Luke
15:11-32; II Corinthians 5:16-21
The Apostle Paul had a major
problem. He had made a personal
commitment to the folks in the Church at Corinth
and things were not going as planned.
Paul wrote at least 5 letters to this church trying to straighten out
their troubles. We have the majority of
those letters in First and Second Corinthians.
The difficulty faced by Paul was quite simple; many of the folks in that
church just didn’t care for each other. They
disagreed over politics, they disagreed over religious issues and they really
had problems over what kind of meat you could put on a sandwich. There was not
a lot of room for discussion because each group, and there was more than one,
was convinced they had been given the
word of the Lord, which of course meant the other folks were imposter at
best and heretics at worst. We have to give Paul style points for trying. In
the earliest letter, he tried to address each issue, an exercise which only
made folks doubt Paul’s faith. In the letter that includes First Corinthians 12, Paul attempted a second
strategy. He acknowledged their differences and wrote while everyone was not
the same, those differences should be celebrated. Paul suggested just because folks are
different doesn’t mean they can’t get along. He offered the human body as an
example of different parts working together to obtain a greater goal. He
pointed out all the different talents present in the Corinthian Church. He encouraged the church to recognize and celebrate
those differences.
That didn’t work either. In Paul’s third
letter we witness him trying a new tact. He wrote a soliloquy which quickly
became considered his masterpiece. “If I
speak with the tongue of angels but have not love, I am little more than a
clanging gong.” We know the words. We have heard I Corinthians 13 a hundred
times or more, “Love is patient, love is kind, love is gentle. Love does not
keep score but rejoices in truth. Love
bears all things.” How could a poem such
as this not melt the hearts of the harshest opponents? That is a great question without a good
answer. The letter fell on deaf ears. Soon
afterwards Paul was speaking of making another painful visit to this turbulent
congregation. It seemed the harder Paul
tried, the worse things got. Nothing
Paul tried was successful with this cantankerous group. By the time we get to
Paul’s final plea found in Second Corinthians 5 it would seem as if Paul has
run out of things to say. Nothing had
worked and the Church was hopelessly divided. In Paul’s closing plea he wrote,
“If anyone is in Christ, they have become a new creation. As God reconciled us to himself, so we are to
be reconciled to God and each other.”
Reconciliation is a big word that
doesn’t often come up in our every day conversations. What does it mean to be reconciled to
someone? Those of you who have been
Presbyterian for a long time might remember in the midst of the turmoil of Viet Nam and
the Civil Rights Movement, our church wrote the Confession of 1967 which
centered around one verse. “In Jesus
Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself.” The Confession clearly defined sin in terms
of discrimination, national arrogance, and class conflict. The confession declared the sinfulness of
humanity was more than individual acts of disobedience. Corporately we chose our desires, our needs,
and our appetites over the will of God. Corporately we declare folks who think differently
from us to be the primary enemies of God.
To quote the Confession, “The Church is called to bring all people to
receive and uphold one another in all relationships. Congregations, individuals, or groups of
Christians who exclude, dominate or patronize others, resist the Spirit of God
and bring contempt on the faith which they profess.”
The $64,000 question is not, “How do we
do that?” The $64,000 question is “Why
should we do that?” Why should we become reconciled, i.e. “settle differences
to the point of finding harmony”? That risks watering down any issue to the
point it no longer matters. Besides, it didn’t work in Corinth. Paul’s fourth and later fifth
letters were rejected by the members of that church. If Paul couldn’t convince
anyone 2,000 years, ago why should we listen to Paul today?
While
we are blessed by harmony, conflict in churches continues. Six churches in our
Presbytery are in the process of leaving the PCUSA to go to other denominations.
Their complaints center around what they believe to be the Lordship of Jesus
Christ, the denomination’s stance on abortion, and a recent change in our
ordination standards. Part of me wants
to say good riddance. I have been listening to folks like them holler and
scream for the better part of thirty years. They are not going to change and at
this point neither am I. Why should I be reconciled to them? To do so means I
am willing to at the least continue the conversation and those conversations
have always come with a price. I am not sure I am willing to give up anything
else to folks with whom I so vehemently disagree. Perhaps this is why Paul said, “Before we can
become reconciled to each other we must first be reconciled with God.” What on
earth did he mean by that?
One of the more interesting stories of
reconciliation is one we have heard since we were children. A man has two sons. One wants to go out and sow his wild
oats. The other stays home, does all the
right things, says all the right things, and even believed he was supporting
his father when he created a peer group of older brothers who stood out in the
street vehemently protesting, “While we don’t actually hate our younger
siblings, we deplore their sins and believe our lives would be much more
pleasant if they would forever removed from the family.” Well that may not be part of the story but I
suspect many older brothers have expressed that thought. Sentiments run strong between siblings,
especially if younger siblings aren’t playing by the rules. I once divided a group of kids into two
groups. I put the oldest brothers and
sisters in group number one and the rest in group number two. Then I asked who has it easier. According to the elders, the prodigals get
away with murder. They get to come in
later, they have a better allowance, they have fewer rules and more
privileges. According to one older
brother, “Back when I was in elementary school I was
never allowed to watch TV until all my homework was done. Now my younger brother doesn’t even know what
homework is. In fact, he has a TV in his room.” While I of course agreed with the sentiments
of the older siblings, in fairness I asked the second group how they felt.
Typically the prodigals felt like their older siblings always picked on them,
and got away with murder. One said, “She
never plays with me and when her friends come over I practically have to leave
the house. Even the dog gets to
stay.”
Those of us who are older brothers and
sisters understand the refusal to come to the party given for the
delinquent. Forget his anger toward his
sibling. He was really angry with the
father. The older brother obeyed all the
rules; he was pure, holy, and squeaky clean.
He never caused problems. Except
that there was not an ounce of forgiveness in his heart he was absolutely perfect. How dare his father invite that ingrate back
into the house?
Sometimes I get weary of preaching about
the forgiveness of God? Doesn’t someone have
to be the standard bearer? Doesn’t someone
have to be willing to declare what is right and wrong! If God isn’t going to strike down sinners in
their tracks then I guess it is up to us to become God’s avenging angels.
Ever played avenging angel before? I imagine we have all done it once or twice.
OK I am not only the older brother, I am a minister. Perhaps I’ve done it more
times than I like to imagine. Let me tell you, it feels good. Every time I have used my bully pulpit to
make a righteous point I can count on four things:
1. I am never wrong.
2. My adversary is never right.
3. Consensus is never reached.
4. And God, like Elvis, has left
the building.
I
don’t want you leaving this morning thinking that your minister implied that
God does not have standards. I don’t
want you to believe that we should not strive for higher goals. I certainly don’t want you to think that you
shouldn’t voice your beliefs. What I
want you to consider is, ultimately, which is more important, God’s grace or
our pride. When I look out at you folks
I see the people of God. There is
nothing ordinary about being God’s people, in fact you are called to be
extraordinary: Extra thoughtful, extra friendly, extra involved. And so you are. You volunteer, you serve, you listen, you
give. Many of you burn your candle at
both ends. You have done many things so
well, you have the right to be frustrated when the prodigals of this world seem
to get more than their deserved share of God’s attention while we, the
faithful, get left behind the barn. It makes sense that in our frustration we
scream at God, “Why do you keep giving
them a second chance? Why do you always celebrate their homecomings? What about those of us who never left? What
about those of us who never stopped working? What about us who are always
defending what you claim is right?”
I struggle mightily with the reality
that my service to God may not guarantee that God loves me more than the
prodigal. It is difficult to consider
that simply because I claim God, the Holy One may not give me the inside track
on the wisdom of this world. And to be
honest, isn’t it hard to believe that those who are our enemies may have not
lost favor with God?
Karl Barth taught in Germany in the
1920’2 and 1930’s. He is the primary author of the Barmen Confession, an extraordinary document condemning the Third
Reich. To escape death, Barth fled to his native Switzerland. In 1943, Barth was asked by a reporter what
he might say to Hitler should he meet the monster who had destroyed Europe. Everyone expected a scathing prophetic judgment.
Instead Barth said, “I would quote Romans 5:8, ‘While we were sinners, Christ
died for us.” The audience was stunned. What kind of answer was that? Barth
continued, “To justly accuse Hitler of his abominations would only prompt a self-righteous
defense and justification of his deeds. To remind him of God’s unparallel mercy
and forgiveness might prompt genuine repentance.”
What a strange God we worship. Theology
becomes simple when God the Almighty lays out expectations to be honored. But everything is turned upside down when God
the powerful becomes God the servant, when God the everlasting becomes God the
crucified, when God the Absolute becomes God the Reconciler. Mary Gordon writes, “To become reconciled is
to give up the exhilaration of one’s own unassailable rightness.” The prodigal is wrong, why should we forgive
him? Our enemies are wrong, why should
we talk to them? Why should we give up
the exhilaration of our unassailable rightness?
The answer is terribly simple. “When we were sinners, Christ died for us. Amen.
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