I. Theme – Our individual and collective reconciliation with God
“Return of the Prodigal Son" – Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1667-1670)
"He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’"
The lectionary readings are here or individually:
Old Testament – Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm – Psalm 32
Epistle – 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Gospel – Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Today’s readings invite us into the welcoming, forgiving arms of our loving God. In Joshua, the people of Israel celebrate their home-coming in the promised land, eating, for the first time, of the produce of Canaan. In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul describes our reconciliation to God in and through Christ. The gospel story tells of a father’s prodigal love for his lost sons.
Although the focus shifts just a little bit, to themes of forgiveness and reconciliation. . This week’s readings, however, bring together the individual and the communal. Our reconciliation with God leads us into the “ministry of reconciliation.” Our forgiveness brings wholeness, not just to ourselves, but to others through us. This connection between the “me” and the “we” is such an important theme of the Gospel, and a good place to linger in this week’s worship, while also looking at the implications of the practice of forgiveness for justice in our world.
The theme this week stands out very clearly in these readings – God removes disgrace; God forgives and restores; the prodigal is welcomed home and reconciled to his family; God reconciles us to God’s Self, and to each other, and we are called to do the same. Forgiveness flows from God’s infinite and unconditional grace, and is received through honest confession and repentance. But reconciliation with God, as much as it brings personal healing and restoration, is not only personal. It is also social, drawing us back into reconciliation with others, and into passing on to others the healing and grace we have received
We should seek restoration in the world this week in nature. Be alert to God’s enlivening activity in the world. Look for signs of spring in the most unexpected places, even in the valley of the shadow of death. Bring pussy willows and forsythia branches into the warmth of your home, and enjoy new life as they bloom. Listen as every branch and petal proclaims the good news of the Gospel: that life has put death to death, love has conquered violence, God is our shepherd and a whole new world is possible.
II. Summary
Old Testament – Exodus 3:1-15
Today’s reading is excerpted from the account of the events that ceremonially ended the exodus period and opened the way for the conquest of the promised land. The crossing of the Jordan echoes the crossing of the Red Sea. Then the people are circumcised, so that they might celebrate the Passover. The nature of the “disgrace of Egypt” (v. 9, their slavery to the Egyptians? the skepticism about God’s ability to provide and protect them in the wilderness?) is not clear.
Our Old Testament thread in Lent has been on the covenant between God and the people of Israel. Today’s lesson from Joshua marks another instance of where God fulfills the covenant, even when the people have gone astray. In what could have been a quick trip across a desert to the land of their ancestors, a country called Canaan, they rebelled against God, and against the leadership of Moses, again and again. So they suffered hardship, a prolongation of the journey (forty years), and frequent hunger. God sustained them with a minimal food known as manna.
God has made a nation out of the descendants of Abraham and Sarah. God has led them through the wilderness, and now as they enter their new home, God is providing them with the stability of home. No longer will they gather manna, they will be able to grow their own crops. As they celebrate the Passover, remembering what God had done for them in delivering them from slavery in Egypt, the manna ceases, and God’s abundance is revealed in the land around them. The people are now ready to change their wandering way of life into a more settled life of farming in the promised land While change is inevitable and difficult (how many times did the people complain in the wilderness and want to go back to the oppression they knew?) we know God is with us, and that God will see us through.
Psalm – Psalm 63:1-8
Psalm 32 psalm reveals how sin and its consequences have broken down the relationship with God and then praises God for forgiveness. It is a celebration of the joy and healing that confession brings, and the restoration that God offers those who admit their sin.
The psalmist sings about keeping sins secret, hiding what one has done, and finding the damage done by keeping silent and hiding what was wrong was more damaging (spiritually and physically), than confessing the sin or the need for God’s help. The psalmist rejoices that God forgives, God hears, God heals, and God restores. When we think we can do it all ourselves, we are more able to stumble and fail, but when we acknowledge our need for help, we find that God is there with us.
It divides naturally into six sections that trace the pattern of reconciliation: verses 1-2 are an introduction; verses 3-4 express the weight of guilt; verse 5 is a confession of sin; verses 6-7 offer sound advice; in verses 8-9, God speaks; in verses 10-11, the psalmist rejoices in his changed status before God.
The Psalmist recognized that awakening to God, trusting God’s faithfulness, opens us to a wider vision and new possibilities that may change the circumstances of our lives. When we are open to God, we enable God to be more active in our lives, providing resources for transformation in every circumstance of life.
Epistle – 1 Corinthians 10:1-13
That Jesus was raised from death changes everything: first of all it changed Paul’s way of regarding Christ (formerly "according to the flesh"). And it changes the way believers should regard one another.That is the context of our liturgical passage, explaining why "anyone who is in Christ is a new creation
Old attitudes and relationships with one another based upon a human perspective have been superseded. In the midst of the old creation, Christians, by faith, now live on the terms of the new creation in the new community inaugurated by God through Christ. God does not keep track of sins, but rather offers forgiveness. The Christian’s ministry is to announce reconciliation for all.
Reconciliation and life in the new creation are possible because of the atonement effected in and by Christ. He who was innocent of sin, nonetheless was “made…to be sin” (v. 21); that is, Christ became the offering for sin and was made one with the sinfulness of humanity. Christ stands in the place of humankind, alienated from God, so that humankind may be made one with God again.
Grace leads to transformation. Embracing freely given grace, we become new creations and this novelty changes our spiritual lives, vocations, relationships, and physical well-being.
Gospel – Luke 13:1-9
Here Luke presents a series of three parables on mercy – The parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin, and finally the parable of the father and the sons
We focus on the prodigal son parable. The prodigal son begged for his share of the family inheritance which was granted. He took his fortune to a far away place and quickly spent all he had on his personal pleasures. He was completely broke when a serious famine struck the area and he was forced to tend pigs, an occupation prohibited to Jewish people. As he tended the pigs, he hungered for their scraps and realized that his father’s slaves lived better than he did. It was then that he decided to return home, not as a son, but as a hired hand. So happy was the man’s father when he saw his son return that he celebrated with all sorts of signs of honor. The father’s older son, however, was very displeased with the way his father treated his brother, claiming that he had always been there working like a slave for his father. Never once had the father celebrated with this son. The father explained that the older son had always been with him and obedient. It was cause to rejoice, however, that his other son had been lost but now was found.
There are numerous ways to look at the Prodigal son. Here are 3:
1 The parable is often used to teach the truth that God welcomes the repentant sinner, the outcast. The story of a loving, forgiving, accepting father, illustrates the way God treats those who turn to him for mercy. Jesus critics are illustrated by the behavior of the elder brother, who cannot join in the rejoicing over the lost being found.
2 The story reflects Jesus as much as the son and his teachings of the kingdom. His message was about a God whose love surpasses all typical expressions known to humanity. On the one hand the love is shown celebration after the homecoming of the younger son esus is introducing people to the relational logic of the kingdom of God that runs contrary to and way beyond the legal logic of the world
3. Does the father exhibit grace or foolishness ?
A. Foolishness. We know the younger son has been foolish, wasting his family’s wealth. The father is also foolish. In response to his son’s remarkably offensive request – asking for an inheritance ahead of time is akin to wishing your parents dead – this father goes ahead and gives it to him. The last scene is with the older son who does not want to accept the younger son. The elder son, too, ends up in a “distant country,” this one of his own making as he loses any connection to his brother, his father, or the others rejoicing in the new life his brother has been given.
B. There is a universal message of needing grace since all are foolish in the story and the father exhibits it. The story is not about the actions of the Prodigal son, nor the actions of the Older Brother that are profound or revolutionary; it is the father who runs out to greet his son while he is still coming up the road, the father who drops everything to rejoice when his son comes home, the father who gives everything to celebrate with the son who has been found
The father loves all of his children so much and all that he has is theirs, even if they don’t realize it or appreciate it. The father rejoices when the son that left and squandered and spent and spoiled returns, but the father also includes the ones that never left, the ones that are always there.
III. Articles for this week in WorkingPreacher:
Old Testament – Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm – Psalm 32
Epistle – 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Gospel – Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32