Saturday, March 5, 2016

The Prodigal Son/Forgiving Father/Offended Older Brother



Life can get complicated, relationships can get complicated and knowing that I am sometimes wrong is a concept with which I struggle every day. I believe this has been true as long as human beings have lived on Earth. It certainly appears that this was true in Jesus’ day and through his best known and longest parable He takes the opportunity to teach his followers (and us) a little bit about relationships with our neighbors and with God.

Most of us who are Christians, have been Christians, or know someone who is a Christian, know at least a little of the Story. The younger son believes he is ready to start out on his own, seeking his fame and fortune. He convinces Dad to give him his share of the inheritance and sets out footloose and fancy free to change the world, or at least his part of the world. After a period of time: weeks, months, years, he has exhausted his funds and lost his friends and ends up feeding the pigs, not a cool job for a young Jewish man. He decides (scripture says he “came to himself”) to go back to his father and beg to become one of his servants. As most of us know, the father runs to meet him, welcomes him home as a son and throws a big party to celebrate. The older, “responsible,” brother hears the noise, asks the reason and then becomes terribly jealous when he finds out what is going on. The older brother will not enter the party, the father comes out to him (sound familiar?) and reminds him that he loves him too and that he is his beloved son as well.

Obviously this is a story about God, a God who loves us all, even in the midst of our human propensity to make really bad decisions and mistakes, and very often to blame them on someone else. It is just as obvious that Jesus tells this story to teach us something about human relationships as well. Most of us believe that we are more often right than wrong, that we are smarter and more faithful than the next person and that if we do have problems they are caused by someone else.

In preparing to preach tomorrow at Christ Episcopal Church in Albertville, Alabama, I also read from St. Paul’s Second letter to the Corinthians, Chapter 5:16-21, which for me adds some light and even heat to Jesus’ Parable.  I share a few of my insights from this epistle:

"If anyone is in Christ, he or she is a new creation; everything old has passed away, see everything has become new. All of this is from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ, and God has given us the ministry of reconciliation."

So God is not only reconciling us to Himself, but is giving us the ministry of reconciliation. We are called not only to be welcomed back by God as Sons and Daughters, but to see our brothers and sisters as sons and daughters of God as well. Easier to be welcomed by God than to welcome those who make us angry, receive more than they deserve, or drive us completely crazy.

But St. Paul continues: “and God has entrusted his message of reconciliation to us.” To us, why? “I am still angry, I don’t want to forgive, I want what is rightfully mine.” Back to Paul: “so, we are ambassadors for Christ since God makes his appeal through us.” If God makes his appeal through us, then he is calling us to be empathetic, to recognize that we may be wrong and others right, or vice-versa, but that no matter what, we are called to be “the righteousness of God,” we are called to stay connected to one another. We as Christians do this in many ways, but the most obvious and perhaps even most meaningful is when we go to the altar to receive the “real presence of Christ” in the Holy Communion and stand or kneel next to a person who has offended us, or a person who does not believe exactly the same as we do about Jesus, or a person who voted for a person we would not even speak to. At this moment, the Holy Spirit joins us together with the God of all Creation and with one another.

We are joined together because of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, and because of Him are truly “Ambassadors of Christ,” first to one another and then to the whole world.


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