Be Reconciled / A Sermon

Be Reconciled
Joshua 5: 9-12/ 2 Corinthians 5: 16-21/ Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32
4th Sunday of Lent/ Year C/ March 14, 2010

On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice.

“I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you; look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes!”

Later, Beck held up cards, one with a hammer and sickle and other with a swastika. “Communists are on the left, and the Nazis are on the right. That’s what people say. But they both subscribe to one philosophy, and they flew one banner. . . . But on each banner, read the words, here in America: ’social justice.’ They talked about economic justice, rights of the workers, redistribution of wealth, and surprisingly, democracy.”*

Jesus in his ministry and Parables and Paul in his 2nd letter to the Corinthians puts paid to Beck’s fear mongering. Paul writes: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; event though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we no him no longer that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, every thing has become new. All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, that in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

From the beginning of his ministry, Jesus continually called people to account for their actions and behaviors toward others. Every where he went the Pharisees and Scribes persisted in their grumblings against Jesus and his penchant of associating with people known to be sinners, those that lived on the margins of society, those who were gentiles, and those who were aliens. Jesus said time and time again, I came not to those who are part of the establishment but for those who are lost, not for the healthy but for those that were sick. His stories and parables called the people to account pointing out their sinfulness, their blindness, their need for healing, and their need for reconciliation with those who were outside the pale. The story of A Man with two sons, the one call the Prodigal Son story, is about relationships, about forgiveness, about reconciliation. This story is about a compassionate, determined father, (God) and the deep love and mercy he has for his wayward children.
Yes, the younger son had done the unthinkable, demanding his share of the fathers property, ( something unheard of in that day, the land was held as trust from God and was not bought and sold like a piece of 21st century real estate.) He spent the money he made on licentious behavior, eating, drinking, carousing, prostitutes, until he had nothing left to sustain him in the hard times. He was forced to take a job as a swineherd, a pig keeper, something no good Jew would ever do because swine were unclean, verboten, taboo.
And yet the actions of the aggrieved father were most unexpected. Tradition demanded that if his child behaved in this fashion he as disowned, shunned, banned from the community, forced to live on the outside. Instead the father welcomes him home, bestowing upon him in his dirty rags, a kiss of welcome, dressing him in fine clothes, putting the ring on his finger and preparing a magnificent feast to welcome him home. This feast was thrown to repair the damage the son had done to the father and the family and to the neighbors. His behavior had undermined the tradition and values they cherished, setting a bad example for other children in the community. Instead the father throws a great banquet inviting everyone around to come and welcome the son back, easing him back into the community and the good graces of the community.
Enter the older son, the good son, the one who had stayed home, the one who did everything by the book, the one who was obedient to his father and the tradition. He is not happy. Consumed with jealousy and resentment, he refuses to join the party. The father, being the compassionate understanding father he is, leaves the party, ( something no host, or father would ever do) and confronts the older son with his resentment, calling him to task for the walls he built between himself and the brother. He invites him in, and listens patiently as his son spills his anger and resentment on the ground before the father. The father in his joyful and compassionate love says, yes, I understand, but all I have is yours too. Come and join the party.
At this point the story ends. We never know what happens. It is as if Jesus is asking the Pharisees and the scribes if they are going to join the party in reaching out to their wayward brothers and sisters, if they are going to rejoice with him over God’s most gracious mercy. Or if they, like the elder brother, will refuse to enter the feast, preferring to be on the outside, thinking of nothing but their resentment over the reconciliation between God and sinners that Jesus came to offer.
It is clear that this story is a story about how reconciliation happens even In the midst of everyday life; where we are asked to give up the old resentments, the old hatreds, the old jealousies, the old hurts, and to take on a new form, a new life, a new creation. This is a story about doing social justice, about compassion, about caring. Glenn Beck and his ilk who thumb their noses as the call to tear down the barriers that separate us ignore the call of Christ to become reconciled to God. We are a church that lives out its commitment to reconciliation and confesses its understanding of the living faith.

The Confession of 1967 of the Presbyterian Church USA states:

In Jesus Christ, God was reconciling The world to himself. Jesus Christ is God with man. He is the eternal son of the Father, who became a man and lived among us to fulfill the work of reconciliation…. (BC. 9.07)
To be reconciled to God is to be sent into the world as his reconciling community. This community is entrusted with the message of reconciliation and shares his labor of healing the enmities that separate man from God and from each other.
Christ has called the church to this mission and given it the gift of the Spirit. ( BC. 9.31)
God has created the peoples of the earth to be one universal family. In his reconciling love, God overcomes the barriers between brothers and sisters and breaks down every form of discrimination based on racial or ethic difference. The church is called to bring all people to receive and uphold one another as persons in all relationships of life; in employment, housing, education, leisure, marriage, family, church, and the exercise of political rights. There for the church labors for the abolition of all (racial) discrimination and ministers to those injured by it. Congregations, individuals, or groups of Christians who exclude, dominate or patronize their fellow human beings, however subtly, resist the Spirit of God and bring contempt on the faith they profess. (BC. 9.44)
The church, in its own life is called to practice the forgiveness of enemies and to commend to the nations as practical politics the search for cooperation and peace. This requires that nations pursue fresh and responsible relations across every line of conflict, even at the risk of national security, to reduce areas of strife and to broaden international understanding. Reconciliation among nations becomes particularly urgent as countries develop nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, diverting their manpower and resources from constructive uses and risking the annihilation of humankind. (BC. 9.45)
The reconciliation of humankind through the person of Jesus Christ makes it plain that enslaving poverty in a world of abundance is an intolerable violation of God’s good creation…
The church cannot condone poverty, whether it is the product of unjust social structures, exploitation of the defenseless, lack of national resources, absence of technological understanding or rapid expansion of populations… The church calls every human being to use his or her abilities, possessions, and the fruits of technology as gifts entrusted by God for the care and sustenance of God’s family and the common welfare.
We are called to practice these things, in order to bring to fulfillment the promise of the kingdom of God in this world now, and not at some future time at the end of the world.

Perhaps if we take seriously the call to practice reconciliation we too can join in the dream of Desmond Tutu

“I have a dream, God says; Please help Me to realize it. It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts, when there will be justice and goodness and compassion and love and caring and sharing. I have a dream that swords will be beaten into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks, that My Children will know that they are members of one family, the human family, God’s family, My family.” (Desmond Tutu, God Has A Dream: A Vision of Hope in Our Time, New York, Doubleday, 2004, p.19-20)

Book of Confessions PCUSA Confession of 1967
#Sessions, David; Politics Daily 3/08.2010
www.politcsdaily.com/2010/03/08/glenn-beck-urges-listeners-to-leave-churches-that-preach-social-justice