Fatted Calf Or Pork?
Children's sermon
Illustration
Preaching
Sermon
Worship
Object:
This week's lectionary gospel text features the parable of the prodigal son, which provides plenty of grist for the sermon mill with its themes of forgiveness and mercy (set off against the older brother's resentment). The parable also offers a vivid character study -- one that is particularly insightful because everyone (with the notable exception of the father), essentially acts the way we expect them to. Both sons' behavior reflects the incentives that motivate them -- the younger son just wants a hot meal, a minimum wage, and a roof over his head, while his older brother has a hard time with all of the hullabaloo over the return of his badly behaving sibling (and we have to wonder if he's also concerned about perhaps losing some of the inheritance that he's dutifully worked to protect). But the father reacts completely different... he offers forgiveness and reconciliation when it doesn't seem to benefit him -- other than expressing his excitement and satisfaction over his family being reunited.
Of course, this is a powerful analogy for the (completely undeserved) grace offered to us by our heavenly Father -- and in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Mary Austin suggests that it gives us an object lesson about how we too can rise above the confines of short-term incentives (like the Father) and offer forgiveness and reconciliation, which generally don't benefit us materially but rather reward the soul. But doing that means being willing to reach out to those who we'd rather not deal with, and acting against our own perceived interest. Mary points to the ongoing dysfunctional relationship amongst our politicians in Washington as an example of people whose behavior is so focused on maximizing their own interests that they are unable to generate constructive dialogue with their adversaries, let alone offer forgiveness or reconciliation. As long as their contentious behavior is being primarily driven by the incentives of securing re-election, accumulating power, and throwing roadblocks before the agenda of the opposition, there won't be any meaningful progress (let alone a celebration worthy of a fatted calf) -- someone first has to be willing to make a move against their own welfare. Mary reminds us that when we put ourselves in the shoes of the various characters in the story, we truly come to understand how each of us needs to both give and receive reconciliation.
Team member Leah Lonsbury offers some additional thoughts on the continuing relevance of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is now being challenged in a case before the Supreme Court. This week's epistle text from Second Corinthians talks about a "ministry of reconciliation," and Leah asks us to consider the necessity of retaining the Voting Rights Act as an essential American "ministry of reconciliation."
Fatted Calf or Pork?
by Mary Austin
Luke 15:11-32
Fueled either by strong principles or by a strong desire to make the other side look bad, Congress and the president failed to reach an agreement on the federal budget, triggering the automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester." Watching them move toward the deadline was an illustration of what not to do -- if you want to have a working relationship with someone. Each side talked about the other, with no plan to talk to each other, until the deadline. The language was strong and derogatory, as the Speaker of the House recently urged the Senate to "get off their *&%" and do something. Each side talked around the other to the public -- the president with campaign-style appearances and Congress members reminding people of all they'd already done. The Speaker made his remarks at a podium emblazoned with a web address to bolster his case.
Neither side apparently thought it had anything to gain from talking to each other.
THE WORLD
The impasse has brought us automatic budget cuts that began last Friday (March 1). As Nicholas Ricciardi reports for the Associated Press: "The latest crisis hit on Friday with across-the-board automatic spending cuts. They total about $85 billion, but the economic damage created by two years of showdowns is far greater. And there's no end in sight: Temporary resolutions funding the government expire on March 27. May brings another debt ceiling standoff." Small business owners like Alison Brown are cutting back on employees, and (as quoted in the article) she says, "We're planning for the worst.... We're not going to be taking risks and making investments, and that's bad for the country as a whole."
The article continues: "Thousands of businesses are in similar straits, from defense contractors... to wind turbine manufacturers to wheat farmers. It is one reason the U.S. economic recovery has been so persistently anemic. But it is happening quietly, drowned out by dueling press conferences inside the Beltway and general disgust at the perpetual drama over federal spending."
The impact reaches far beyond Washington.
Each side has a philosophy behind its actions, and for each, the belief in their own truth is stronger than the need for reconciliation. As John Harwood characterizes it in the New York Times : "Republicans don't seek to grind government to a halt. But they do aim to shrink its size by an amount currently beyond their institutional power in Washington.... Democrats don't seek to cripple the nation with debt. But they do aim to preserve existing government programs without the ability, so far, to set levels of taxation commensurate with their cost. At bottom, it is the oldest philosophic battle of the American party system... and they are fighting it within a 21st-century political infrastructure that impedes compromise."
Elected officials agree on the need to stand firm on principle -- but on which principle, is the question. Ironically, divided as we are, all of us will share in the results.
THE WORD
We know, from previous hearings of the prodigal son story, that the younger son has gravely insulted his father. In asking for his part of the inheritance early, he has, in essence, wished his father were dead. He squanders his father's hard work when he wastes the money. When the wretchedness of his life becomes too much, he decides to go home and ask to be a servant in his father's house. His actions leave him at a distance -- physical and emotional -- from his father.
The older son is sober and dutiful -- we can't help but think the younger son might have been more fun. The older son, too, creates distance between himself and his father by refusing to rejoice when his brother comes home. He wants to be sure to hold onto his part of the inheritance, and his father is quick to reassure him that "all that I have is yours." That's not enough and he refuses to come to the celebration.
Each of the sons wants something from the father. The father is the only one in the story who isn't looking for anything for himself. Out of love, he gives up a portion of his estate... he gives up the company of the son who wants to travel... he gives up the companionship of the son who would rather wallow in self-righteousness... he gives up his days to watch the road for the return of his younger son... and when the son finally appears, he gives up his dignity as master of the house and runs to his son.
As Alyce McKenzie observes on her blog, each of the father's actions has a specific meaning: "The culture of Palestinian villages was one of honor and shame.... The son has brought shame on his father and his whole family by his behavior. He can expect to be shamed by the village.... The younger son could expect that the townspeople would conduct a gesasah ceremony on his return. This is not a reception in the fellowship hall with a 'Welcome Home' banner and a sheet cake. This is a ceremony for a son of the village who had lost his money to Gentiles or married an immoral woman. They would gather around him, breaking jars with corn and nuts, and declare that he was to be cut off from the village.... When the father sees his son, his compassion is inspired and he moves toward him.... Here the father exposes himself to humiliation to prevent his son from being humiliated."
The hurrying, overjoyed father understands that reconciliation is even better than compromise.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The prodigal son, the resentful brother, and the running father give us several ways to think about reconciliation.
Many of us can feel the anguish of the older brother, feeling neglected by the father's embrace of the younger brother. Many of us are well-educated, hard-working, dutiful people -- perhaps even churchgoers! We do what we're supposed to, we think -- why can't everyone else? When we hear this story, there's some disdain for the irresponsible younger brother. Why should he get a party? The older brother is interested in fairness.
Many of us have been the younger brother. One bad choice leads to another until we're lost and far from home, whether geographically or spiritually. The older sibling has covered all the bases of success and approval -- the only way to stake out some new ground is in the land of rebellion. Finally, the younger brother comes home just hoping to get by. The younger brother is looking for sustenance.
Perhaps a few of us have been the father -- generous with grace and hospitality. This is the real inheritance he has to offer -- the gift of forgiveness, for both of his sons, who need it equally. Whether it's Congress, or the workplace, or the family, we all have places of distance and misunderstanding in our lives. The running father recalls for us our place in the story. We are all people who need reconciliation, and we are all people who have it to give.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Everything Has Become New -- Really?
by Leah Lonsbury
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Last week, President Obama unveiled the newest statue in the Capitol -- a life-sized rendering of Rosa Parks, whose arrest more than a half-century ago helped ignite the civil rights movement. Her act of defiance called for a new way of being together and helped move the United States toward desegregation and the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Here's how the editorial board of the Washington Post describes this legislation:
The 1965 Voting Rights Act remains one of this country's foremost accomplishments. Constitutional amendments following the Civil War barred states and localities from abridging the right to vote on the basis of race, yet for the better part of a century, white racists managed to stay a step ahead of the federal government's enforcement of these protections. The Voting Rights Act was designed to stamp out the varied and shifting strategies local officials used to prevent African Americans from voting.
It's fitting that Parks' statue depicts her seated and waiting for the police to arrive and arrest her on December 1, 1955, the day she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. She knew that ushering in a new day would take courage and a willingness to sacrifice. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, recognized this in remarks following the unveiling ceremony and said that Mrs. Parks' decision to get arrested rather than to give up her seat "helped unite the country." He continued...
For some, Rosa Parks served as an inspiration to stand up against injustice. For others, she was a spur to reflection and self-examination, and the reconciliation of cherished ideals of freedom, democracy, and constitutional rights with the reality of life as others lived it.
Parks' statue is the first to be commissioned by Congress in 140 years, and the first full rendering of an African-American woman to grace the Capitol's Statuary Hall, a place lawmakers frequently pass through on their way to vote. Clearly her inspiration toward reflection and self-examination still stands, even if it took more than 50 years for Congress to make that known in this visible way in the Capitol.
Parks has received the highest civilian honors from Congress and the White House, and her face has been on a postage stamp. She was the first woman to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda when she died in 2005, an honor usually reserved for presidents and lawmakers. Parks' influence lives on beyond the Capitol Statuary and throughout our national consciousness, for, as President Obama said at the unveiling ceremony, she "helped a nation see that to which it had once been blind."
Yet, across the street from the Capitol at the Supreme Court, almost simultaneous to this unveiling ceremony, a challenge was being heard to the landmark Voting Rights Act. Through this challenge, the court is being asked to consider whether the law has done its job and worked so well that its toughest section has outlived its time.
That section is Section 5, which requires certain states and localities with a history of discrimination to clear any proposed changes in how voting will be carried out with the Justice Department of the federal government.
Six years ago, Congress decided that this was still work that needed doing with legislative support when it reauthorized the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years with a bipartisan majority of 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate. As it reauthorized the bill, Congress stated:
(9) The record compiled by Congress demonstrates that, without the continuation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protections, racial and language minority citizens will be deprived of the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, or will have their votes diluted, undermining the significant gains made by minorities in the last 40 years.
But not everyone shares this opinion. The case being heard by the Supreme Court is being spearheaded by Ed Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a conservative legal-defense fund devoted to fighting race-based protections in public policy. Blum began his fight against the Voting Rights Act after losing a 1992 Houston congressional race to Craig Washington, one of the first African Americans elected to the Texas House, and a future member of the U.S. Congress. Ari Berman of The Nation writes:
Blum believed [Craig] Washington was the beneficiary of unfair racial gerrymandering mandated by the VRA. "The VRA -- Section 5 in particular -- was the most effective piece of congressional legislation in the 20th century," Blum told me. But he believed that by the late 1980s, it had outlived its purpose and become a malicious force.
Blum has been working to oppose the Voting Rights Act ever since and was the one who convinced Shelby County, Alabama's lawyers to sign on to this lawsuit.
Again from Ari Berman...
It's not surprising that the most recent challenge originates in Alabama, which, more than any other state, is responsible for the passage of the VRA. LBJ announced the legislation eight days after police brutally beat civil rights activists during the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" protests in Selma. "The Voting Rights Act is Alabama's gift to our country," says Debo Adegbile, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Shelby County is a wealthy, white-flight exurb of Birmingham, once regarded as the most segregated city in America and known as "Bombingham" for the frequency of attacks on black citizens at the height of the civil rights struggle.
[Read more here about the disputed election in Calera, Alabama, from which the lawsuit stems.]
It's interesting to note that from 1975 to 2008, election laws in Shelby County were judged to have discriminated on the basis of race under the Voting Rights Act in 20 separate instances, according to Caltech historian Morgan Kousser. Despite these findings, Blum and Shelby County are pressing on with their suit, alleging that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act ignores the progress that has been made since 1965 in rooting out official discrimination and creates a burden on jurisdictions that must seek pre-clearance from the Justice Department for any changes in voting rules they wish to enact.
Blum and Shelby County also argue that Section 5 unjustifiably subjects some states to unequal treatment and steps on individual states' constitutional rights to regulate elections within their borders. They want to dismantle the pre-clearance piece of the VRA, the only section that places the burden of proof on would-be discriminators, because they believe Section 2, which provides opportunity for after-the-fact prosecution of voter discrimination, is sufficient. Section 2 prosecutions place the burden of proof on the person or persons who have been discriminated against. They are also lengthy legal battles that are not easily or frequently won. In this light, Section 5 can be seen as crime prevention, and Section 2 can be seen as criminal prosecution.
The editorial board of the Washington Post issued an opinion piece on February 26th that responded to these proposed changes. It reads in part:
Pre-clearance jurisdictions on the whole still have a worse record than those not covered. Per capita, they have seen many more successful after-the-fact legal challenges to their voting rules. Pre-clearance advocates look at these figures and rightly wonder how much worse they would be if the pre-clearance procedure did not exist. Besides, the law allows jurisdictions to escape the pre-clearance requirement after a decade of good behavior -- a crucial element of the act that allows for real-time adjustment of its rough geographic distinctions.
These findings resonate with those of the 2006 Congress that held 21 hearings over 10 months to determine whether or not to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. The evidence from those hearings persuaded Congress to emphatically reauthorize the act. It reads like this...
In states like Virginia, Texas, and Florida, minority voter registration and turnout rates lagged well behind that of whites. Three of the original six states covered by Section 5 -- Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina -- had never elected an African American to statewide office. The attorney general blocked 2,400 discriminatory voting changes based on 750 Section 5 objections from 1982 to 2006. Clearly, voter suppression efforts had endured into the 21st century.
Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter likened the discrimination that was still happening in 2006 to "pouring old poison into new bottles."
How will the current Supreme Court rule on the Voting Rights Act in June? It's hard to say. In last week's oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia stated that the VRA perpetuates "racial entitlements." There were audible gasps in the room, and Justice Sonja Sotomayor gave an unusually direct response to her colleague by saying that voting is not a racial entitlement. Beyond the current justices whose votes are fairly easy to predict, David Henson of The Christian Century has focused instead on Chief Justice John Roberts and his comments during the hearing. Henson calls Roberts' remarks a sign of the "cancer that grows quietly and infects the body of our nation with racism that seems all-too-reasonable."
Putting this case in conversation with this Sunday's passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthians spurs us again toward reflection and self-examination. How do we regard one another? Through the broken and distorted lens of what should be human history? Or do we see one another as Rosa Parks and Paul encourage us to -- through the light of Christ? Do we see a new creation or an old one that should have but has not yet passed away?
Has everything really become new? Has anything really become new?
In the laws that we make, in the systems that frame our lives, and in our daily activities and interactions, are we about the ministry of reconciliation that was given to us by God in the person of Christ? How well are we holding and carrying out that gift, that ministry that has been entrusted to us?
Considering what Mitch McConnell had to say about Parks at the unveiling ceremony, how close are we to reconciling our cherished ideals of freedom, democracy, and constitutional rights with the reality of life that our brothers and sisters face as minorities? As the church, how are following Parks' lead with courage and the willingness to sacrifice to unite the one, new creation?
What kind of sitting down are we doing to stand up to injustice? The kind that risks discomfort, disruption, and disobedience, or the kind that keeps our familiar and comfortable places in the pews in neat order?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Reconciliation at the Grocery Store
Sometimes reconciliation comes without any desire for reward or recognition. As Andri Antoniades reports on TakePart, a mom and a pickle company found common ground where it would have been easy for either party to ignore the other.
"An average day at the grocery store for Rhode Island mom Michelle Martinka turned into a moment of activism when she noticed that Cains Pickles, a popular New England brand, produced a line called 'Kosher Dill Midgets.' Martinka is the mother of ten-month-old Adelaide, a little girl with a form of dwarfism known as Achondroplasia -- and 'midget' is a derogatory way of referencing those born with the condition."
Ms. Martinka wrote to the company, urging a name change and including a YouTube video of her daughter. The company changed the name -- at no small expense, but "without objection or fanfare. Gedney Foods, the makers of Cains Pickles, explained to the (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune, 'The company is not seeking any attention related to this matter and believes that any publicity should be more appropriately placed on the children and families dealing with Achondroplasia.' "
Ms. Martinka said, "Although many people do not know, the m-word is derogatory, not just some innocuous word meaning small, as it was 50 years ago." She added, "I am fully aware that these pickles are just pickles -- and my daughter is a human. This was my first step in educating just one company. Years ago I may not have had the drive for such an undertaking but change happens when situations arise -- new circumstances, such as having a child diagnosed with dwarfism."
Reconciliation can happen in the most unlikely places. Who would imagine that a pickle jar label could also be a symbol of education, of growth in understanding, and of a company's compassion for people they might not have thought about otherwise.
* * *
From team member Ron Love:
After a several year lull in building homes, Habitat for Humanity once again has the funds to begin new construction in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Desiring a true Habitat community, all single-dwelling properties were sold, and a tract of land was purchased to create a housing community of 40 dwellings.
To become a Habitat homeowner, strict requirements must be adhered to -- one of which is called "sweat equity." An individual or family may not have the funds or physical ability to be a part of the construction project, but they are required to perform 300 hours of community service. With the investment of sweat equity, the new residents will have a sense of contribution and true ownership of their home.
Application: Reconciliation requires the responsibility of being an active member of the group.
* * *
The U.S. Census Bureau is dropping the word "Negro" from its surveys as a means of identifying one's ethnic group. The word has been used for almost a century on Census Bureau forms, beginning with the Jim Crow era in the South. "Negro" replaced the earlier word "colored" as the means of addressing dark-skinned people. The word would have been removed on the previous census, but many older blacks then living in the South still identified with the word "Negro." Those who were once labeled as "Negro" now identify with the terms "black" or "African American," which will be the new words used on Census Bureau forms.
Application: Language is a very important part of reconciling one ethnic group with another.
* * *
Recently C. Everett Koop died. He came to prominence as the Surgeon General in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Koop was a pediatric surgeon and an evangelical Christian who publicly countered the Reagan administration's early position on AIDS. He believed that condoms were the best course to slow the spread of the disease. Koop also went against corporate America with his campaign against smoking. As a former pipe smoker, he acknowledged that nicotine is as addicting as heroin and cocaine. The Surgeon General has no authority to make policy decisions. This Koop understood, so he described himself as "the health conscience of the country."
Application: C. Everett Koop saw his role as one of reconciliation, as one of bringing people together to promote national health.
* * *
Jeffrey Loria, the owner of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins franchise, has been criticized for purging his team's roster of all high-salaried players. After the Marlins' dismal first season in their new stadium, Loria realized something had to be done to create a winning team. His decision was to bring in new young players with talent and build a winning team over several seasons. With new, inexperienced players dominating their roster, it is expected that the Marlins will lose 100 games this coming season.
In explaining his decision, Loria said: "We had to turn back the clock for the moment and push the restart button, and get these young players in here and get them together and look where we are in a another year or so."
Application: Jeffrey Loria believes that the key to the Miami Marlins becoming a winning team is to build a culture of cohesiveness, reconciling each player one to another.
* * *
Kris Medlen is a short 5-foot-10, but he is considered the Atlanta Braves' number one starter. After spending most of his time in the bullpen, when Medlen was put into the starting rotation last season he dominated, going 10-1 with a 1.57 ERA. The 27-year-old right-hander is being called by many the ace of the Braves' pitching staff. That's a title Medlen refuses to accept, saying: "Ace is being a leader. It's a veteran thing. It's not just something you hand off to somebody."
Application: Kris Medlen realizes that he is not the star of the team, only a member of the team. He also recognizes as one of the newer players, it is the more experienced and older players that will provide the best leadership.
* * *
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Forgive and Forget
The story is told that Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, was once at a public gathering when she happened upon a man who had in the past done her a public unkindness of which many of her friends were very aware.
When Barton met the man at this public gathering she was kind and courteous to him, as he was to her, but her friends were shocked and outraged on her behalf. When they confronted her about it, she responded that she had completely forgotten the unkindness the man had committed.
When they attempted to remind her, she stopped them. "No!" she said. "I specifically remember forgetting about it."
* * *
Reconciliation
Accountants use the term "reconciliation" to mean agreement. Two accounts are reconciled when they agree with each other. Many of us use the word in that way when we reconcile our checkbooks each month with the statement that the bank has sent us.
When the checkbook and the statement do not agree they must be brought into agreement or reconciled, and the way that reconciliation takes place is by adding or subtracting from one account or the other so the two are brought into agreement.
Scripture tells us that we are reconciled to God when God subtracts our sin from our account and he "writes it off" so that we do not have to pay for it.
* * *
William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens were friends as young men, but they later became literary rivals to the point that it strained their friendship and they became estranged.
Two days before Christmas of 1863 they met by chance in London, but the meeting was a frigid one and they hardly recognized each other. Unable to bear the separation any longer, Thackeray turned back, grabbed Dickens' hand, and said that he could not bear this cold isolation from his friend any longer. Dickens was touched. They embraced, talked a long while, and parted with smiles.
The next day, on Christmas Eve, William Makepeace Thackeray suffered a stroke at the age of 52 and died.
Sir Thomas Martin later wrote: "The next time I saw Dickens he was looking down into the grave of his great rival. He must have rejoiced, I thought, that they had shaken hands so warmly a day or so before."
* * *
Burying the Hatchet
Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) is remembered mostly as one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials, a role for which he later apologized. He was also a vocal critic of slavery and served for many years as the chief justice of the highest court in the province of Massachusetts.
But his most lasting gift may be to the American lexicon, to which he introduced the phrase "bury the hatchet" as a euphemism for reconciliation and peacemaking. He wrote of it in 1680:
"Meeting wth ye Sachem [the tribal leaders] the[y] came to an agreemt and buried two Axes in ye Ground; which ceremony to them is more significant & binding than all Articles of Peace the Hatchet being a principal weapon wth ym."
* * *
The Angel of Burundi
October 24, 1993 is considered the worst day of the civil war in Burundi between the Hutu and Tutsi people (a conflict that would spread to neighboring Rwanda in 1994, leading to mass genocide). Thousands were killed, including Maggie Barankitse's four aunts, who were burned to death in the house in which they were hiding.
On that day, Maggie, fearing for the lives of children near where she lived, began providing food and shelter for about 25 orphans without regard to their tribal ancestry. The number grew until in 1994 the Catholic Bishop of Ruyigi agreed to transform a former school into an orphanage and children's shelter, which Maggie dubbed "Maison Shalom" (House of Peace).
Her ministry spread and by 2004 it is estimated that more than 20,000 children had benefited from her help.
In this video, she talks of how she visited and forgave the man who murdered her aunts and about the importance of forgiveness for a Christian.
* * *
Unable to Forgive
Reverend Julie Nicholson was a vicar in the Church of England and a parish pastor when, on July 7, 2005, her 24-year-old daughter Jenny was killed by a suicide bomber in the London subway.
For nearly eight months Reverend Nicholson wrestled with her feelings of grief and her anger at those who planned and carried out the murders of innocent civilians, including her daughter. Then, on March 6, she resigned her position as pastor. Here is how the Guardian described her resignation: "The Reverend Julie Nicholson, 52, has felt unable to celebrate communion for her parishioners since her daughter, Jenny, was killed at Edgware Road on July 7 last year. Unwilling to be a hypocrite, she has resigned from the parish of St. Aidan with St. George in Bristol. 'It's very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist, the Communion, and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself,' she said in a BBC interview."
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
People: Happy are those in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Leader: God, you are a hiding place; you preserve us from trouble;
People: you surround us with glad cries of deliverance.
Leader: Be glad in God and rejoice, oh righteous.
People: Shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
OR
Leader: God calls us home to the very heart of God.
People: With joy we come to God, our loving parent.
Leader: God invites us to see in others the image of God which is in us.
People: With God's help, we can see God's likeness in others.
Leader: We cannot draw close to God without drawing close to others.
People: All are God's children. We love our siblings because we love our parent.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"All People That on Earth Do Dwell"
found in:
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELA: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370
"From All Who Dwell Below the Skies"
found in:
UMH: 101
H82: 380
PH: 229
NCH: 27
CH: 49
LBW: 550
AMEC: 69
STLT: 381
"Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether"
found in:
UMH: 632
PH: 504
NCH: 337
CH: 392
ELA: 470
"Help Us Accept Each Other"
found in:
UMH: 560
PH: 358
NCH: 388
CH: 487
W&P: 596
AMEC: 558
"Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation"
found in:
UMH: 559
H82: 518
PH: 416/417
NCH: 400
CH: 275
LBW: 367
ELA: 645
AMEC: 518
"Our Parent, by Whose Name"
found in:
UMH: 447
LBW: 357
ELA: 640
"This Is My Song"
found in:
UMH: 437
NCH: 591
CH: 722
ELA: 887
STLT: 159
"O God of Every Nation"
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 629
"We Are One in Christ Jesus" ("Somos uno en Cristo")
found in:
CCB: 43
"Behold, What Manner of Love"
found in:
CCB: 44
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is ever seeking to reconcile all creation: Grant us the grace to allow ourselves to be reconciled to you and to reach out in compassion to embrace one another that we may truly be one people, one family in you; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to offer our praise to you, O God, and to be drawn into your love and grace. As we find the barriers we have erected against you falling, help us to break down those walls that separate us from our sisters and brothers in the church and in the world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the ways in which we obstruct God's work of reconciliation.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have created us from your own breath and out of your great love. You have created us all as one family, and yet we struggle with either feeling separated from you or trying to feel closer by imagining that others are further from you. We are constantly looking for things that separate us from one another. We look at outward appearances or social standing and fail to recognize your Spirit that dwells in those around us. Forgive us and draw us in your Spirit so close to you that we can see the family resemblance in all your children. Amen.
Leader: God, our loving parent, knows who we are and loves us completely. God embraces us and invites us to embrace one another.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We worship and adore you, O God, for you are the one who created us in your image. You have made us your children and brothers and sisters of one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have created us from your own breath and out of your great love. You have created us all as one family, and yet we struggle with either feeling separated from you or trying to feel closer by imagining that others are further from you. We are constantly looking for things that separate us from one another. We look at outward appearances or social standing and fail to recognize your Spirit that dwells in those around us. Forgive us and draw us in your Spirit so close to you that we can see the family resemblance in all your children.
We thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for the wonderful world that sustains our lives and delights our senses. We thank you for your love that holds us in your eternal embrace. We thank you for Jesus, our elder brother, who teaches us of your love for us and for all your creatures.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We are painfully aware of how separated we often feel from you and from one another. We know that many struggle with the difficulties of life and think they must suffer alone. We pray that as you reach out to them in your compassion that we might find ways to be your arms of love for them.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Show the children a family tree diagram. Talk about how the different people are connected. They may not know each other, they may not like each other -- but that doesn't alter the fact they are from the same ancestors. God is our great parent and creator. We may not know we are related to others; we may not even like others sometimes -- but it doesn't change the fact that we are family because God is our creator/parent.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Undeserving of God's Love
Luke 15:11-32
Good morning, boys and girls! Our gospel lesson today is one of the best-known stories in the Bible. In this story we hear about a man and his two sons. One of the sons moves away from home, makes a lot of mistakes, and does some bad things. The other son, though, does things that make his father happy and proud.
One day, the son with troubles comes home again. He knows he has done some bad things and he feels terrible. He tells his father that he doesn't deserve to be called his son anymore. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever done anything so bad that you didn't think anyone could love you anymore? This son knows that the things he has done have caused his father lots of pain and heartache. The father has every right to be angry with him. But instead of being angry, the father just tells him how much he loves him. He tells everyone to have a big party to celebrate that his son has come home. The son's mistakes and sins do not matter to the father, and he forgives his son.
God's love for us is just like that. We do things that are wrong all the time. Sometimes we can do things that hurt ourselves or other people, but we must never think that God has stopped loving us. God loves us so much, and he would do anything for us. Even when we think that we don't deserve God's love, it is there for us. It always will be.
Prayer: God, thank you for loving us just the way we are. Help us to remember that there is no way you would ever stop loving us. Amen.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
The Immediate Word, March 10, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
Of course, this is a powerful analogy for the (completely undeserved) grace offered to us by our heavenly Father -- and in this installment of The Immediate Word, team member Mary Austin suggests that it gives us an object lesson about how we too can rise above the confines of short-term incentives (like the Father) and offer forgiveness and reconciliation, which generally don't benefit us materially but rather reward the soul. But doing that means being willing to reach out to those who we'd rather not deal with, and acting against our own perceived interest. Mary points to the ongoing dysfunctional relationship amongst our politicians in Washington as an example of people whose behavior is so focused on maximizing their own interests that they are unable to generate constructive dialogue with their adversaries, let alone offer forgiveness or reconciliation. As long as their contentious behavior is being primarily driven by the incentives of securing re-election, accumulating power, and throwing roadblocks before the agenda of the opposition, there won't be any meaningful progress (let alone a celebration worthy of a fatted calf) -- someone first has to be willing to make a move against their own welfare. Mary reminds us that when we put ourselves in the shoes of the various characters in the story, we truly come to understand how each of us needs to both give and receive reconciliation.
Team member Leah Lonsbury offers some additional thoughts on the continuing relevance of the landmark 1965 Voting Rights Act, which is now being challenged in a case before the Supreme Court. This week's epistle text from Second Corinthians talks about a "ministry of reconciliation," and Leah asks us to consider the necessity of retaining the Voting Rights Act as an essential American "ministry of reconciliation."
Fatted Calf or Pork?
by Mary Austin
Luke 15:11-32
Fueled either by strong principles or by a strong desire to make the other side look bad, Congress and the president failed to reach an agreement on the federal budget, triggering the automatic spending cuts known as the "sequester." Watching them move toward the deadline was an illustration of what not to do -- if you want to have a working relationship with someone. Each side talked about the other, with no plan to talk to each other, until the deadline. The language was strong and derogatory, as the Speaker of the House recently urged the Senate to "get off their *&%" and do something. Each side talked around the other to the public -- the president with campaign-style appearances and Congress members reminding people of all they'd already done. The Speaker made his remarks at a podium emblazoned with a web address to bolster his case.
Neither side apparently thought it had anything to gain from talking to each other.
THE WORLD
The impasse has brought us automatic budget cuts that began last Friday (March 1). As Nicholas Ricciardi reports for the Associated Press: "The latest crisis hit on Friday with across-the-board automatic spending cuts. They total about $85 billion, but the economic damage created by two years of showdowns is far greater. And there's no end in sight: Temporary resolutions funding the government expire on March 27. May brings another debt ceiling standoff." Small business owners like Alison Brown are cutting back on employees, and (as quoted in the article) she says, "We're planning for the worst.... We're not going to be taking risks and making investments, and that's bad for the country as a whole."
The article continues: "Thousands of businesses are in similar straits, from defense contractors... to wind turbine manufacturers to wheat farmers. It is one reason the U.S. economic recovery has been so persistently anemic. But it is happening quietly, drowned out by dueling press conferences inside the Beltway and general disgust at the perpetual drama over federal spending."
The impact reaches far beyond Washington.
Each side has a philosophy behind its actions, and for each, the belief in their own truth is stronger than the need for reconciliation. As John Harwood characterizes it in the New York Times : "Republicans don't seek to grind government to a halt. But they do aim to shrink its size by an amount currently beyond their institutional power in Washington.... Democrats don't seek to cripple the nation with debt. But they do aim to preserve existing government programs without the ability, so far, to set levels of taxation commensurate with their cost. At bottom, it is the oldest philosophic battle of the American party system... and they are fighting it within a 21st-century political infrastructure that impedes compromise."
Elected officials agree on the need to stand firm on principle -- but on which principle, is the question. Ironically, divided as we are, all of us will share in the results.
THE WORD
We know, from previous hearings of the prodigal son story, that the younger son has gravely insulted his father. In asking for his part of the inheritance early, he has, in essence, wished his father were dead. He squanders his father's hard work when he wastes the money. When the wretchedness of his life becomes too much, he decides to go home and ask to be a servant in his father's house. His actions leave him at a distance -- physical and emotional -- from his father.
The older son is sober and dutiful -- we can't help but think the younger son might have been more fun. The older son, too, creates distance between himself and his father by refusing to rejoice when his brother comes home. He wants to be sure to hold onto his part of the inheritance, and his father is quick to reassure him that "all that I have is yours." That's not enough and he refuses to come to the celebration.
Each of the sons wants something from the father. The father is the only one in the story who isn't looking for anything for himself. Out of love, he gives up a portion of his estate... he gives up the company of the son who wants to travel... he gives up the companionship of the son who would rather wallow in self-righteousness... he gives up his days to watch the road for the return of his younger son... and when the son finally appears, he gives up his dignity as master of the house and runs to his son.
As Alyce McKenzie observes on her blog, each of the father's actions has a specific meaning: "The culture of Palestinian villages was one of honor and shame.... The son has brought shame on his father and his whole family by his behavior. He can expect to be shamed by the village.... The younger son could expect that the townspeople would conduct a gesasah ceremony on his return. This is not a reception in the fellowship hall with a 'Welcome Home' banner and a sheet cake. This is a ceremony for a son of the village who had lost his money to Gentiles or married an immoral woman. They would gather around him, breaking jars with corn and nuts, and declare that he was to be cut off from the village.... When the father sees his son, his compassion is inspired and he moves toward him.... Here the father exposes himself to humiliation to prevent his son from being humiliated."
The hurrying, overjoyed father understands that reconciliation is even better than compromise.
CRAFTING THE SERMON
The prodigal son, the resentful brother, and the running father give us several ways to think about reconciliation.
Many of us can feel the anguish of the older brother, feeling neglected by the father's embrace of the younger brother. Many of us are well-educated, hard-working, dutiful people -- perhaps even churchgoers! We do what we're supposed to, we think -- why can't everyone else? When we hear this story, there's some disdain for the irresponsible younger brother. Why should he get a party? The older brother is interested in fairness.
Many of us have been the younger brother. One bad choice leads to another until we're lost and far from home, whether geographically or spiritually. The older sibling has covered all the bases of success and approval -- the only way to stake out some new ground is in the land of rebellion. Finally, the younger brother comes home just hoping to get by. The younger brother is looking for sustenance.
Perhaps a few of us have been the father -- generous with grace and hospitality. This is the real inheritance he has to offer -- the gift of forgiveness, for both of his sons, who need it equally. Whether it's Congress, or the workplace, or the family, we all have places of distance and misunderstanding in our lives. The running father recalls for us our place in the story. We are all people who need reconciliation, and we are all people who have it to give.
SECOND THOUGHTS
Everything Has Become New -- Really?
by Leah Lonsbury
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Last week, President Obama unveiled the newest statue in the Capitol -- a life-sized rendering of Rosa Parks, whose arrest more than a half-century ago helped ignite the civil rights movement. Her act of defiance called for a new way of being together and helped move the United States toward desegregation and the Voting Rights Act (VRA). Here's how the editorial board of the Washington Post describes this legislation:
The 1965 Voting Rights Act remains one of this country's foremost accomplishments. Constitutional amendments following the Civil War barred states and localities from abridging the right to vote on the basis of race, yet for the better part of a century, white racists managed to stay a step ahead of the federal government's enforcement of these protections. The Voting Rights Act was designed to stamp out the varied and shifting strategies local officials used to prevent African Americans from voting.
It's fitting that Parks' statue depicts her seated and waiting for the police to arrive and arrest her on December 1, 1955, the day she refused to give up her seat to a white passenger. She knew that ushering in a new day would take courage and a willingness to sacrifice. Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, recognized this in remarks following the unveiling ceremony and said that Mrs. Parks' decision to get arrested rather than to give up her seat "helped unite the country." He continued...
For some, Rosa Parks served as an inspiration to stand up against injustice. For others, she was a spur to reflection and self-examination, and the reconciliation of cherished ideals of freedom, democracy, and constitutional rights with the reality of life as others lived it.
Parks' statue is the first to be commissioned by Congress in 140 years, and the first full rendering of an African-American woman to grace the Capitol's Statuary Hall, a place lawmakers frequently pass through on their way to vote. Clearly her inspiration toward reflection and self-examination still stands, even if it took more than 50 years for Congress to make that known in this visible way in the Capitol.
Parks has received the highest civilian honors from Congress and the White House, and her face has been on a postage stamp. She was the first woman to lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda when she died in 2005, an honor usually reserved for presidents and lawmakers. Parks' influence lives on beyond the Capitol Statuary and throughout our national consciousness, for, as President Obama said at the unveiling ceremony, she "helped a nation see that to which it had once been blind."
Yet, across the street from the Capitol at the Supreme Court, almost simultaneous to this unveiling ceremony, a challenge was being heard to the landmark Voting Rights Act. Through this challenge, the court is being asked to consider whether the law has done its job and worked so well that its toughest section has outlived its time.
That section is Section 5, which requires certain states and localities with a history of discrimination to clear any proposed changes in how voting will be carried out with the Justice Department of the federal government.
Six years ago, Congress decided that this was still work that needed doing with legislative support when it reauthorized the Voting Rights Act for another 25 years with a bipartisan majority of 390-33 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate. As it reauthorized the bill, Congress stated:
(9) The record compiled by Congress demonstrates that, without the continuation of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 protections, racial and language minority citizens will be deprived of the opportunity to exercise their right to vote, or will have their votes diluted, undermining the significant gains made by minorities in the last 40 years.
But not everyone shares this opinion. The case being heard by the Supreme Court is being spearheaded by Ed Blum, director of the Project on Fair Representation, a conservative legal-defense fund devoted to fighting race-based protections in public policy. Blum began his fight against the Voting Rights Act after losing a 1992 Houston congressional race to Craig Washington, one of the first African Americans elected to the Texas House, and a future member of the U.S. Congress. Ari Berman of The Nation writes:
Blum believed [Craig] Washington was the beneficiary of unfair racial gerrymandering mandated by the VRA. "The VRA -- Section 5 in particular -- was the most effective piece of congressional legislation in the 20th century," Blum told me. But he believed that by the late 1980s, it had outlived its purpose and become a malicious force.
Blum has been working to oppose the Voting Rights Act ever since and was the one who convinced Shelby County, Alabama's lawyers to sign on to this lawsuit.
Again from Ari Berman...
It's not surprising that the most recent challenge originates in Alabama, which, more than any other state, is responsible for the passage of the VRA. LBJ announced the legislation eight days after police brutally beat civil rights activists during the 1965 "Bloody Sunday" protests in Selma. "The Voting Rights Act is Alabama's gift to our country," says Debo Adegbile, director-counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. Shelby County is a wealthy, white-flight exurb of Birmingham, once regarded as the most segregated city in America and known as "Bombingham" for the frequency of attacks on black citizens at the height of the civil rights struggle.
[Read more here about the disputed election in Calera, Alabama, from which the lawsuit stems.]
It's interesting to note that from 1975 to 2008, election laws in Shelby County were judged to have discriminated on the basis of race under the Voting Rights Act in 20 separate instances, according to Caltech historian Morgan Kousser. Despite these findings, Blum and Shelby County are pressing on with their suit, alleging that Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act ignores the progress that has been made since 1965 in rooting out official discrimination and creates a burden on jurisdictions that must seek pre-clearance from the Justice Department for any changes in voting rules they wish to enact.
Blum and Shelby County also argue that Section 5 unjustifiably subjects some states to unequal treatment and steps on individual states' constitutional rights to regulate elections within their borders. They want to dismantle the pre-clearance piece of the VRA, the only section that places the burden of proof on would-be discriminators, because they believe Section 2, which provides opportunity for after-the-fact prosecution of voter discrimination, is sufficient. Section 2 prosecutions place the burden of proof on the person or persons who have been discriminated against. They are also lengthy legal battles that are not easily or frequently won. In this light, Section 5 can be seen as crime prevention, and Section 2 can be seen as criminal prosecution.
The editorial board of the Washington Post issued an opinion piece on February 26th that responded to these proposed changes. It reads in part:
Pre-clearance jurisdictions on the whole still have a worse record than those not covered. Per capita, they have seen many more successful after-the-fact legal challenges to their voting rules. Pre-clearance advocates look at these figures and rightly wonder how much worse they would be if the pre-clearance procedure did not exist. Besides, the law allows jurisdictions to escape the pre-clearance requirement after a decade of good behavior -- a crucial element of the act that allows for real-time adjustment of its rough geographic distinctions.
These findings resonate with those of the 2006 Congress that held 21 hearings over 10 months to determine whether or not to reauthorize the Voting Rights Act. The evidence from those hearings persuaded Congress to emphatically reauthorize the act. It reads like this...
In states like Virginia, Texas, and Florida, minority voter registration and turnout rates lagged well behind that of whites. Three of the original six states covered by Section 5 -- Mississippi, Louisiana, and South Carolina -- had never elected an African American to statewide office. The attorney general blocked 2,400 discriminatory voting changes based on 750 Section 5 objections from 1982 to 2006. Clearly, voter suppression efforts had endured into the 21st century.
Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter likened the discrimination that was still happening in 2006 to "pouring old poison into new bottles."
How will the current Supreme Court rule on the Voting Rights Act in June? It's hard to say. In last week's oral arguments, Justice Antonin Scalia stated that the VRA perpetuates "racial entitlements." There were audible gasps in the room, and Justice Sonja Sotomayor gave an unusually direct response to her colleague by saying that voting is not a racial entitlement. Beyond the current justices whose votes are fairly easy to predict, David Henson of The Christian Century has focused instead on Chief Justice John Roberts and his comments during the hearing. Henson calls Roberts' remarks a sign of the "cancer that grows quietly and infects the body of our nation with racism that seems all-too-reasonable."
Putting this case in conversation with this Sunday's passage from Paul's letter to the Corinthians spurs us again toward reflection and self-examination. How do we regard one another? Through the broken and distorted lens of what should be human history? Or do we see one another as Rosa Parks and Paul encourage us to -- through the light of Christ? Do we see a new creation or an old one that should have but has not yet passed away?
Has everything really become new? Has anything really become new?
In the laws that we make, in the systems that frame our lives, and in our daily activities and interactions, are we about the ministry of reconciliation that was given to us by God in the person of Christ? How well are we holding and carrying out that gift, that ministry that has been entrusted to us?
Considering what Mitch McConnell had to say about Parks at the unveiling ceremony, how close are we to reconciling our cherished ideals of freedom, democracy, and constitutional rights with the reality of life that our brothers and sisters face as minorities? As the church, how are following Parks' lead with courage and the willingness to sacrifice to unite the one, new creation?
What kind of sitting down are we doing to stand up to injustice? The kind that risks discomfort, disruption, and disobedience, or the kind that keeps our familiar and comfortable places in the pews in neat order?
ILLUSTRATIONS
From team member Mary Austin:
Reconciliation at the Grocery Store
Sometimes reconciliation comes without any desire for reward or recognition. As Andri Antoniades reports on TakePart, a mom and a pickle company found common ground where it would have been easy for either party to ignore the other.
"An average day at the grocery store for Rhode Island mom Michelle Martinka turned into a moment of activism when she noticed that Cains Pickles, a popular New England brand, produced a line called 'Kosher Dill Midgets.' Martinka is the mother of ten-month-old Adelaide, a little girl with a form of dwarfism known as Achondroplasia -- and 'midget' is a derogatory way of referencing those born with the condition."
Ms. Martinka wrote to the company, urging a name change and including a YouTube video of her daughter. The company changed the name -- at no small expense, but "without objection or fanfare. Gedney Foods, the makers of Cains Pickles, explained to the (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune, 'The company is not seeking any attention related to this matter and believes that any publicity should be more appropriately placed on the children and families dealing with Achondroplasia.' "
Ms. Martinka said, "Although many people do not know, the m-word is derogatory, not just some innocuous word meaning small, as it was 50 years ago." She added, "I am fully aware that these pickles are just pickles -- and my daughter is a human. This was my first step in educating just one company. Years ago I may not have had the drive for such an undertaking but change happens when situations arise -- new circumstances, such as having a child diagnosed with dwarfism."
Reconciliation can happen in the most unlikely places. Who would imagine that a pickle jar label could also be a symbol of education, of growth in understanding, and of a company's compassion for people they might not have thought about otherwise.
* * *
From team member Ron Love:
After a several year lull in building homes, Habitat for Humanity once again has the funds to begin new construction in the Pee Dee region of South Carolina. Desiring a true Habitat community, all single-dwelling properties were sold, and a tract of land was purchased to create a housing community of 40 dwellings.
To become a Habitat homeowner, strict requirements must be adhered to -- one of which is called "sweat equity." An individual or family may not have the funds or physical ability to be a part of the construction project, but they are required to perform 300 hours of community service. With the investment of sweat equity, the new residents will have a sense of contribution and true ownership of their home.
Application: Reconciliation requires the responsibility of being an active member of the group.
* * *
The U.S. Census Bureau is dropping the word "Negro" from its surveys as a means of identifying one's ethnic group. The word has been used for almost a century on Census Bureau forms, beginning with the Jim Crow era in the South. "Negro" replaced the earlier word "colored" as the means of addressing dark-skinned people. The word would have been removed on the previous census, but many older blacks then living in the South still identified with the word "Negro." Those who were once labeled as "Negro" now identify with the terms "black" or "African American," which will be the new words used on Census Bureau forms.
Application: Language is a very important part of reconciling one ethnic group with another.
* * *
Recently C. Everett Koop died. He came to prominence as the Surgeon General in the Reagan and Bush administrations. Koop was a pediatric surgeon and an evangelical Christian who publicly countered the Reagan administration's early position on AIDS. He believed that condoms were the best course to slow the spread of the disease. Koop also went against corporate America with his campaign against smoking. As a former pipe smoker, he acknowledged that nicotine is as addicting as heroin and cocaine. The Surgeon General has no authority to make policy decisions. This Koop understood, so he described himself as "the health conscience of the country."
Application: C. Everett Koop saw his role as one of reconciliation, as one of bringing people together to promote national health.
* * *
Jeffrey Loria, the owner of Major League Baseball's Miami Marlins franchise, has been criticized for purging his team's roster of all high-salaried players. After the Marlins' dismal first season in their new stadium, Loria realized something had to be done to create a winning team. His decision was to bring in new young players with talent and build a winning team over several seasons. With new, inexperienced players dominating their roster, it is expected that the Marlins will lose 100 games this coming season.
In explaining his decision, Loria said: "We had to turn back the clock for the moment and push the restart button, and get these young players in here and get them together and look where we are in a another year or so."
Application: Jeffrey Loria believes that the key to the Miami Marlins becoming a winning team is to build a culture of cohesiveness, reconciling each player one to another.
* * *
Kris Medlen is a short 5-foot-10, but he is considered the Atlanta Braves' number one starter. After spending most of his time in the bullpen, when Medlen was put into the starting rotation last season he dominated, going 10-1 with a 1.57 ERA. The 27-year-old right-hander is being called by many the ace of the Braves' pitching staff. That's a title Medlen refuses to accept, saying: "Ace is being a leader. It's a veteran thing. It's not just something you hand off to somebody."
Application: Kris Medlen realizes that he is not the star of the team, only a member of the team. He also recognizes as one of the newer players, it is the more experienced and older players that will provide the best leadership.
* * *
From team member Dean Feldmeyer:
Forgive and Forget
The story is told that Clara Barton, founder of the Red Cross, was once at a public gathering when she happened upon a man who had in the past done her a public unkindness of which many of her friends were very aware.
When Barton met the man at this public gathering she was kind and courteous to him, as he was to her, but her friends were shocked and outraged on her behalf. When they confronted her about it, she responded that she had completely forgotten the unkindness the man had committed.
When they attempted to remind her, she stopped them. "No!" she said. "I specifically remember forgetting about it."
* * *
Reconciliation
Accountants use the term "reconciliation" to mean agreement. Two accounts are reconciled when they agree with each other. Many of us use the word in that way when we reconcile our checkbooks each month with the statement that the bank has sent us.
When the checkbook and the statement do not agree they must be brought into agreement or reconciled, and the way that reconciliation takes place is by adding or subtracting from one account or the other so the two are brought into agreement.
Scripture tells us that we are reconciled to God when God subtracts our sin from our account and he "writes it off" so that we do not have to pay for it.
* * *
William Makepeace Thackeray and Charles Dickens were friends as young men, but they later became literary rivals to the point that it strained their friendship and they became estranged.
Two days before Christmas of 1863 they met by chance in London, but the meeting was a frigid one and they hardly recognized each other. Unable to bear the separation any longer, Thackeray turned back, grabbed Dickens' hand, and said that he could not bear this cold isolation from his friend any longer. Dickens was touched. They embraced, talked a long while, and parted with smiles.
The next day, on Christmas Eve, William Makepeace Thackeray suffered a stroke at the age of 52 and died.
Sir Thomas Martin later wrote: "The next time I saw Dickens he was looking down into the grave of his great rival. He must have rejoiced, I thought, that they had shaken hands so warmly a day or so before."
* * *
Burying the Hatchet
Samuel Sewall (1652-1730) is remembered mostly as one of the judges in the Salem witchcraft trials, a role for which he later apologized. He was also a vocal critic of slavery and served for many years as the chief justice of the highest court in the province of Massachusetts.
But his most lasting gift may be to the American lexicon, to which he introduced the phrase "bury the hatchet" as a euphemism for reconciliation and peacemaking. He wrote of it in 1680:
"Meeting wth ye Sachem [the tribal leaders] the[y] came to an agreemt and buried two Axes in ye Ground; which ceremony to them is more significant & binding than all Articles of Peace the Hatchet being a principal weapon wth ym."
* * *
The Angel of Burundi
October 24, 1993 is considered the worst day of the civil war in Burundi between the Hutu and Tutsi people (a conflict that would spread to neighboring Rwanda in 1994, leading to mass genocide). Thousands were killed, including Maggie Barankitse's four aunts, who were burned to death in the house in which they were hiding.
On that day, Maggie, fearing for the lives of children near where she lived, began providing food and shelter for about 25 orphans without regard to their tribal ancestry. The number grew until in 1994 the Catholic Bishop of Ruyigi agreed to transform a former school into an orphanage and children's shelter, which Maggie dubbed "Maison Shalom" (House of Peace).
Her ministry spread and by 2004 it is estimated that more than 20,000 children had benefited from her help.
In this video, she talks of how she visited and forgave the man who murdered her aunts and about the importance of forgiveness for a Christian.
* * *
Unable to Forgive
Reverend Julie Nicholson was a vicar in the Church of England and a parish pastor when, on July 7, 2005, her 24-year-old daughter Jenny was killed by a suicide bomber in the London subway.
For nearly eight months Reverend Nicholson wrestled with her feelings of grief and her anger at those who planned and carried out the murders of innocent civilians, including her daughter. Then, on March 6, she resigned her position as pastor. Here is how the Guardian described her resignation: "The Reverend Julie Nicholson, 52, has felt unable to celebrate communion for her parishioners since her daughter, Jenny, was killed at Edgware Road on July 7 last year. Unwilling to be a hypocrite, she has resigned from the parish of St. Aidan with St. George in Bristol. 'It's very difficult for me to stand behind an altar and celebrate the Eucharist, the Communion, and lead people in words of peace and reconciliation and forgiveness when I feel very far from that myself,' she said in a BBC interview."
WORSHIP RESOURCES
by George Reed
Call to Worship
Leader: Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.
People: Happy are those in whose spirit there is no deceit.
Leader: God, you are a hiding place; you preserve us from trouble;
People: you surround us with glad cries of deliverance.
Leader: Be glad in God and rejoice, oh righteous.
People: Shout for joy, all you upright in heart.
OR
Leader: God calls us home to the very heart of God.
People: With joy we come to God, our loving parent.
Leader: God invites us to see in others the image of God which is in us.
People: With God's help, we can see God's likeness in others.
Leader: We cannot draw close to God without drawing close to others.
People: All are God's children. We love our siblings because we love our parent.
Hymns and Sacred Songs
"All People That on Earth Do Dwell"
found in:
UMH: 75
H82: 377/378
PH: 220/221
NNBH: 36
NCH: 7
CH: 18
LBW: 245
ELA: 883
W&P: 661
AMEC: 73
STLT: 370
"From All Who Dwell Below the Skies"
found in:
UMH: 101
H82: 380
PH: 229
NCH: 27
CH: 49
LBW: 550
AMEC: 69
STLT: 381
"Draw Us in the Spirit's Tether"
found in:
UMH: 632
PH: 504
NCH: 337
CH: 392
ELA: 470
"Help Us Accept Each Other"
found in:
UMH: 560
PH: 358
NCH: 388
CH: 487
W&P: 596
AMEC: 558
"Christ Is Made the Sure Foundation"
found in:
UMH: 559
H82: 518
PH: 416/417
NCH: 400
CH: 275
LBW: 367
ELA: 645
AMEC: 518
"Our Parent, by Whose Name"
found in:
UMH: 447
LBW: 357
ELA: 640
"This Is My Song"
found in:
UMH: 437
NCH: 591
CH: 722
ELA: 887
STLT: 159
"O God of Every Nation"
found in:
UMH: 435
H82: 607
PH: 289
CH: 680
LBW: 416
ELA: 713
W&P: 629
"We Are One in Christ Jesus" ("Somos uno en Cristo")
found in:
CCB: 43
"Behold, What Manner of Love"
found in:
CCB: 44
Music Resources Key:
UMH: United Methodist Hymnal
H82: The Hymnal 1982 (The Episcopal Church)
PH: Presbyterian Hymnal
NNBH: The New National Baptist Hymnal
NCH: The New Century Hymnal
CH: Chalice Hymnal
LBW: Lutheran Book of Worship
ELA: Evangelical Lutheran Worship
W&P: Worship & Praise
AMEC: African Methodist Episcopal Church Hymnal
STLT: Singing the Living Tradition
CCB: Cokesbury Chorus Book
Prayer for the Day / Collect
O God who is ever seeking to reconcile all creation: Grant us the grace to allow ourselves to be reconciled to you and to reach out in compassion to embrace one another that we may truly be one people, one family in you; through Jesus Christ our Savior. Amen.
OR
We come to offer our praise to you, O God, and to be drawn into your love and grace. As we find the barriers we have erected against you falling, help us to break down those walls that separate us from our sisters and brothers in the church and in the world. Amen.
Prayer of Confession
Leader: Let us confess to God and before one another our sins and especially the ways in which we obstruct God's work of reconciliation.
People: We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have created us from your own breath and out of your great love. You have created us all as one family, and yet we struggle with either feeling separated from you or trying to feel closer by imagining that others are further from you. We are constantly looking for things that separate us from one another. We look at outward appearances or social standing and fail to recognize your Spirit that dwells in those around us. Forgive us and draw us in your Spirit so close to you that we can see the family resemblance in all your children. Amen.
Leader: God, our loving parent, knows who we are and loves us completely. God embraces us and invites us to embrace one another.
Prayers of the People (and the Lord's Prayer)
We worship and adore you, O God, for you are the one who created us in your image. You have made us your children and brothers and sisters of one another.
(The following paragraph may be used if a separate prayer of confession has not been used.)
We confess to you, O God, and before one another that we have sinned. You have created us from your own breath and out of your great love. You have created us all as one family, and yet we struggle with either feeling separated from you or trying to feel closer by imagining that others are further from you. We are constantly looking for things that separate us from one another. We look at outward appearances or social standing and fail to recognize your Spirit that dwells in those around us. Forgive us and draw us in your Spirit so close to you that we can see the family resemblance in all your children.
We thank you for all the blessings you have bestowed upon us. We thank you for the wonderful world that sustains our lives and delights our senses. We thank you for your love that holds us in your eternal embrace. We thank you for Jesus, our elder brother, who teaches us of your love for us and for all your creatures.
(Other thanksgivings may be offered.)
We pray for one another in our need. We are painfully aware of how separated we often feel from you and from one another. We know that many struggle with the difficulties of life and think they must suffer alone. We pray that as you reach out to them in your compassion that we might find ways to be your arms of love for them.
(Other intercessions may be offered.)
All these things we ask in the name of our Savior Jesus Christ, who taught us to pray together, saying:
Our Father... Amen.
(or if the Lord's Prayer is not used at this point in the service)
All this we ask in the name of the Blessed and Holy Trinity. Amen.
Children's Sermon Starter
Show the children a family tree diagram. Talk about how the different people are connected. They may not know each other, they may not like each other -- but that doesn't alter the fact they are from the same ancestors. God is our great parent and creator. We may not know we are related to others; we may not even like others sometimes -- but it doesn't change the fact that we are family because God is our creator/parent.
CHILDREN'S SERMON
Undeserving of God's Love
Luke 15:11-32
Good morning, boys and girls! Our gospel lesson today is one of the best-known stories in the Bible. In this story we hear about a man and his two sons. One of the sons moves away from home, makes a lot of mistakes, and does some bad things. The other son, though, does things that make his father happy and proud.
One day, the son with troubles comes home again. He knows he has done some bad things and he feels terrible. He tells his father that he doesn't deserve to be called his son anymore. Have you ever felt that way? Have you ever done anything so bad that you didn't think anyone could love you anymore? This son knows that the things he has done have caused his father lots of pain and heartache. The father has every right to be angry with him. But instead of being angry, the father just tells him how much he loves him. He tells everyone to have a big party to celebrate that his son has come home. The son's mistakes and sins do not matter to the father, and he forgives his son.
God's love for us is just like that. We do things that are wrong all the time. Sometimes we can do things that hurt ourselves or other people, but we must never think that God has stopped loving us. God loves us so much, and he would do anything for us. Even when we think that we don't deserve God's love, it is there for us. It always will be.
Prayer: God, thank you for loving us just the way we are. Help us to remember that there is no way you would ever stop loving us. Amen.
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The Immediate Word, March 10, 2013, issue.
Copyright 2013 by CSS Publishing Company, Inc., Lima, Ohio.
All rights reserved. Subscribers to The Immediate Word service may print and use this material as it was intended in sermons and in worship and classroom settings only. No additional permission is required from the publisher for such use by subscribers only. Inquiries should be addressed to or to Permissions, CSS Publishing Company, Inc., 5450 N. Dixie Highway, Lima, Ohio 45807.
