Hard to swallow
Commentary
We are ambassadors for Christ. Well, how does it feel to have yourself sworn in and
present your credentials in a foreign land? Political models of discipleship are certainly
out of vogue. Yet, each of these stories reminds us that most of us feel like we are living
in a strange land. The Joshua text narrates the end of an epic as the Hebrews enter a land
that is both promised and yet is a potential down fall. The Hebrews will find that they no
longer have the manna to sustain them in their journey.
This evolution of things poses significant challenges ahead. It is one thing to be a people wandering in the desert sustained by God's promise; it is another to enter into the work of being a nation and all the choices that poses. My own tradition, which became part of the national tradition, is narrated through a similar epic. Pilgrims and Puritans come to these shores in an errand into the wilderness that will have global consequences as they act out the establishment of God's rule on earth. However, things become difficult in the strange land. The native population is abused, the economy becomes in part based on slavery, and the enforcement of the party line against women and new forms of religious understanding drains the life out of the original vision.
Like the prodigal in the far country, the Hebrews must now eat the crops of their new land. How much will they be able to stomach and still thrive and act out the vision born in a wilderness?
In the epistle lesson, Paul makes plain that we are new creations and the old has passed away. Of course, the mere fact that Paul must bring this up suggests that things might not be working themselves out in the way Paul imagines. The early Christians were invited to gain a foretaste of the age to come in their worship and gathering. Yet, as Paul says in the first letter to them, the Corinthians "are eating and drinking judgment to themselves." Now just how much can you stomach of the division, the lax morals, and the religious bigotry that has also become part of the Corinthians' religious experience? Is it just them? Is it the inevitable aftertaste that comes whenever a developing faith enters a new territory?
A quick look at the current religious scene and you find yourself asking some of the same questions. In a new land, do we see and feel like new creations? How much can we stomach of divisions, scandals, and some of the loathing that Christians have for one another?
The story that Jesus tells for this Sunday seems to be about an entire family that is out to lunch. The younger son seems to want to make sure that life does not pass him by. The joys of home pale beside the allures of the far country. Yet, it is there that he loses all that he had and winds up having to tend the ritually unclean food delicacy of this new land. No one gave him anything. You can count on that in the far country. The elder son cannot partake of the feast that is laid out after the prodigal's return. In an age when "tough love" is popular we can barely stomach the behavior of the father who puts up no resistance to the second son even though he is clearly at risk.
The advancing years have brought the necessity into my life of having to do a better job of watching what I eat. I have done a fairly good job of fighting the battle of the bulge to a virtual draw. However, I am forever getting invitations and succumbing to the temptation to go to one of the finer foreign restaurants in our city. In each case, it will be a matter of how much and how well my stomach will handle things. In a sense, this is the question that is part of all these texts. How much will the Hebrews be able to stomach of their new situation, not as pursuers but possessors of the land? Will the Corinthians partake of a feast that will lead them to become a new creation? How can we stomach the behavior that we see taking place in Jesus' story?
Joshua 5:9-12
In large measure, how we handle this text depends on how much we can stomach the subsequent narration of the book of Joshua. It is not likely that many will be found today who enter uncritically into the notion of conquest and ethnic cleansing of the resident Canaanites. Neither is it likely that any read of the text that does not take into account what is ahead is likely to gain credence among potential hearers of any homiletical efforts based on these words. While this is an age of biblical illiteracy most congregations know enough of the story of the Israelite conquest of the promised land.
It often seems to me that, when presented with mystery, our tendency is usually to try and explain it away, solve it, deny it, or seek for some other way to reestablish our equilibrium. Yet, the prevalent pattern in the Bible is not to solve mystery but to deepen it. The scripture's claim on us resolves our uncertainties less, but deepens our trust of God who remains God because the transcendent cannot be fully contained in the boundaries of human reason. As Saint Paul puts it, all have fallen short of the glory of God.
We have here in the text itself one of those mysteries. At the outset of the Hebrew occupation of the land, there are warnings. In verse 9, "The Lord said to Joshua, 'Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.' " Whatever else this story is about, it is about leaving Egypt and all that it symbolizes behind. Whatever lies ahead there will be serious questions about land distribution and wealth. There will be plenty of alternative answers to the ones given in the conquest tradition.
It is almost as if the text itself cannot stomach what is ahead. It gives us something to digest as we listen to the voices in the story that is about to happen. The mystery deepens but possibilities open up.
The text brings with it a sense of portentousness as it tells the story of the first Passover in this new land: "On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain." This turn in diet signals the end of the desert experience and opens a world where choices will come hard, God will not feel as close, and the ambiguities of nationhood must be faced. This land will not be a place where the Israelites will be sustained as they had in the past by a manna that was there for the taking. They now must reach farther, think longer, and pray deeper over a new set of challenges. Once again, the text announces somewhat ominously, "They ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year."
Isn't that the way it is? In the "real world" answers will not come easily. It will take more than picking up manna from the ground to feed the hungry. It will take more than disappearing manna to handle the issues of wealth distribution.
To paraphrase Walter Brueggemann: No doubt some of us can stomach the idea of reading this text in ways that gloss over the moral ambiguities ahead. Others, as Brueggemann points out, can stomach the notion of a God of violence that will be superseded by a God of love in the "New Testament." Others can stomach an eye-for-an- eye world no matter what the level of violence.
However, the text that knows of the violence ahead invites us to swallow the notion of living in a real world filled with danger and to remember the purpose of the Passover and to listen to the warning of a world in which manna is not easily found.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Now here is a notion that is fairly hard to swallow, "We are to regard none from a human point of view." Now it seems that we spend most of our days trying to calculate things in very human terms. We are left pondering the human equation of who is up and who is down. If anything we can count on the very human side of the equation to win out. People will overreach, underestimate, miss the mark, and not miss being marked by the slings of outrageous fortune that is part of the human story. As a matter of fact, the downfall of most human beings is that they fail to regard themselves or others from a human point of view. This is a hard notion to swallow in the scheme of things.
Yet, Paul is not asking us to abandon the human story, but to recognize that God through Jesus Christ embraces it as the vehicle through which God will bring to fruition God's story: "That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us." Can we regard anyone merely from a human point of view if this message has been entrusted to our hands? In that light the old has passed away and everything does take on a new slant.
We certainly can work somewhat backward and ask of ourselves, "If God has embraced our story through Christ, then can we regard Jesus from a merely human point of view?" Certainly, Paul at one time looked upon Jesus only from a human point of view. As a persecutor of Christians, he saw Jesus as troublemaker, competitor, pretender, and disturber of the peace. Yet, in Jesus he found God embracing his life in a way that he made his story a vehicle of telling God's story. He could not regard Jesus merely as teacher or moral example but as mediator through which God was embracing his life. The reality of reconciliation happened for Paul in one who was the uniting of the human and divine story.
He experienced this not through study and research or by his former way of regarding the world. Rather, he found himself swallowing this notion on the road to Damascus, at the table of the Lord, and according to Acts through finding that God could release him from prison or make prison a place of his ministry. Through Christ, doors swung open to Gentiles and members of the royal household. No wonder he could not regard Christ from a merely human point of view. Neither could he regard Gentiles as unclean; Romans simply as enemies, or prison, beatings, and shipwreck as the signs of a dead-end life.
In Paul's mind, this left him and all the church as "Ambassadors of Christ since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." Now this sets the bar very high for most Christian people. Most of us do not feel up to the job of being an ambassador. However it has been entrusted to us to tell that we have been joined in our story to become the medium through which the account of God's activity in Christ will be represented to the world -- that is what is going on in youth fellowship, church school, mission board, church camp, and worship hour. In Paul's mind, anything less falls short of describing what is happening. Granted, it might be a role that we only grow into, but it is the standard by which we should regard ourselves.
This poses an interesting challenge to the adequacy of our Christological understanding. Paul reasons from the events of his life to a Christological understanding that sees much more in Jesus than moral example, teacher, therapist, or healer. Does our Christological understanding adequately reflect our experience in the faith community? Or, has our "regarding things from a human point of view" so diminished our sense of identity that we find ourselves defining Christ from a merely human point of view?
Paul, in expecting us to swallow this understanding of his own life and the meaning of Jesus, has given us much to digest.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
As I read this text, I get the feeling that there is no one in this family who does not resemble one of the characters from NBC's sitcom, The Office. All of the principals betray the same truncated emotional life that renders them insensitive to each other and to the moment. The father in this story, like the boss in The Office, conveys the impression that he believes leadership and parenting is about indulging those for whose care you are responsible. The younger son comes across as the chief underling in The Office who is a supreme combination of self-importance and incompetence. Like The Office, we know that things are not going to turn out well for this character. It is not that he intends it, but the shortcuts he has taken in life to find a place in life will catch up with him and prove his undoing. However, I have a certain sympathy for the two lead characters in The Office and in Jesus' story; at least they are still in the fray refusing to yield however wrong headed their approach to life is. The rest of the characters in The Office and the elder son have in one way or another been defeated by life and have settled in for whatever they can squeeze out of life.
The joining of The Office and this parable has a particular poignancy for me in that my family came from the area in and around Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is the site of the fictional sitcom. I have met these characters firsthand. Some, like Ralph Cramdon and Lucy, were forever trying to scheme their way into life and met with various levels of success. Others had settled for denunciations of ubiquitous enemies out there or for routinely measuring out the unfairness of life. As if to make up for the unfairness and the wasting away of the prosperity that coal mining had brought northeast Pennsylvania, children were often overindulged and showered with affection as if to shield them from the daily harshness of life. Why deny them if life would only deny them later on?
What is not hard to swallow here is that there are characters like these in either The Office or in Jesus' parable. What is hard to swallow is that in the telling of Jesus' tale there could be any hope of ingesting some redemptive truth. The tale of the prodigal read like The Office, a sad story of how you can get into trouble in life: Those who have given up hope of finding more than a rather minimal existence and those who engage in pathetic attempts to soften the blows of life.
The amazing thing to consider here is that out of this mix, though it is hard to swallow, there is redemptive activity here. Yes, the father is indulgent of a son whose arrogance knows no bounds, but in doing so he holds the door open to the day when this young man, for whatever reason, comes to his senses and comes home. He makes the journey easy. He reminds me of the many parents in Scranton and elsewhere who have kept the door open to better days in the midst of economic adversity and spiritual challenge when many caved into slavish living or wasting their inheritance in wanton pursuits.
Is that not the kind of parenting we find in our God? Do we not meet this God in one who has more mercy in God's heart than foolishness in ours? Do we not meet this indulgent God who, more than fair with us, is faithful to us when standards of fairness would keep the door to home being closed? This is the God who on Easter morning rolls away the stone for those who betrayed, denied, and deserted the one he sent. It is this seeming indulgence that the elder son who has settled for a life of quid pro quo cannot swallow. It is why we need not settle for less than full living nor fearfully squander our own lives.
Application
The fourth Sunday in Lent presents us with three texts that, in their own way, are a bit hard to swallow -- that the entrance to the promised land is fraught with danger, that we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ in whom God who has joined with us, and that the harebrained family can be the vehicle of God's grace. It seems that the harder it is to swallow, the more nutritious might be the meal. It is hard to imagine that the disequilibrium that this causes may be the entry point into the reign and rule of God in our lives. This notion will no doubt go down better with some congregations than others. In a world that is constantly buffeted by winds of change many find that the balance has tipped so far that they suffer from vertigo. Who has not longed from time to time for the reestablishment of balance in their lives?
If the preacher remains convinced that this hard-to-swallow disequilibrium is the starting point, then in our time and age they are obligated to point toward the ultimate balance and nourishment that this read of the texts will bring. Often this kind of reading is treated as a good medicine that tastes bad. I suspect the "take this it is good for you" approach will be met with resistance by those who want more immediate satisfaction from their reading of scripture. However, for the homiletically wise, this approach can bring much nourishment.
Alternative Application
Joshua 5:9-12. The Joshua text says the day they ate of the crops of the new land the manna ceased. We know from biologists that manna is based on a common phenomenon in the region. The manna did not go away. One might say that the Hebrews had lost their taste for what once had sustained them in the wilderness. I have the sneaking suspicion that my 31-year-old son has not a clue as to what a real tomato or what a rhubarb pie (where you picked the rhubarb) tastes like. We have lost closeness to the land that once sustained us.
The Jewish holy day of Sukkoth commemorates what sustains us in the wilderness by inviting the community to partake of their meals in outdoor shelters that remind the Jews of their sheltering in the wilderness. It is a time of closeness to the land, to each other, and to God.
There is no doubt that we will partake of the crops of the land of Canaan. It is not entirely bad; mass production has meant the feeding of many who would otherwise go hungry. However, we still hunger for that which sustains us in the wilderness. In a world of cell phones and email and all the other crops of Canaan, we need to celebrate what has sustained us in the wilderness.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 32
Forgiveness is difficult. Oh, with little things it can be done. Someone slips up and causes inconvenience. A little white lie here, a small mistreatment there, can be dismissed. But with the big things, it is not an easy matter. Who forgives betrayal in marriage? Who forgives a deliberate attempt to hurt or wound? Who forgives a rapist or a murderer? Who forgives an invading, rampaging army? Who forgives us for the litany of wrongs that can be laid at our doorsteps?
And yet, forgiveness is the key to new life. Indeed, forgiveness is key to the continuation of life itself.
This psalm speaks to forgiveness from the point of view of confession. It is, in a sense, formulaic. First confession, then forgiveness, then a new beginning. The confession piece of this equation is critical. In fact, it is almost as though the deceit surrounding the wrongful act is worse than the act itself.
Isn't this true? It's bad enough that someone has been wronged, but when the perpetrator lies about the wrong and it is as though the infraction never took place, that's when things really get bad. If, however, the guilty party confesses -- tells the truth -- apologizes -- forgiveness, and therefore a new beginning becomes possible.
This dramatic process has been seen in the unfolding of the Truth and Justice Commissions in South Africa and in Guatemala after decades of horrible repression, violence, and murder. Those who committed the crimes came forward and told the truth. These were truths that beggar the imagination. Midnight kidnappings and murders, tales of death squads and massacres, and details too horrible to discuss here. Yet the truth was told.
In light of all this, it's distressing to note that many Protestant communities shy away from confession these days. In an effort to avoid "guilting" people, this most powerful and restorative process has been abandoned. One wonders if it might be retrieved. Deitrich Bonhoeffer felt that the Protestant church ought to return to the confessional for reasons quite similar to this.
The question that comes seems clear. What is the location of confession and forgiveness in the life of our nation? Where might this nation benefit from confession? Like any world power in history, the list here is long. From slavery to wars of empire, what would national confession look like? Where might our communities benefit from the truthfulness of confession? What truths might be told about homelessness and poverty? About racism and power? And, of course, we cannot neglect our congregations. What healing truths might our churches tell? The list, of course, continues to narrow until at last we confront the one in the mirror.
Whether it is the sins of nations or the vagaries of one person, this psalm gets it right. Confession is good for the soul.
This evolution of things poses significant challenges ahead. It is one thing to be a people wandering in the desert sustained by God's promise; it is another to enter into the work of being a nation and all the choices that poses. My own tradition, which became part of the national tradition, is narrated through a similar epic. Pilgrims and Puritans come to these shores in an errand into the wilderness that will have global consequences as they act out the establishment of God's rule on earth. However, things become difficult in the strange land. The native population is abused, the economy becomes in part based on slavery, and the enforcement of the party line against women and new forms of religious understanding drains the life out of the original vision.
Like the prodigal in the far country, the Hebrews must now eat the crops of their new land. How much will they be able to stomach and still thrive and act out the vision born in a wilderness?
In the epistle lesson, Paul makes plain that we are new creations and the old has passed away. Of course, the mere fact that Paul must bring this up suggests that things might not be working themselves out in the way Paul imagines. The early Christians were invited to gain a foretaste of the age to come in their worship and gathering. Yet, as Paul says in the first letter to them, the Corinthians "are eating and drinking judgment to themselves." Now just how much can you stomach of the division, the lax morals, and the religious bigotry that has also become part of the Corinthians' religious experience? Is it just them? Is it the inevitable aftertaste that comes whenever a developing faith enters a new territory?
A quick look at the current religious scene and you find yourself asking some of the same questions. In a new land, do we see and feel like new creations? How much can we stomach of divisions, scandals, and some of the loathing that Christians have for one another?
The story that Jesus tells for this Sunday seems to be about an entire family that is out to lunch. The younger son seems to want to make sure that life does not pass him by. The joys of home pale beside the allures of the far country. Yet, it is there that he loses all that he had and winds up having to tend the ritually unclean food delicacy of this new land. No one gave him anything. You can count on that in the far country. The elder son cannot partake of the feast that is laid out after the prodigal's return. In an age when "tough love" is popular we can barely stomach the behavior of the father who puts up no resistance to the second son even though he is clearly at risk.
The advancing years have brought the necessity into my life of having to do a better job of watching what I eat. I have done a fairly good job of fighting the battle of the bulge to a virtual draw. However, I am forever getting invitations and succumbing to the temptation to go to one of the finer foreign restaurants in our city. In each case, it will be a matter of how much and how well my stomach will handle things. In a sense, this is the question that is part of all these texts. How much will the Hebrews be able to stomach of their new situation, not as pursuers but possessors of the land? Will the Corinthians partake of a feast that will lead them to become a new creation? How can we stomach the behavior that we see taking place in Jesus' story?
Joshua 5:9-12
In large measure, how we handle this text depends on how much we can stomach the subsequent narration of the book of Joshua. It is not likely that many will be found today who enter uncritically into the notion of conquest and ethnic cleansing of the resident Canaanites. Neither is it likely that any read of the text that does not take into account what is ahead is likely to gain credence among potential hearers of any homiletical efforts based on these words. While this is an age of biblical illiteracy most congregations know enough of the story of the Israelite conquest of the promised land.
It often seems to me that, when presented with mystery, our tendency is usually to try and explain it away, solve it, deny it, or seek for some other way to reestablish our equilibrium. Yet, the prevalent pattern in the Bible is not to solve mystery but to deepen it. The scripture's claim on us resolves our uncertainties less, but deepens our trust of God who remains God because the transcendent cannot be fully contained in the boundaries of human reason. As Saint Paul puts it, all have fallen short of the glory of God.
We have here in the text itself one of those mysteries. At the outset of the Hebrew occupation of the land, there are warnings. In verse 9, "The Lord said to Joshua, 'Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.' " Whatever else this story is about, it is about leaving Egypt and all that it symbolizes behind. Whatever lies ahead there will be serious questions about land distribution and wealth. There will be plenty of alternative answers to the ones given in the conquest tradition.
It is almost as if the text itself cannot stomach what is ahead. It gives us something to digest as we listen to the voices in the story that is about to happen. The mystery deepens but possibilities open up.
The text brings with it a sense of portentousness as it tells the story of the first Passover in this new land: "On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain." This turn in diet signals the end of the desert experience and opens a world where choices will come hard, God will not feel as close, and the ambiguities of nationhood must be faced. This land will not be a place where the Israelites will be sustained as they had in the past by a manna that was there for the taking. They now must reach farther, think longer, and pray deeper over a new set of challenges. Once again, the text announces somewhat ominously, "They ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year."
Isn't that the way it is? In the "real world" answers will not come easily. It will take more than picking up manna from the ground to feed the hungry. It will take more than disappearing manna to handle the issues of wealth distribution.
To paraphrase Walter Brueggemann: No doubt some of us can stomach the idea of reading this text in ways that gloss over the moral ambiguities ahead. Others, as Brueggemann points out, can stomach the notion of a God of violence that will be superseded by a God of love in the "New Testament." Others can stomach an eye-for-an- eye world no matter what the level of violence.
However, the text that knows of the violence ahead invites us to swallow the notion of living in a real world filled with danger and to remember the purpose of the Passover and to listen to the warning of a world in which manna is not easily found.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Now here is a notion that is fairly hard to swallow, "We are to regard none from a human point of view." Now it seems that we spend most of our days trying to calculate things in very human terms. We are left pondering the human equation of who is up and who is down. If anything we can count on the very human side of the equation to win out. People will overreach, underestimate, miss the mark, and not miss being marked by the slings of outrageous fortune that is part of the human story. As a matter of fact, the downfall of most human beings is that they fail to regard themselves or others from a human point of view. This is a hard notion to swallow in the scheme of things.
Yet, Paul is not asking us to abandon the human story, but to recognize that God through Jesus Christ embraces it as the vehicle through which God will bring to fruition God's story: "That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us." Can we regard anyone merely from a human point of view if this message has been entrusted to our hands? In that light the old has passed away and everything does take on a new slant.
We certainly can work somewhat backward and ask of ourselves, "If God has embraced our story through Christ, then can we regard Jesus from a merely human point of view?" Certainly, Paul at one time looked upon Jesus only from a human point of view. As a persecutor of Christians, he saw Jesus as troublemaker, competitor, pretender, and disturber of the peace. Yet, in Jesus he found God embracing his life in a way that he made his story a vehicle of telling God's story. He could not regard Jesus merely as teacher or moral example but as mediator through which God was embracing his life. The reality of reconciliation happened for Paul in one who was the uniting of the human and divine story.
He experienced this not through study and research or by his former way of regarding the world. Rather, he found himself swallowing this notion on the road to Damascus, at the table of the Lord, and according to Acts through finding that God could release him from prison or make prison a place of his ministry. Through Christ, doors swung open to Gentiles and members of the royal household. No wonder he could not regard Christ from a merely human point of view. Neither could he regard Gentiles as unclean; Romans simply as enemies, or prison, beatings, and shipwreck as the signs of a dead-end life.
In Paul's mind, this left him and all the church as "Ambassadors of Christ since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." Now this sets the bar very high for most Christian people. Most of us do not feel up to the job of being an ambassador. However it has been entrusted to us to tell that we have been joined in our story to become the medium through which the account of God's activity in Christ will be represented to the world -- that is what is going on in youth fellowship, church school, mission board, church camp, and worship hour. In Paul's mind, anything less falls short of describing what is happening. Granted, it might be a role that we only grow into, but it is the standard by which we should regard ourselves.
This poses an interesting challenge to the adequacy of our Christological understanding. Paul reasons from the events of his life to a Christological understanding that sees much more in Jesus than moral example, teacher, therapist, or healer. Does our Christological understanding adequately reflect our experience in the faith community? Or, has our "regarding things from a human point of view" so diminished our sense of identity that we find ourselves defining Christ from a merely human point of view?
Paul, in expecting us to swallow this understanding of his own life and the meaning of Jesus, has given us much to digest.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
As I read this text, I get the feeling that there is no one in this family who does not resemble one of the characters from NBC's sitcom, The Office. All of the principals betray the same truncated emotional life that renders them insensitive to each other and to the moment. The father in this story, like the boss in The Office, conveys the impression that he believes leadership and parenting is about indulging those for whose care you are responsible. The younger son comes across as the chief underling in The Office who is a supreme combination of self-importance and incompetence. Like The Office, we know that things are not going to turn out well for this character. It is not that he intends it, but the shortcuts he has taken in life to find a place in life will catch up with him and prove his undoing. However, I have a certain sympathy for the two lead characters in The Office and in Jesus' story; at least they are still in the fray refusing to yield however wrong headed their approach to life is. The rest of the characters in The Office and the elder son have in one way or another been defeated by life and have settled in for whatever they can squeeze out of life.
The joining of The Office and this parable has a particular poignancy for me in that my family came from the area in and around Scranton, Pennsylvania, which is the site of the fictional sitcom. I have met these characters firsthand. Some, like Ralph Cramdon and Lucy, were forever trying to scheme their way into life and met with various levels of success. Others had settled for denunciations of ubiquitous enemies out there or for routinely measuring out the unfairness of life. As if to make up for the unfairness and the wasting away of the prosperity that coal mining had brought northeast Pennsylvania, children were often overindulged and showered with affection as if to shield them from the daily harshness of life. Why deny them if life would only deny them later on?
What is not hard to swallow here is that there are characters like these in either The Office or in Jesus' parable. What is hard to swallow is that in the telling of Jesus' tale there could be any hope of ingesting some redemptive truth. The tale of the prodigal read like The Office, a sad story of how you can get into trouble in life: Those who have given up hope of finding more than a rather minimal existence and those who engage in pathetic attempts to soften the blows of life.
The amazing thing to consider here is that out of this mix, though it is hard to swallow, there is redemptive activity here. Yes, the father is indulgent of a son whose arrogance knows no bounds, but in doing so he holds the door open to the day when this young man, for whatever reason, comes to his senses and comes home. He makes the journey easy. He reminds me of the many parents in Scranton and elsewhere who have kept the door open to better days in the midst of economic adversity and spiritual challenge when many caved into slavish living or wasting their inheritance in wanton pursuits.
Is that not the kind of parenting we find in our God? Do we not meet this God in one who has more mercy in God's heart than foolishness in ours? Do we not meet this indulgent God who, more than fair with us, is faithful to us when standards of fairness would keep the door to home being closed? This is the God who on Easter morning rolls away the stone for those who betrayed, denied, and deserted the one he sent. It is this seeming indulgence that the elder son who has settled for a life of quid pro quo cannot swallow. It is why we need not settle for less than full living nor fearfully squander our own lives.
Application
The fourth Sunday in Lent presents us with three texts that, in their own way, are a bit hard to swallow -- that the entrance to the promised land is fraught with danger, that we are ambassadors of Jesus Christ in whom God who has joined with us, and that the harebrained family can be the vehicle of God's grace. It seems that the harder it is to swallow, the more nutritious might be the meal. It is hard to imagine that the disequilibrium that this causes may be the entry point into the reign and rule of God in our lives. This notion will no doubt go down better with some congregations than others. In a world that is constantly buffeted by winds of change many find that the balance has tipped so far that they suffer from vertigo. Who has not longed from time to time for the reestablishment of balance in their lives?
If the preacher remains convinced that this hard-to-swallow disequilibrium is the starting point, then in our time and age they are obligated to point toward the ultimate balance and nourishment that this read of the texts will bring. Often this kind of reading is treated as a good medicine that tastes bad. I suspect the "take this it is good for you" approach will be met with resistance by those who want more immediate satisfaction from their reading of scripture. However, for the homiletically wise, this approach can bring much nourishment.
Alternative Application
Joshua 5:9-12. The Joshua text says the day they ate of the crops of the new land the manna ceased. We know from biologists that manna is based on a common phenomenon in the region. The manna did not go away. One might say that the Hebrews had lost their taste for what once had sustained them in the wilderness. I have the sneaking suspicion that my 31-year-old son has not a clue as to what a real tomato or what a rhubarb pie (where you picked the rhubarb) tastes like. We have lost closeness to the land that once sustained us.
The Jewish holy day of Sukkoth commemorates what sustains us in the wilderness by inviting the community to partake of their meals in outdoor shelters that remind the Jews of their sheltering in the wilderness. It is a time of closeness to the land, to each other, and to God.
There is no doubt that we will partake of the crops of the land of Canaan. It is not entirely bad; mass production has meant the feeding of many who would otherwise go hungry. However, we still hunger for that which sustains us in the wilderness. In a world of cell phones and email and all the other crops of Canaan, we need to celebrate what has sustained us in the wilderness.
Preaching The Psalm
Psalm 32
Forgiveness is difficult. Oh, with little things it can be done. Someone slips up and causes inconvenience. A little white lie here, a small mistreatment there, can be dismissed. But with the big things, it is not an easy matter. Who forgives betrayal in marriage? Who forgives a deliberate attempt to hurt or wound? Who forgives a rapist or a murderer? Who forgives an invading, rampaging army? Who forgives us for the litany of wrongs that can be laid at our doorsteps?
And yet, forgiveness is the key to new life. Indeed, forgiveness is key to the continuation of life itself.
This psalm speaks to forgiveness from the point of view of confession. It is, in a sense, formulaic. First confession, then forgiveness, then a new beginning. The confession piece of this equation is critical. In fact, it is almost as though the deceit surrounding the wrongful act is worse than the act itself.
Isn't this true? It's bad enough that someone has been wronged, but when the perpetrator lies about the wrong and it is as though the infraction never took place, that's when things really get bad. If, however, the guilty party confesses -- tells the truth -- apologizes -- forgiveness, and therefore a new beginning becomes possible.
This dramatic process has been seen in the unfolding of the Truth and Justice Commissions in South Africa and in Guatemala after decades of horrible repression, violence, and murder. Those who committed the crimes came forward and told the truth. These were truths that beggar the imagination. Midnight kidnappings and murders, tales of death squads and massacres, and details too horrible to discuss here. Yet the truth was told.
In light of all this, it's distressing to note that many Protestant communities shy away from confession these days. In an effort to avoid "guilting" people, this most powerful and restorative process has been abandoned. One wonders if it might be retrieved. Deitrich Bonhoeffer felt that the Protestant church ought to return to the confessional for reasons quite similar to this.
The question that comes seems clear. What is the location of confession and forgiveness in the life of our nation? Where might this nation benefit from confession? Like any world power in history, the list here is long. From slavery to wars of empire, what would national confession look like? Where might our communities benefit from the truthfulness of confession? What truths might be told about homelessness and poverty? About racism and power? And, of course, we cannot neglect our congregations. What healing truths might our churches tell? The list, of course, continues to narrow until at last we confront the one in the mirror.
Whether it is the sins of nations or the vagaries of one person, this psalm gets it right. Confession is good for the soul.
