some Norman Rockwell paintings, and some apocryphal stories.
But wait! We need not busy ourselves with this creativity born of desperation.
In the next verse (v. 18) Paul tells us with what we are called to fill that empty new horizon that is spread out before us. “All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
Bingo! In one single word, we are given both our ends and our means: reconciliation.
There’s no need to make up a future for ourselves, a calling, a vocation, a job to do, or a ministry to undertake. God has given it to us. Because we are reconciled to God through the life and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we are called to be agents of reconciliation in the world.
We are called to close the chasms of separation and estrangement that divide us and set us apart from God, from each other, from our essential and potential selves, and from God’s wonderful and beautiful creation. And we are called to close those chasms with the very stuff of God, the cosmic DNA that is grace and acceptance and unconditional love.
In the Pulpit
Years ago, when my now adult children were in grade school, I was moved to a new church in a new town. Jean, my wife, was present when I got the news so she found out about it as I did -- but it was left for us to tell the kids.
Family dinner was a ritual with us, so we waited until after the meal was over that evening and then asked the kids to stay at the table for a minute as we had something we wanted to talk to them about. They sat in solemn anticipation and we broke the news as gently as we could.
They knew that I had told the district superintendent that I was ready for a new challenge, and they knew that a move was possible -- but now the reality loomed before us. They took it better than I expected. They looked at each other, shrugged, and said “Okay.”
I heard myself say, “Change is good.”
They responded again with “Okay.” Then Ben added, “Can I have some ice cream?”
I think that Baby Boomers were the first generation to believe, really believe that change was good, a value in and of itself. Change was not a means to get to something else -- it was an end in itself, a value to be pursued for its own sake.
Our parents viewed change as an unfortunate necessity to be accepted and dealt with when there was no other choice.
Their parents viewed it as an evil to be avoided at all costs, and there’s something of that attitude that remains in us -- yes, even us Baby Boomers.
We value, we take comfort in the old, the familiar. Even if it is inferior or second-rate it is familiar, so we tend to cling to it.
“I lusted after a 1968 Ford Mustang until I finally got it so I’ll thank you not to tell me it was anything other than a superior automobile in all respects.”
My mother owned an Electrolux vacuum cleaner, so it must have been the best that money can buy.
The Magnificent Seven was one of the great action movies of all time, right? Well yes, until you actually watch it again and discover that it is about 90% dialogue with only a couple of quick, lackluster action sequences.
But we hold onto those stories, those myths, those mental images that we have created about the past because we are afraid that if we erase them we will be faced with nothing but an empty future waiting to be filled.
We become spiritual hoarders, filling our spiritual houses with so much stuff that there’s no room left for anything new or authentic.
The challenge which Paul lays before us is the challenge of cleaning house. We are called to let go of all that stuff that his chaining us to our past -- our problems, our mistakes, our possessions, and our sins -- so that the love and grace of God can enter our lives and change us, and we can, in turn, change the world.
Get rid of it.
Let it go.
And good riddance.
SECOND THOUGHTS
by Mary Austin
Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
“Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered,” the psalmist writes, recognizing the relief that comes along with the gift of forgiveness. True forgiveness feels like a weight that disappears from our shoulders, an easing of the acid in our stomachs. It lightens the spirit, and allows us to lift our heads again. Forgiveness restores us to the people around us.
God’s forgiveness is assured, but the forgiveness of the people close to us feels even more important if we want to start again. For well-known figures, public forgiveness is part of the math of new life. We ordinary folks only have to re-earn the trust of the people we know, but celebrities and sport figures have the weight of public scorn to manage too.
The congregation I serve has its fair share of wronged spouses, survivors of violence, and people who have suffered unjustly in abusive jobs. We talk often about forgiveness and its power for the forgiver. We laugh ruefully at the Anne Lamott quote that says “Not forgiving is like drinking rat poison and then waiting for the rat to die.” We talk about how you can forgive, deeply and powerfully, but not forget the lessons learned in this painful version of spiritual graduate school.
And yet I wonder if some form of amnesia is necessary for forgiveness to happen.
Former Baltimore Ravens football star Ray Rice, famously caught on video in an act of domestic violence, might have had a different future if the NFL had followed its original plans. According to ESPN, when reports of the Rice video first emerged “Ravens executives -- in particular owner Steve Bisciotti, president Dick Cass, and general manager Ozzie Newsome -- began extensive public and private campaigns pushing for leniency for Rice on several fronts: from the judicial system in Atlantic County, where Rice faced assault charges, to [NFL] commissioner [Roger] Goodell.” Their hope was to suppress the video. “When evidence of it surfaced anyway, the NFL and the Ravens quickly shifted gears and simultaneously attempted to pin the blame on Rice and his alleged lack of truthfulness with Goodell about what had happened inside the elevator.” The NFL was willing to back Rice until the public storm became too great -- their issue was apparently less with his behavior than with damage to the image of the NFL.
In contrast, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was twice accused of rape, and no charges were filed. He continues to play for the Steelers, albeit with a diminished reputation. Ray Rice would like to play football again, and is finding that no NFL team will take a chance on him. He’s eager to play but “seems to be coming to the realization that it’s a long shot that someone will give him a second chance after he became America’s domestic violence poster boy. Rice said that he was thinking he’d get a call to go to a team’s training camp, and when that didn’t happen, he started to realize most NFL teams weren’t interested in him.” At the time, Rice said: “I know that a lot of people out there have lost respect... maybe not like me anymore. That’s my fault. I have to own that.” Without excusing his behavior, and fully understanding the level of violence against his fiancée (now his wife), if Rice has learned from this incident should his public punishment go on forever? Or does our ability to rewatch the video any time mean that we can’t forgive enough to forget?
Pop star Ariana Grande recently got in trouble for a donut-licking incident caught on videotape. Her popularity took a hit, and she took to YouTube to apologize, fitting the medium of the apology to its message. “In the second of her two YouTube apologies posted last week, the 22-year-old singer said she was ‘disgusted’ with herself and wanted to ‘disappear’ after TMZ posted the [donut] video. She said, ‘Seeing a video of yourself behaving poorly that you had no idea was taken is such a rude awakening.’ ”
Public forgiveness may differ from forgiving people close to us, a question explored in the New York Times. Kurt T. Dirks, a professor of managerial leadership at Washington University in St. Louis who studies violations of trust, says that when we ponder forgiveness “[t]he question is how much you’ve been personally harmed and what’s at stake for you in the future. It depends, also, if we have something to gain by interacting with the person or business again.” Professor Dirks’ research reveals that “repairing trust is generally more difficult with groups than individuals.” Dirks also says that we are more willing to forgive what he calls “errors of competence” rather than mistakes that reflect character. We believe people can learn to do better, but it’s hard to believe someone has fundamentally changed their character.
Public relations experts say that the rise of social media and countless gossip sites means that transgressions fade from the public eye more quickly. “While the growth of the scandalmongering business has made life more difficult for stars, it has also brought one big upside, according to celebrity handlers: All but the most serious scandals (Bill Cosby) burn off more quickly.” There’s less need for forgiveness, as we forget more quickly.
Forgiveness also relates to the gap between image and reality -- the difference between how we see someone and what their behavior reveals about who they really are. Part of America’s anger at Bill Cosby is because we believed the image he presented on television -- a genial, principled father figure. The first women who accused him of sexual assault were vilified, and many in the African-American community rallied around Cosby, refusing to believe the accusations. Jewel Allison, also a victim, struggled with whether to tell her story, fearing it would do damage to a black icon: “Even as the number of Cosby’s accusers has mounted to more than 25, many African-Americans struggled to part with their idealized image of him. Several celebrities publicly defended Cosby.” For many years, Allison kept quiet, not wanting to damage the reputation of a man who had done so much for black America.
In the other text for this week, Luke gives us the parable of the younger son’s return home and the father’s gracious forgiveness. Or maybe it’s just a “welcome home” party, and the forgiveness comes later. Or maybe once the son is home, the father remembers what was so aggravating about him in the first place. The story reminds us that forgiving is deep spiritual work. Holding a grudge forever says more about us than about the other people involved. The things we can’t seem to forgive are a mirror for the places of rage and disappointment that live in us.
Perhaps our calling is to turn off the computer and put down the magazine, sending a prayer of grace to public figures and then giving our time and attention to the people in our own lives. We can watch for the places where they -- and we -- need forgiveness. If we can manage this difficult work at home, maybe we can extend it more widely -- casting a net of forgiveness that allows friends, family members, and even celebrities to have another chance to prove themselves.
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Chris Keating:
Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Discovering Forgiveness that Covers Sin
It’s been 17 years, yet the horror of the Columbine High School shooting continues to be a living nightmare for its victims -- including the parents of one of the perpetrators. Sue Klebold, the mother of shooter Dylan Klebold, recently released her memoir of the shooting and its tragic impact on her life. A Mother’s Reckoning reveals how little Klebold actually knew about her son’s descent into darkness. Sue Klebold wrote the book not in an attempt to forgive her son, but rather to forgive herself: “ ‘Forgive Dylan? My work is to forgive myself.’ ...I was the one who let him down, not the other way around.”
As Klebold struggles with trying to understand her son’s murderous rage, one of his victims has taken the bold step to forgive her. Several weeks ago, Anne Marie Hochhalter, who was paralyzed in the shooting, wrote an open letter on Facebook that seems to live into the spirit of Psalm 32 (“let all who are faithful offer prayer to you; at a time of distress, the rush of mighty waters shall not reach them”). Hochhalter’s letter tells of receiving a handwritten note from Sue Klebold after the attack, and ends:
Just as I wouldn’t want to be judged by the sins of my family members, I hold you in that same regard. It’s been a rough road for me, with many medical issues because of my spinal cord injury and intense nerve pain, but I choose not to be bitter towards you. A good friend once told me, “Bitterness is like swallowing a poison pill and expecting the other person to die.” It only harms yourself. I have forgiven you and only wish you the best.
*****
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
What Did the Servants See?
Most of us interpret the parable of the prodigal son from one of three angles. Either we interpret it from the point of view of the younger son, the older son, or the loving father who is eager to forgive. Yet there may be at least another possibility which is often missed -- the point of view of the servants who are watching this family drama unfold. It’s not quite Downton Abbey, yet these servants are placed at a pivotal point. They are witnesses to sin and its consequences, and they are also witnesses to grace.
Their perspective could help us to ask: “What sort of God is this who forgives even the most despicable behavior?”
The servants are in a unique position to see the pain experienced by the older brother. In a sense, they are like the reporters in this year’s acclaimed movie Spotlight, which won the Oscar for best picture. The film recounts the story of child abuse by priests in the Boston archdiocese, and the quest for justice by scores of victims. It raises disturbing and distressing theological questions about grace, forgiveness, and the quest for reconciliation.
As the reporters begin uncovering the horror of the priest abuse scandal, the impact of the story and the concerted efforts taken to keep the story hidden take a toll on their lives. Each of the journalists must confront the scandal and its impact on those who had been abused.
One critic noted:
Ultimately, I would argue, the toll of bringing the truth to life, and the sheer horror of that truth, while never expressly stated, is evident in each character’s numbed, pained incredulity. If it is true, as Shakespeare once wrote, that the evil men do lives after them, perhaps one of the greatest goods we can enact is to finally acknowledge that evil and speak the truth about it.
*****
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
The Runaway Bunny
On a much lighter note, the parable of the prodigal is also a story of God’s unrelenting grace. Margaret Wise Brown’s classic children’s story The Runaway Bunny (click here for a wonderful narration of the book) narrates a similar parable of grace. A little bunny decides to run away from home -- yet is constantly confounded by his mother’s counter-arguments. No matter where he goes, she tells him, I’ll be right behind you. In the end, the baby bunny suggests that he will run away and become a little boy. His mother says that she’ll follow him, swooping him into her arms and hugging him forever. “Shucks,” the bunny says, “I might as well just stay home.”
It’s a delightful story about the possibilities of grace.
*****
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Managing New Perspectives
In the parable, all the parties involved must learn how to manage different perspectives about their interactions with each other. Flexibility in relationships is the key to discovering grace and learning about forgiveness -- yet when we become entrenched in our perspectives, it is nearly impossible to move toward reconciliation. Mary Sellon and Daniel Smith discuss what is involved in managing perspectives for church leaders and congregations in their book Practicing Right Relationship (Alban Institute, 2005):
How we think about people, events, and life situations makes a difference in how we experience them and interact with them. Whenever a person throws up his (her) hands and says, “that’s just the way it is,” it’s a strong clue that the person is trapped in a perspective.... Once we set our mind in a particular direction, alternative ways of viewing the situation disappear and we are left with what feels like the one and only truth. Walls box in our mental capacity; we lose flexibility to consider options. And while there is always some truth to the perspective we’re trapped, there are always other ways of looking at the same situation that also have some truth to them (Practicing Right Relationship, p. 37).
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Everything Has Become New!
Brie Larson won the Oscar for best actress for her leading role in Room, a movie about a young woman who was kidnapped, raped, and held captive in a garden shed for more than five years. The story involves how Larson is able to cope with her captivity and also nurture her young son, who was conceived by the rapist. It is an intense story of coping, hope, and discovery. Larson’s character prompts her son (played by the amazingly precocious actor Jake Tremblay) to pretend to be dead in order to escape. Yet young Jack has never seen the world -- for him, this is truly another birthing experience. Everything becomes new as he adjusts to the brightness of the sun, the breadth of open spaces, and the experiences of playing with friends in the safety of a backyard. Room is a powerful illustration of what it means to experience the reconciling power of God that leads us into new life.
***************
From team member Ron Love:
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Justice Anthony Scalia, who recently died, took great pride in the opinions he wrote for the Supreme Court. Yet writing those opinions was not easy. Scalia described the process this way: “Writing is painful. It’s exacting.... You have to do it, redo it, and then do it again.”
Application: Living as a new creation in Christ is exacting -- we have to constantly review our behavior to be sure that it is Christ-like.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia was known for his “originalist” interpretation of the United States Constitution, which he defined as believing that “the Constitution means what the people felt when they ratified it.” Scalia maintained that a justice should not reinterpret the Constitution to place upon it one’s own policy and values.
Application: As Christians who are a new creation in Christ, we are to be originalists -- we are to live our lives as Christ originally did.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia took seriously his role as a teacher of young law students. He knew that his written opinions were not sufficient, so he frequently made appearances in classrooms. Michael McConnell, a Stanford Law School professor, said of Scalia’s classroom lectures: “He said that one of the ways to get people to pay attention to ideas is to get people to pay attention to you.”
Application: As Christians we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. In witnessing to bring others to Christ, we are going to have to first get them to pay attention to us.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Supreme Court Justice Anthony Scalia was very vocal and outspoken on the court, noting that “I really do enjoy oral argument... the intellectual thrust and parry. It’s almost like an English play.”
Application: As Christians we are called to a ministry of reconciliation. In the process of witnessing to bring others to Christ, we are going to have to enjoy oral argument.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Popular author John Grisham, who has written 37 novels of courtroom drama, has recently released a book in which there are no bad guys and no lawyers in the courtroom. The Tumor, his 38th book, is about a young married father who has a brain tumor and is treated with focused ultrasound -- a medical treatment which decreases the size of brain tumors with focused energy rays. This process may not cure cancer, but it can prolong a patient’s life. Grisham, an advocate of this treatment, believes it is so important that he is offering his book free of charge -- readers can download it from Amazon or from the website for the Focused Ultrasound Foundation. Grisham hopes that his book will make the public aware of this procedure and help raise money for its development. Grisham said of writing this book, which is outside his usual genre: “I write escapist popular fiction that entertains. It’s entertainment. It doesn’t pretend to be literature or anything else. But The Tumor has the potential to one day save or prolong millions of lives.”
Application: The ministry of reconciliation is not merely for entertainment; it is serious business.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Jenna Fagnan, the president of Tequila Avion, says that she learned the importance of giving her employees autonomy when working on an assigned project. After sharing her vision, Fagan realized that the employee knows “what it is that they specifically have to do make that vision happen.”
Application: When we become a new creation in Christ we keep our autonomy, but we also have the vision of what it means to be a part of a ministry of reconciliation.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
When asked about her hiring practices, Jenna Fagnan, the president of Tequila Avion, said: “You try to understand if the person has the passion and the energy.”
Application: As a new creation in Christ, we must have the passion and the energy to be a part of the ministry of reconciliation.
*****
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Lew Wallace conceived of the idea for the novel Ben Hur in 1905 while on a train ride in which he was arguing for and supporting Christ’s divinity against the famous agnostic Robert Ingersoll.
Application: In the ministry of reconciliation, we must be able to argue for and support the divinity of Jesus.
*****
Joshua 5:9-12
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of African-American History and Culture will open this coming September in Washington, DC -- and its director, Lonnie Bunch, is excited about the educational opportunities the museum will offer. Bunch noted that one of the museum’s most meaningful artifacts is a piece of wood taken from a slave ship off the coast of South Africa. Upon receiving it, Bunch said that the community’s tribal chief asked him to take some soil from Mozambique, where most of the people came from, and sprinkle it upon the ship and the piece of wood. Then, the chief said, for the first time since 1794 our people will sleep in their own land.
Application: With the Passover meal, the Israelites will always remember the land from which they came.
*****
Joshua 5:9-12
Director Lonnie Bunch said that the forthcoming National Museum of African-American History and Culture “is crucial for us to help people realize that history is not nostalgia. History is this amazing tool that helps people live their lives to understand the challenges they face.”
Application: The Passover meal for the Israelites will never be for nostalgia, but it will always be a meal of remembrance of their difficulties in Egypt and their deliverance to the land of Canaan.
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven.
People: Happy are those to whom God imputes no iniquity.
Leader: God is a hiding place for us and preserves us from trouble.
People: God surrounds us with glad cries of deliverance.
Leader: Be glad in God and rejoice, O righteous.
People: Shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
OR
Leader: Come and discover the new things that are coming!
People: Change and new things can be scary.
Leader: These changes come from our loving God.
People: We trust God to be bringing us only good things.
Leader: God is making all creation new and redeemed.
People: We rejoice in God’s re-creating work!
Hymns and Sacred Songs
“This Is a Day of New Beginnings”
found in:
UMH: 383
NCH: 417
CH: 518
W&P: 355
“God of Grace and God of Glory”
found in:
UMH: 577
H82: 594, 595
PH: 420
NCH: 436
CH: 464
LBW: 415
ELA: 705
W&P: 569
AMEC: 62
STLT: 115
Renew: 301
“Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah”
found in:
UMH: 127
H82: 690
PH: 281
AAHH: 138, 139, 140
NNBH: 232
NCH: 18, 19
CH: 622
LBW: 343
ELA: 618
W&P: 501
AMEC: 52, 53, 65
“Be Thou My Vision”
found in:
UMH: 451
H82: 488
PH: 339
NCH: 451
CH: 595
ELA: 793
W&P: 502
AMEC: 281
STLT: 20
Renew: 151
“Lift High the Cross”
found in:
UMH: 159
H82: 473
PH: 371
AAHH: 242
NCH: 198
CH: 108
LBW: 377
ELA: 660
W&P: 287
Renew: 297
“Ye Servants of God”
found in:
UMH: 181
H82: 535
PH: 477
NCH: 305
CH: 110
LBW: 252
W&P: 112
“Jesus Calls Us”
found in:
UMH: 398
H82: 549, 550
NNBH: 183
NCH: 171, 172
CH: 337
LBW: 494
ELA: 696
W&P: 345
AMEC: 238
“O Master, Let Me Walk with Thee”
found in:
UMH: 430
H82: 659, 660
PH: 357
NNBH: 445
NCH: 503
CH: 602
LBW: 492
ELA: 818
W&P: 589
AMEC: 299
“Change My Heart, O God”
found in:
CCB: 56
Renew: 143
“Sing Unto the Lord a New Song”
found in:
CCB: 16
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
AAHH: African-American Heritage Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Renew: Renew! Songs & Hymns for Blended Worship
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who calls us to a new home and a new future: Grant us the courage to leave the old behind and to see the glorious future you are building with us; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
Come among us, O God, with your vision of the world as you are re-creating it. Fill us with your Spirit and enable us to live into your dream. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins, and especially our failure to anticipate that you are bringing good changes to our world.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We fear things that are new and different. We don’t like the way things are, but change scares us even more. We forget that you are working to bring about a renewed and redeemed creation. We fail to understand that we are hanging on to a broken world. Renew us so that we might welcome your new creation. Amen.
Leader: God in love is reaching out to us and inviting us to enter a new realm, a new creation. Receive God’s loving gift and be renewed in your hearts.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord’s Prayer)
We praise you, O God, for you have created all things to be good. We praise you as you re-create them and renew them.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. We fear things that are new and different. We don’t like the way things are, but change scares us even more. We forget that you are working to bring about a renewed and redeemed creation. We fail to understand that we are hanging on to a broken world. Renew us so that we might welcome your new creation.
We give you thanks for all the blessings of this life. You have truly made all things well, and creation is a delight and a wonder to us. When all is broken, you continue to work to renew it and us.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for all who suffer from the brokenness of this world and their own brokenness.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father . . . Amen.
(or if the Lord’s Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the Name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children’s Sermon Starter
Talk to the children about change. Ask if any of them have had to move and go to a new town and a new school. Change can be fun, and it can be scary. But when we know the change comes from someone who loves us, it helps us not to be afraid. God is bringing a change to our world. Because of God’s love, God wants the pain and the bad things to go away and for there to be peace and joy.
CHILDREN’S SERMON
That’s Not Fair!
by Chris Keating
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Ahead of time:
* Read over the story of the prodigal, and begin imagining how you might retell the story to the children.
* Prepare a list of things that happen to children which may not always seem fair to them. (See this blog posting for a great starter for some ideas!)
* Make two-sided signs -- one side with a happy face, and the other a sad face. Make enough on brightly colored paper for all the children.
As the children gather, greet them by telling them you are going to tell them a story about a time when a father was not fair -- he did something nice for one brother that he didn’t do for another. (Depending on the age of the children present, this idea may take a bit of time to unpack. Remember that young children will have very concrete ideas of what is “fair” and what is not.)
Can you remember a time when you told someone “That’s not fair!”? Ask the children to name things that happen which are not fair. (You go to the doctor for a sore throat and have to get a tetanus shot instead, you have to do homework instead of playing outside, you have to go to school instead of staying home, your little brother eats the last donut, and so forth.) Have some fun with them! Share some of the things you’ve written on your list of what is fair and not fair.
Today you will be telling them the story of the prodigal son. It is a story that Jesus taught that shows us that God’s love for us never ends. It is a story that teaches us about grace, and that grace is even better than knowing something is “fair.” As you tell the story, pause and ask the children to hold up their signs, voting for whether or not what just happened was “fair” or “not fair.” (Remember, happy is “fair”; sad is “unfair.”)
*****
One of the hardest lessons to learn is that sometimes life is not “fair.” Sometimes the rules at school or home may not make any sense to you -- you just want to do things your own way. As you listen to this Bible story, tell me what you think is fair or unfair. (You may consider shortening the story, depending on your context.)
Jesus said there was once a father who had two sons. The younger son decided he wanted to leave home. He wanted half of his father’s money right now. (Ask “Is that ‘Fair’ or ‘Unfair’?”)
So the father split his money evenly between the two boys. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) The one boy ran off to a place far away from home. Meanwhile, his brother worked hard every day for their dad. The younger brother went out and partied. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?)
Eventually the younger boy ran out of money. He didn’t make good choices, and had to get a job. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) But it was an awful job! He had to feed the man’s pigs. (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) He thought, “The pigs have more to eat than I do.” (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) Then he decided to go home and tell his father he was sorry for being selfish.
When he was still a long way from home, the boy’s father saw him. The dad threw down the hoe he was using and ran out to the boy. The boy started to cry and tell his dad how sorry he was. But the father loved his son. He hugged him. He then told some of his workers to go and get a party ready. “We need to celebrate! My son has come home!” (“Fair” or “Unfair”?)
Meanwhile, the older brother was watching -- and he was mad! He told his father: “I work hard for you every day, and you have never, ever, given me a party. It’s (invite the kids to say it with you) NOT FAIR!”
But the father said, “I love both of you the same. Everything that I have is yours -- remember, we divided the money evenly. But today your brother came home. I thought he was gone forever. We had to celebrate! (“Fair” or “Unfair”?) Let’s go to the party together!
God loves us always -- even when life seems unfair. We call that “grace.” We don’t always understand it. But Jesus teaches us that God is always willing to love us, even when we have been unfair to God and others. That is the meaning of God’s great forgiveness.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 6, 2016, issue.
Copyright 2016 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
