Fourth Sunday in Lent

II Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

Today's readings clearly are joined in theme, as is the Psalm, 32. Beginning with Corinthians, remember that Paul is writing to a church that regularly has squabbles and fights and divisions between social and economic classes. This reading is all about our point of view in looking at ourselves and other people.

Think of baptism as causing a change in eyeglass prescriptions. Before we saw Jesus as human, and we saw everyone else fully in their limited, flawed humanity. We were quick to point out what was wrong in others. Once our prescription changes, however, we begin to be able to see others as God sees them: people deeply in need of reconciliation with a God who offers grace and forgiveness and, by implied extension, in need of reconciliation with one another.

It's important to note that the renewal of a relationship with God comes first. Without that, we do not have the grace, the power, the insight (to continue the metaphor) to see others with the generosity with which God sees them.

Once we have renewed our own relationship with God, through being "in Christ" and therefore newly created, then we are given the task of calling others to this reconciliation. We are called to create, if you will, a "new world order" based on reconciliation. Once we internalize God's forgiveness of us, then we have the power not only to forgive others (a la the Lord's Prayer), but to help others understand God's gracious forgiveness offered to them and then to pay it forward to others.

All of this is amply illustrated in the story Jesus tells in Luke that we often know as the Prodigal Son. RIght off the bat we need to look again at how that title colors our understanding of this story. It's really not about either son, but about the Father, one who forgives so extravagantly it offends folk who think that very forgiveness is unjust!

A few interesting details on this story. Inheritance law would have given the elder brother the vast majority (about 2/3) of the property upon his father's death, while the younger brother would have received only a third. It was not uncommon for fathers to make a "living trust" with sons, to hand over control of property with the provision that they would still live on it and have privilege of place in helping make decisions.

Oh, and by the way, no respectable man would have gone running down a road anywhere unless his coat was on fire!! Especially to greet someone of much lower status than himself!

Remember the context for this story in the first three verses of the chapter. Jesus has been hanging out with the kind of folk who most need to be reconciled with God and with their communities. The "righteous" folk are offended by this, because they think Jesus should make those folk change their lives before they receive the love and attention Jesus lavishes on them. That is a very common human inclination: say you're sorry and make restitution and then we will forgive you. That's certainly the attitude of the older brother, and probably many of us as well.

But the father in the story doesn't even wait for the younger son to say a single word before he rushes to meet him with a loving embrace. When the younger son tries to explain what has happened and admit his failures, the father stops him and calls for a party. We know the son has indeed had a change of heart, but the father does not know this before embracing him!

The theologian Martin Luther once wrote, "Forgiveness is not an occasional art; it is a permanent attitude." That's what both Paul and Jesus are talking about. And this is very tough stuff for most of us, indeed.

Lent Three

Isaiah 55:1-13, Luke 13:1-9

Two powerful passages this week which might, at first reading, seem to be presenting God in both "good cop" and "bad cop" modes.

Isaiah is the good news. This passage anticipates return of Hebrew exiles in Babylon home as God has promised them. The promise is that they can find food and water, even if they have lost everything in exile.

BUT, and there is a rather sizable "but" here in verses 2 and 3, in order truly to be fed on return and find safety and security, you need to attend to God's call and God's way. Like David, the people are called to be witnesses and leaders; their job is to be living examples of God's love so that others will be drawn to that love. IF they seek God, IF they change their ways, then they shall find joy and security.

What got them in trouble in the first place and led to exile was a choice on the part not only of the leadership of the nation, but of many others as well, to leave behind the covenant with God and take credit themselves for their prosperity. They ignored worship and caring for the "widows and orphans" (symbols of those on the lowest rungs of society) and so were vulnerable to attack because they relied on their own strength and not God.

So while this beautiful passage is full of GOOD NEWS, it is also full of a call to live in such a way that the news continues to be good and God can do what God wants to do in their lives!

The Luke passage is a bit more complicated, but along the same theme. The text begins with two examples which the people around Jesus used to illustrate a common theological belief: if something bad happens to you, you must be bad! The first story (an incident in which Pilate had soldiers lay in wait for some wanted men [terrorists against Rome?] at the temple and killed them while they worshipped) shows human-caused disaster. The second shows a natural disaster which also killed people.

Jesus isn't buying that theology. There isn't always a reason why someone is the victim of bad things. Innocent people become victims all the time; did those who didn't escape from the World Trade Centers on 9/11 die because they were all the bad people while the survivors were all the good people? Jesus would say, "Ridiculous!"

Then we get the "but" in this passage. Even though innocent people die because human beings or nature cause tragedy, that doesn't mean that some suffering isn't caused by our own actions. If you are a lifelong smoker, the odds are pretty good you will suffer health consequences. If you drive drunk, the odds are good you will injure yourself or others you love. Sin CAN lead to death. So stop congratulating yourself that you weren't in the temple that day when the Galileans were killed or that you didn't happen to be walking under that tower when it fell down. You are no more righteous than those who died.

Pay attention to your own life and see that you are aligning yourself with God and life.

Then the fig tree reinforces the point. Note that the fig tree hasn't done anything evil, or even just bad. It hasn't produced wormy fruit. It's sin is that it has done NOTHING AT ALL. When fruit is required from it, it simply stands still. So Jesus further pushes his listeners to widen their understanding of sin. As an old prayer puts it,

Forgive us for what we have done and what we have left undone.

Yet the good news here is that second chances abound in God's economy, just as the Isaiah passage assured the exiled Hebrews. There is still time to bear fruit.