Phil Kniss: Worship and . . . whoops!

March 28, 2010
Palm and Passion Sunday: Luke 19:28-40

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The Triumphal Entry story lends itself to great congregational worship.
The praise just flows.
The “Hosannas” come easy.
This morning, as always,
it was great to be part of it,
with the children, the procession, the choirs.
Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem
is a delightful story to recall, and to re-enact.
Palm branches waving, people making an impromptu red carpet
out of the colorful clothes on their back,
crowds of children and adults singing songs of praise,
welcoming Jesus into Jerusalem,
the Pharisees trying to shush them,
and a serene Jesus perched on the back of a donkey,
just taking it all in.
It’s a great, uplifting story.

But you don’t have to dig very deep,
to discover there’s a hitch in this story.
A very big hitch.
Jesus turned out to be a huge disappointment.
And much quicker than we think.
No sooner did he enter the city,
than he took a sharp turn that devastated his worshipers.
When the parade stopped
I think Jesus became an embarrassment
to the people trailing him singing and waving palms.
I don’t think I’m overstating the situation at all.
We sometimes miss this sudden and radical turn of events.

We like to think that the crowds were just being fickle.
That later in the week they were seized
by some evil, mob mentality,
urged on by Jesus’ false accusers, the religious hierarchy.
That in the heat of the moment they caved under pressure
and started calling for his crucifixion.

It’s nice for us to think that—
we who identify with these ordinary citizens—
to blame those self-righteous and corrupt religious leaders
in the top echelon,
or just to blame the Roman oppressors.
We’d rather not consider that maybe these ordinary citizens
actually did want Jesus crucified.
We’d rather not have to come to the conclusion,
that had we been there, we would surely . . . have done the same.

It’s nice to think that.
I just don’t think there’s any biblical basis for it.
Everything we know about
the political, and religious, and social situation there,
leads me to conclude that the common people, the citizens,
really meant it when they shouted “Hosanna!”
on the way to Jerusalem,
and really meant it when they shouted “Crucify him!”
only a short while later.
Jesus utterly let them down.
And he did so in such a blatant, and in-your-face kind of way,
that they were cut to the core, they were enraged.
_____________________

You must understand.
This parade into Jerusalem, was not just a happy celebration
for Jesus the great teacher and healer and story-teller.
They weren’t following him with palm branches and song
because they loved him as a person,
because he was kind to children and made the blind see.
That was certainly part of it.
But this march into Jerusalem was a political march.
There is no other way to see it.
They were openly chanting messianic language,
straight from the prophets and the psalms.
“Hosanna . . . save us . . . Son of David!”
They saw Jesus as the long-awaited Messiah to deliver them
from the brutal oppression of the Roman Empire.
They would be following him to Herod’s palace
where he would throw out the Romans,
and take over the throne of David,
and they would be a free and independent people,
once and for all.

Picture, if you can remember it, in 1989,
East Germans marching through the hole in the Berlin Wall,
or Indians marching with Mahatma Gandhi
in the Salt March of 1930,
or Blacks and Whites walking arm-in-arm
on the march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965.
If you can picture those scenes in your mind,
then you have an idea of what it felt like to the people,
to be with Jesus on the march into Jerusalem.

The crowds, the common people,
were thrilled with the prospect that they were about to be freed!
True, the religious higher-ups didn’t believe in Jesus,
the scribes and Pharisees and were sternly warning them.
But that didn’t matter.
They saw, with their own eyes,
all the proof they needed that Jesus was Messiah.
They saw the miracles.
If Jesus could feed five-thousand, heal the lame, and raise the dead,
it would be nothing for him to take Herod and Herod’s army
and throw them out of the palace, back to where they came from.
_____________________

But . . . on what was to be the day of triumph for Jesus and the people,
this great parade came to a screeching halt.

In fact, in Luke’s version of the story,
this triumphal entry was neither triumphal . . . nor an entry.
We stopped at v. 40 in Luke 19.
But in v. 41 it says,
as he came near Jerusalem . . . and saw the city, he wept.
Jesus had only come within sight of Jerusalem,
when the tone of story changes abruptly.
The hosanna’s died down,
and now Jesus is weeping,
and pronouncing words of lament
and harsh judgement against Jerusalem.
Not against Rome . . . but Jerusalem!!
Jesus said, referring to Jerusalem,
“Your enemies will crush you to the ground.”
I wonder what the people near him
thought about that pronouncement.

And when they finally did enter the city,
Jesus did not go straight to the palace and retake the throne.
He went to their own place of worship, the temple,
and started cleansing it of corruption, and money-changing,
starting throwing Jewish people out into the streets.
At first, I suppose, the people gave him the benefit of the doubt.
This must be part of the plan.
Luke says, in v. 48, that even while he taught in the temple,
the people were spellbound,
so the chief priests and scribes waited to move in on him.

But I don’t think it took long for it to dawn on
even the most uneducated of the common citizen.
Jesus was not the kind of Savior
they thought they were following into Jerusalem.
It soon became clear.

They had joined a movement,
spending the last days and weeks openly rejoicing,
proclaiming the beginning of the end.
They were following a king,
who peacefully, without weapons, using only divine power,
would unseat the most powerful and brutal king
they had ever known.
But Jesus had no intention of using his power
to cast Herod off his throne,
and bring political liberation.
Instead, his target seemed to be his own people.
If Jesus was a king,
he was not the king they imagined.

Whoops!
Big whoops!
They had Jesus all wrong.
Jesus was the worst kind of messianic pretender.
He led them on.
Only to turn the tables on them, and humiliate them.

I really doubt at this point,
that the religious establishment had much trouble at all
convincing the crowds
of what they, the leaders, had been saying all along:
Jesus was a fraud.
They probably didn’t have to try hard to get the chant going,
“Crucify him, crucify him!”
_____________________

The crowds actually discovered a pretty important truth that week.
Worship is a risky thing.
By its definition, worship is risky.
It’s risky to bow yourself in worship
to One you have no control over.
It’s risky to publicly align yourself
to publicly declare your loyalty and affection and adoration
to One you don’t really know, and can’t predict or manage.
At the end of worship,
there is always the possibility of a
“Whoops! What have we gotten into?”

Every time we walk into this sanctuary
and join our hearts and voices in worship,
we are taking a risk.
Because we are declaring our loyalty and undying devotion
to a God who is beyond our control,
a God who we know only in part.
We are throwing our lot in with God,
even though we don’t know what God’s next move will be.
But that’s the nature of worship.

Our temptation is to only worship the part of God that we know.
But that’s worship that doesn’t move us or change us.
That’s only reciting what we’re already convinced of.
True worship lays down our petty agenda
before the great mystery of God.
True worship declares our loyalty
even to that truth of God that is beyond our grasp.
True worship transforms us.
Because when we lay down self,
then God is free to move us to a new place.
God will change us.

Worship is an act of radical submission.
When we sing songs of praise to God Almighty,
when we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord . . .
are we prepared to face the implications of that worship?
are we ready for the “whoops”?
are we ready if God throws us a curve?
are we ready to sing “Jesus is Lord”
if Jesus leads us down a path we don’t want to go?
are we ready to keep praising God
if God asks us for something difficult if not impossible?

The only worship that has integrity
is worship that not only shouts “Hosanna,”
but also lays down our lives and agenda,
both as individuals and as a community,
worship that says to God, “Here I am. Do with me what you will.
Here we are. Do with us what you will.”

Anyone here who has made a commitment to follow Jesus in life,
and has publicly declared that choice in baptism,
has already said those words, or words like them.

This is the public statement that Jeffrey Smoker
will make here in a moment.
And we are all here to bless and affirm Jeffrey in this statement.
But it is also an opportune time to reexamine our own readiness
to still make that statement today.

All during Lent,
we’ve responded to the sermons with a time of confession,
taking small pieces of paper and writing on them,
and letting go of them,
onto the healing waters,
symbolized by this bowl of water near the cross.
Today, these waters become the water of Jeffrey’s baptism.

So I invite another kind of response from you.
Most of you are still holding your palm branch,
or have it lying close to you.
Make that branch a symbol of the worship
you have publicly offered to God today.
Let it symbolize all that you know about God,
for which you are willing and ready to worship today.
Now, let us ask ourselves,
are we ready to follow Jesus . . . tomorrow,
wherever he leads,
even if he takes a sharp turn from where we expected to go?
Are we ready to truly lay down our agenda,
and submit ourselves to God, for the duration?
all the way to the end,
be it cross, or be it glory . . . or be it both?

If so, I invite us to take our palms with us as we leave the sanctuary.
To carry them from our place of worship,
to the next place Jesus may be leading us.
You are welcome to take them home with you,
and put them in a visible place this Holy Week,
reminding you of your commitment to keep following.
If you prefer not to take them home, that’s fine.
There will be a basket in the foyer where you can place them.

So I invite us to a time of prayer and self-reflection.
Again, we will first listen to, and then sing,
#63 in Sing the Story, “God, fill me now.”
It’s an invitation both to let go and to hold on . . .
to approach God with empty hands . . .
and to cling to the fullness of what God has to offer us.
We will sing verses 1 and 2.

—Phil Kniss, March 28, 2010



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Phil Kniss: Make way for the way-maker!

March 21, 2010
Lent 5: Isaiah 43:16-21; Psalm 126; Philippians 3:4b-14; John 12:1-8

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There are two reasons
why the message in the scripture readings this morning
is a hard message to swallow.
1. We’re Americans.
2. We’re Mennonites.
Well, not all of us,
but the majority of us here today fit both those categories.
And that’s a bad combination
if we’re looking to be inspired by today’s scripture.

So let me tell you what it is about being American and being Mennonite
that make these texts difficult.
And then we’ll look at the texts themselves.

Americans have a reputation for being inventive, clever,
finding a way around any problem.
We call it “American ingenuity,” and we’re proud of it.
Our values are shaped by sayings such as,
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way.”
“Sweat plus sacrifice equals success.”
Americans admire, without exception,
persons who make their way in the world by themselves,
against great odds.
We say they “pull themselves up by their bootstraps.”
We admire people with an independent spirit.
That’s what made our country what it is today.
American frontiers-people could never have pushed westward
without it.
California and Oregon might not exist today
except for these strong, ingenius, risk-takers.
People who could make things happen.
We look up to the movers and shakers among us.
This is an American value for which I’m grateful.
I am indebted, and you are indebted, in many different ways
to the ingenuity and creativity and “can-do spirit”
of millions of Americans, past and present.

Okay, so what is it about being Mennonite?
Well, Mennonites are also great do-ers.
We believe firmly in “faith in action.”
We go to great lengths,
and make significant personal sacrifice,
to put our faith into action and service,
put our faith into “shoe-leather,” so to speak.
We have a cultural heritage of being hard workers,
with an amazing work ethic.
We have a faith heritage
of choosing to go into hard and dangerous places to serve.
“To know Christ truly, we must follow him in life.”
So goes an old Anabaptist saying.
We believe that all disciples of Jesus are called
to take up our cross,
to make the sacrifice,
to do whatever it takes,
to demonstrate our faith to the world.
We Mennonites are steeped in a faith tradition
that majors in ethics,
in doing what is right.
It’s a tradition I am incredibly grateful for.
I can say in all honesty and integrity,
that I’m proud of this faith tradition.

But it does create a bit of tension for us,
if we’re looking to be inspired by today’s scripture readings.

Because in today’s texts, we are not the ones who make a way.
We are not the ones who make things happen.
We are not the ones who,
through some American ingenuity,
or some Mennonite work ethic,
earn anything in terms of God’s favor, or God’s blessing.

Let’s take a look at them, briefly, one by one.
If you have your Bibles, you might want to page along.
I don’t often refer to all four lectionary readings in my sermon,
but this time I was struck by this strong thread
that seemed to run through all these texts.

First, Isaiah chapter 43.
The prophet tells his people that God, Yahweh,
is “the one who makes a way.” [v. 16]
Referring to the Exodus of the Israelite slaves from Egypt,
the prophet reminds the people that they did not escape,
God delivered them.
It was not by the strength of horses or chariots,
armies or warriors. [v. 17]
All of those, when confronted by Yahweh the way-maker,
simply lie down in defeat.

And the people Isaiah is speaking to now,
are once again between a rock and a hard place,
in exile in Babylon.
And the Lord says, through the prophet. [v. 18]
You thought the Exodus was great? Forget it!
Forget the old days!
Wait till you see the deliverance I’m working on now.
I am about to do a new thing.
I, the Lord your God, am about to make a way . . . again.
A way in the wilderness.
A river in the desert.
It will be so great,
the wild animals will praise me,
even nasty, sheep-stealing jackals will honor me for it.
I will do it.
So that you, the people I created for my pleasure,
will praise me.
It’s not going to be about you. Sorry.

And then we heard Psalm 126.
This is all about letting go of our need to make the way,
to manage the outcome.
It’s about remembering that God is the great way-maker,
the great restorer.
This is a psalm for people in the desert,
who are all out of water.
And there is nothing they can do to change that.
If there is going to be any restoring,
any refreshment or renewal,
it’s going to be God doing it.

The other day someone told me about hearing this text
explained by a pastor from a famine-stricken part of Africa.
The experience of drought and famine and starvation in Africa
brought to light a deeper meaning in this text I had never seen.
Where it says,
Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing,
shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves . . .
it never occurred to me what this might be referring to.
The African pastor said he knew.
In a time of severe drought,
it becomes a test of faith,
whether you take your last bag of beans,
and cook and eat them,
or plant them.
Those who were carrying seed to sow,
were weeping because they were taking the last remainder,
and choosing not to eat them and satisfy present hunger,
but to plant them,
trusting that rain would come.
Those with such a radical willingness to let go . . .
to release control over the outcome,
will come back rejoicing, carrying sheaves,
the psalmist said.

Then we had Paul’s letter to the Philippians,
chapter 3, starting with verse 4.
This one hits close home to Mennonites,
or anyone else who values their history and genealogy,
and family and faith traditions.
Paul reads down a list of all the gifts of his heritage—
all the strengths that come from being part of a people
with a strong communal identity,
strong religious tradition,
and a rigorous system of ethics.
These are like Paul’s family jewels,
the treasures of his tradition.
They are to be celebrated and valued.
But Paul says . . . “Rubbish!” Rubbish!
Compared to the surpassing value
of what God has done for me, through Christ,
purely by grace . . .
what I have accomplished as a righteous man of faith
is like . . . nothing.
In fact, he says, what I intend to strive after from here on out,
is to be like Christ,
in laying down his privilege and power,
to be like Christ even in his sufferings and death,
so I might be like him in his resurrection.
It’s a life-changing revelation to Paul, the righteous one,
the Pharisee,
the do-er of good,
the follow-er of the law.
Paul realizes he is not the one who makes the way.
God, in Christ, is the way-maker.

And finally, we have this amazing Gospel story, John 12:1-8.
I could go any number of directions with this story.
It’s rich with possibilities.
But I’ll pick up on this thread running through these readings.
Jesus’ disciples were always trying to be the way-makers,
and as a result, often getting in Jesus’ way.
Judas gets the black mark in this version of the story,
but it’s clear from the other gospels,
Judas was only saying what the others were thinking.

Pouring out this costly ointment
was plain and simple . . . a ridiculous waste.
Their resources were few.
They had a lot of work ahead of them,
if they were going to be successful at helping Jesus
pull off this victory over the Roman oppressors.
Even selling it and giving money to the poor
made a lot more sense.
At least doing that
would solidify their support among the masses.
How was pouring all this money on the feet of Jesus
accomplishing anything helpful at all?

But God the way-maker,
operates in a different kind of economy.
There was something in this act of worship
and over-the-top gratitude,
that had great value in God’s economy.
It’s not that the poor don’t have important needs.
They do. God knows.
Meeting human need is part of God’s agenda, and ours.
And it always will be.
But God the way-maker was looking at the larger picture here.
The disciples needed simply to let go of their desire
to manage the process and control the outcome.
They needed to step aside,
and make way for the way-maker!

So this is what I found running through the scriptures today.
Two realities living in tension with each other.
On the one hand,
our common human temptation to seize on our agenda,
and do whatever it takes to make it happen—
hard work, ingenuity, determination . . .
even craftiness or deceit, if necessary.
On the other hand,
our calling as God’s people,
to yield ourselves, utterly and completely,
to the God who makes a way in the wilderness,
the God who causes rivers to spring forth in the desert,
the God who transforms the last of the dry seed
into an overflowing crop of grain,
the God whose economy operates on different principles,
the God who can turn crucifixion into resurrection.

In these texts, and I dare say, in our lives today,
we are caught in the middle of this tension.
Between making a way for ourselves,
and yielding to God the way-maker.

I can imagine,
if you stop to reflect on this for a bit,
you can identify where this tension is showing up
in your life right now.
And it is a tension.
It’s not all one or the other.
We are not called to give up everything,
and stop trying.
We are not called to laziness.
Faithfulness requires discipline.
It requires rigorous effort and hard work and accountability.

So what this means for us
is that we have to do some discernment.
We must pray.
We must reflect and consider and consult with each other.
We must discern whether our time and efforts and energy
are working in collaboration with the Holy Spirit,
whether they are in synch with
the way that God is making in the wilderness,
the springs that God is pushing out of the desert sands,
the new life that God is creating from what has died.
Our whether it’s just our agenda that we’ve latched onto.

I think one of the clues that often shows up,
is how much anxiety we’re taking on.
If it’s a way that God is making,
and we’re just collaborating,
we’re probably much more at peace,
there is a lot more joy in our efforts.
But if we are the ones trying to make a way,
if we are taking on too much of God’s work,
and trying to make things happen on our schedule,
then I think it’s pretty predictable
that we’re carrying around a lot of anxiety.
It’s a real joy-stealer,
taking responsibility for God’s work.

I’ll tell you, being perfectly candid,
this is where it hits home for me.
We pastors can be some of the worst offenders,
when it comes to feeling responsible for God’s work.
After all, we’re constantly being told that our work is God’s work.
So much so,
that it’s easy to start feeling lots of anxiety over
whether the church is growing in numbers,
or meeting its budget,
or even . . . staying together.
As if . . . the future of the church is in our hands.
We have to keep reminding ourselves
that the church is not our project.
God called it into being.
Jesus Christ is its head.
And it is God’s mission (God’s way)
that gives the church its only reason to exist.
Sometimes, as leaders,
our job is to keep from getting in the way of God.
To encourage all of us in the church,
to release our petty agenda,
to step aside,
and make way for the way-maker.

There’s a lot of brokenness in the world,
and it’s a constant temptation for those of us who see it,
to think we are responsible for fixing it all.
Restoration is God’s agenda.
Salvation . . . of human souls and human systems . . .
is God’s work, in Christ.
God is making a way.
Our responsibility is to be attentive to what God is doing around us,
and to collaborate . . . to work in synch with . . .
and just to make way, for the one who makes a way.

Maybe there is a particular area of brokenness
you are wrapped up in right now . . .
wrapped up tight . . .
and you are full of anxiety about it.
Maybe its brokenness in your life,
in your family,
in the world,
or brokenness in the church,

We need each other in the church to help
discern what to hold on to, and what to let go of . . .
discern when I’m trying to make my own way,
and when I’m making way for the way-maker.

We invite you once again to a time of reflection and confession.
In the blue folders in the hymnal racks, are tiny pieces of paper.
Today let them represent the area of brokenness
with which you are striving, or full of anxiety about,
or trying to make your own way through.
You can write a word or phrase or sentence on them,
or they can stay blank and be a symbol of this brokenness.
You are invited to bring them to the healing waters of God,
symbolized by this bowl of water, near the foot of the cross.
And let go of them, let them float away on the water.
And in so doing, make way for the one
who makes a way in the wilderness,
who brings forth springs in the desert sand,
who produces abundant sheaves in times of drought,
who creates new life where there was death,
new beginnings, when we reach the end of the road.

As you come, we will sing again “God, fill me now.” [STS 63]
With each refrain we say,
“Here before you now; see, my hands are empty.
God, fill me now with you.”
At the conclusion of the confession,
we will joyfully break out into a song of assurance, [HWB 640]
This is a day of new beginnings, time to remember and move on,
time to believe what love is bringing, laying to rest the pain that’s gone.
And the song ends with the words, “Our God” . . . not us, but . . .
“Our God is making all things new!”

—Phil Kniss, March 21, 2010



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Jared Stoltzfus: Two sons; two points of view

March 14, 2010
Lent 4: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Jared K. Stoltzfus is the pastoral intern at Park View Mennonite for the 2009-2010 school year. He is a second-year MDiv student at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

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Today we encounter one of the most, if not the most, familiar parables of Jesus. Not only is this true in the church but perhaps in also very true of outside the church. Most of the time when we have thought or heard about this text is had been from the point of view of the son who was lost and is now found. This makes sense if, we just think that that this parable carries on the theme of the other two preceding it, the lost sheep and the lost coin. However, this reading seems to only capture half of what is going on in this parable. This is not just a father with one son; this is father with two sons. He has an older son too, not just the impatience younger that asks for his inheritance before his father is dead. This parable is not just a nice story about how much God loves us; this story has something very serious to say about how we view others as well.
BODY:

2 Corinthians 5:16-21- A new point of view

We need to start building a new set of lenses to look at the Gospel text and so I want to first turn our attention to the Epistle reading. This is no doubt another familiar passage that has lost a lot of its punch. This concept of a new creation has no doubt been drilled into our heads, at the price of it becoming less than exciting or true. However, this passage is truly extraordinary. We don’t have to go very far in it to see some remarkable things. For one we know longer have a human point of view, we no longer look at things like a human. The Greek here translates to something like “according to the flesh.” We no longer look at this like this, our bodies; our human minds would look at things. That is what Paul seems to be labeling as the “old.” Instead we are new, we have been given a new point of view, something outside of our human understanding. Perhaps this is a simple transformation of human thoughts into proper thoughts, or perhaps it is a radical reorientation to the things of God, which far exceeds what we could come up with. It is a reorientation to the things of God, and not the things of the flesh, of humans.

I think it is now, with these beginning concepts in mind, of a transformed point of view that we can enter into the Gospel reading, a story of a father and two sons.

A Father and his Two Sons

Like I said earlier this parable is third in a string in chapter 15. The whole discourse that Jesus gives here begins with the framing of verses 1 and 2 of chapter 15. The chapter starts with grumbling at Jesus for some very questionable practices, at least in the eyes of the Pharisees. Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. Scum of scum in Jewish society. Tax collectors collaborated with the occupying forces of Rome and made a profit of their fellow Jew. Sinners were just plain unclean. They had broken laws, set up by the Pharisees and were therefore cast to the sides. Already in these first few verses we see the beginnings of two different points of view. We have the establishment point of view, and we have what Jesus is doing.

As we enter into the story we are introduced to a man, who has two sons. The younger one comes to his father and demands his inheritance. A bold move for the son, not only because his father isn’t dead yet but because he is after all the younger son. It was not his place to ask for such things. Nevertheless, the father gives him what he asks for. And in a few days this son picks up and leaves. He gathers everything of his and leaves, and goes off to a distance country, no doubt a gentile one. What does he do there he squanders all of the money, spends it on dissolute living, wild living, living in excess. He goes out and blows it and he his left with nothing. Now a famine comes upon the land and he is really up a creek without a paddle. He hires himself out and is reduced to feeding pigs, the worse and most unclean of all creatures. Yet he is so hungry he dreams about eating what the pigs are eating.

At this point the younger son comes to his sense and realizes a couple of things. One that his father’s hired hands are a lot better off than he is. Two that he has sinned and three that it would be better to acknowledge his sin and be treated as a servant or slave in his father’s household than dream of eating pig slop. And so he gets up and heads back to his father.

Now the scene switches to the father, waiting, And as he looks into the distance he sees someone coming, and soon he realizes who it is. It is his son. The one who took his money and left his family. But even though he is a long way off he runs to him, greets him with a kiss and lavishes his love upon him. The son tries to get out the words he rehearsed but the father tells his servants to go get a robe, ring, and fattened calf, there is going to be a party.

We could stop here and this would be a wonderful story about a father’s love. We could feel all warm and fuzzy knowing how extravagant the father’s love his for his children. I think that we have come to expect that sermon. We know its twists and turns and we are comfortable with that message. Now it is true that the father’s love is wonderful and extravagant. I am not denying that reality. I just want us to go deeper and wrestle with the issues that extravagant love raises. To do that we must enter scene three; the older son.

The older son enters the stage to a party. He has been out working and did not see his brother coming home. He asks around and finds out that his brother, the one who squandered everything is back, and his father has killed the fattened calf for him. This ticks the older son off and he stands outside the party refusing to go in. Now here is an interesting move. The father does not let him outside; he goes to the older son, wanting to bring him into the party. The older son vents. “That son of yours”, he says, has done some terrible things. He wasted all your money, on prostitutes and now he comes back and you throw him a party. I have been hear the whole time. Working myself to death for you and want do I get nothing, not even a little goat? This is not fair, this is not right. The father replies, “Son you are always with me, everything that is mind is yours.

A Different Point of View- A lingering question.

That is where the story ends, and we are left with a question, what did the brother do. Did he realize his father’s point and come in or did he stay on the outside. There is no point in trying to figure out the answer to this because there is no answer, which is still a question for us. With this older son Jesus looks at the Pharisees and confronts their intolerance and their strict definitions of who is in and who is out. Who you grumble about me eating with tax collectors and sinners, don’t your realize that God loves them too. Don’t your realize the joy and happiness when someone who is lost is found. Why do you stand on the outside with that human point of view, looking down on those who are unclean saying that have no hope of coming in to the feast. They have every hope; God’s love is extravagant, far more than you are willing to let it be. THAT is now FAIR they and we cry in protest. How can you let that SON OF YOURS back into the fold? He did real terrible things. Cast him out. To this Jesus says a resounding no. Our FAIR, our JUSTICE is from a human point of view. We would claim to be in, need to see with some different lenses. “THERE IS A NEW CREATION: EVERYTHING OLD HAS PASSED AWAY; SEE, EVERYTHING HAS BECOME NEW!!!” We are no longer supposed to be building ways and casting those out, we love with extravagance far beyond what we thought was possible. We are now ambassadors for CHRIST, ambassadors for RECOCILATION.

That question that lingers at the end of the text lingers now for us as well. We might have been the prodigal son or daughter at one time but that does not stop us from becoming that older son as well. We are now in the fold of God, are we as extravagance as God was to us, or have we turned our backs on our own reconciliation and instead turned to walls and barriers of the Pharisees? This parable never gets old and never losses and message. It meats all of us now and begs us to reflect on the question, will we come in. Our we willing to let God’s love be extravagant (as if we really have any say in that) or our we just going to stand on the outside with our human point of view screaming it isn’t fair, I want a fattened calf.

Response:

Once again we are now going to enter a time of confession. The question has been posed. I invite us to reflect on it and if we feel God’s call to repent, and bring it forward. Just like the last three weeks there is tissue paper in the blue folders in the pews. Take a piece, write something on it, or leave it blank, and come forward and place it in the water as the ensemble sings SOFTLY AND TENDERLY JESUS IS CALLING. After that song we will again join in singing the hymn of assurance STS 63 GOD FILL ME NOW VERSES 1 AND 2.


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Barbara Moyer Lehman: Famine or feast

March 7, 2010
Lent 3: Psalm 63: 1-8; Deuteronomy 26:1-11

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Pastor Barbara Moyer Lehman highlighted the difference between physical thirst and spiritual thirst. We all understand physical thirst, but grasping what spiritual thirst is can be more difficult. The texts for today, Isaiah 55 and Psalm 63, both speak of water, and both are addressing the idea of spiritual thirst. Isaiah 55 is a vision of what can be for the Israelites. There is an invitation for anyone and everyone to come to drink and be filled. There is also a promise of an unending covenant, a promise that comes with a plea to turn to God. Psalm 63 also begins with an image of thirst, but quickly moves to testimony of the wonder of holding on to God. Perhaps this is what we thirst for, to be able to cling to God. But we can only hold on to so many things at one time. If we are to hold on to God, then we need to examine what things of this world we need to let go of. To cling to God, and the things of God, is our major life-work.



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