The Journey Home

I preached today on the parable of the Prodigal Son and had an interesting question afterwards. A woman asked if, because she couldn't accept certain things, she was the elder brother. My answer is simple, the prodigal came back confessing, repenting and offering to make restitution and it was in that posture that the father received him back to the family. The elder brother refused to accept a repentant sinner back as a brother, referring to him only as this son of yours.

The Pharisees problem was that they were unwilling to receive sinners or the man, Jesus, who welcomed them. Jesus, in every encounter we know about through the Gospels, confronted the sin in the lives of those He met. The woman at the well in John 4 is offered living water but before she can receive it, Jesus deals with the sinful lifestyle she has chosen. The prostitute who washes his feet in the home of Simon the Pharisee, hears the parable about a man who was owed money by two others, one a very great sum and the other an insignificant amount and both debts were forgiven and discharged. Simon was asked who loved the man more, clearly the one who was forgiven more. Jesus acknowledged sin in the woman's life. The woman caught in adultery was told to go and sin no more as was the man healed at the pool at Bethesda.

When we are asked to celebrate sin or deny it, it is not pharisaical to say no and refuse to join the party. We must all come to the Lord acknowledging that we are not worthy to be called His children and to deny that is to deny the cross. It is hard to do this and we should be careful about our attitudes towards others, but we have to be truthful. If we aren't we are only offering what Bonhoeffer labeled cheap grace which is no grace at all.

Remembering (part 2)

Remembering is what we say we do in Communion in my tradition. It is the kind of remembering God's people have always been called to do. The festivals of Judaism were intended to recall the past by remembering but they were also meant to place the participants in the situation they were remembering. During Sukkot the people erect booths to live in during the period of the festival to recall the difficulties of their ancestors in the period of the exodus. That kind of remembering is intended to do more than create a memory, its intention is to immerse yourself as much as possible in the memory in order to make it a present reality. After that experience, you are able to be more thankful for the everyday things that we take for granted due to having done without them for a period. Such festivals also have a future orientation, looking to the eschatological fulfillment of an even greater promise than the current blessed state.

Communion is meant to do the same for Christians. We are not simply remembering fondly the work that Jesus did in the worship service by obeying his command to keep the feast. We are also recalling our present need of His sacrifice, appropriating it for today by confession of our sins and remembering His work of securing our forgiveness. We are also awaiting the fulfillment of the promise of eternal life in His kingdom. All come together in remembering His death and passion and looking for the coming again in glory.

We sometimes need to remember who we are like Will had to do in baseball. We need to be reminded who we are, whose we are, and all He has done for us. We need to remember the past and the present in order to see the future with hope. The work of remembering God's goodness and grace in the past, experiencing it anew by praising Him in the present, remind us that the future is in His hands.