posted by Jennifer at 9:27 AM
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posted by Jennifer at 9:24 PM
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Today, the Fourth Sunday in Lent, is traditionally known as Refreshment Sunday. It is the Sunday in the middle of Lent when we can take a break and think about something happy. Today we put off the sackcloth and wear racy pink vestments instead!
The purpose of Lent, of course, is not to give us a permanent downer during these cold months of the year. With the weather the way it is in New England, there is reason enough to be down in March, without the church adding to our despair! But Lent is not meant to make us more downcast. Rather, it is meant to be a time when we become aware of our failings only in order to put things right. It is a time when we examine the dark side of our character only to let God’s light come pouring in. Lent is a time to try to live up to God’s standards for us only because we realize God has already forgiven us so much.
This is the good news I want to share with you this Sunday. For today we can be refreshed by the good news we heard in the Gospel just now. The story Jesus tells is all about how God overcomes failures in our lives and our relationships, how God forgives us for the darkness in our lives so that we might let God’s light in.
The main character in the story, whom we call the Prodigal Son, is a person who has had enough. Perhaps you have all had enough, too, and are craving spring break. Whatever you do, don’t follow the example of the prodigal and go for a week of sin in Mexico or Las Vegas!
The prodigal is someone who’s had enough of his family, and of the responsibilities that his elder brother is all too keen to fulfill. Later in the story, the elder brother complains to his father: “Lo, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command; yet you never gave me” anything. We learn from this that the younger son was judged disobedient. He is the wayward member of the family. And like many wayward ones, the relationships he has with his family are broken ones. His elder brother resents him; and he doesn’t like his place in the family. The prodigal is a man for whom family relationships are a burden he would rather not have – and I wonder how many of us can understand that? So he ups and leaves his family, taking his inheritance with him, and journeys into what Jesus in the story calls “a distant land,” “a far country.” He wants to be somewhere his family is not!
But he, like us, cannot escape his history. That is why we all need forgiveness. For forgiveness is about making our history right – recognizing the mistakes we have made and that others have made to us, and asking that they be overlooked. That is the truth that underlies Jesus’s parable. Unless we seek forgiveness for what has happened in our past, it is very likely we will never be able to let those mistakes go. They will continue to haunt us, in fact, just like they did to the prodigal son. Someone unable to make good his relationships with his family is not likely to have better fortune with those he meets in the far country. And what happens is just as we might expect. “There,” Jesus says, “he squandered all that he had in loose living.” Falling in with the wrong crowd, the son loses everything – except the one thing he really wants to lose, his past. In fact now his past haunts him all the more when, feeding the pigs with food he’d love to eat himself, he remembers the plenty he had with his father.
Let me break into this sad story to remind you this is Refreshment Sunday, a day for good news. Perhaps we, like the prodigal son, have things in our past that we have not put right. Perhaps we have blundered in relationships, or have resented how others have treated us. This Sunday we have a chance to make these things right. For God offers us forgiveness, that we might offer that forgiveness to others. God, like the father in the story, sees us and has compassion upon us.
God should not be thought of in only male terms. Just a couple of weeks back, we heard Jesus describe the work of God in these words, “How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings” – a wonderful maternal image for the work of God in the world. Today, for the message of the parable to come across fully, the imagery of God as a father is crucial. No self-respecting father in the middle east would publicly break into a run, no matter what the occasion. Yet this father is so overjoyed to see his son that he runs to him, runs as fast as his legs would carry him. I remember my Palestinian friend at seminary telling me that this was the most shocking, startling part of the story – that the father runs to meet the returning prodigal.
This is a radical, unconventional image of God as father precisely because God is not like an ordinary father. Our God run to us, runs to embrace us and to hear us say, like the prodigal, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” For God longs to say to us, “you were lost, my son or daughter, but now you are found.”
The good news is that, if we start to come part of the way to God, God will run to us. Like the father in the story, God’s love for us, God’s desire to sweep us up into his arms, overcomes everything, not least cultural convention. We live in a culture – Harvard, the US, the western world – that is not very good at forgiveness. We live in a culture, as Nietzsche diagnosed, in which we easily become captured by resentment, or seething anger. Yet, deep down, all of us know how psychologically wounding to us it is when we refuse to forgive others or refuse to forgive ourselves. How difficult it is to forgive when we feel hurt or let down. How difficult it is to forgive – and yet how important it is for us to learn how to do so.
We often think forgiveness is only about the person being forgiven. But it is just as important psychologically for the person doing the forgiving. That is the lesson to be learned by the eldest son in the story. The person doing the forgiving receives as much relief as the one they forgive. Both father and eldest son had reason to resent the prodigal; but how much better did the father feel when he forgave the prodigal? The father is able to let things go, to celebrate the return of his son, to make-merry with music and dancing. But the other son? He would rather be left outside, where he can seethe in his anger. How difficult it is to forgive! But how he suffered in his resentment! His lack of forgiveness poisoned his love even for his father. And yet his father forgives him too. Again he breaks social convention by going to speak to his older son, rather than have the son come to him. Like God, this father visits again and again to forgive us.
Think of the Lord’s Prayer. In that prayer we ask our Father for forgiveness with these words: “Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.” The two sons in the parable express both parts of this petition – forgive us our sins and may we forgive the sins of others. The parable shows that not only have we been forgiven but that for our own good we must also forgive. Forgiveness is not easy. But Jesus teaches it is good for us. And that is news with which to be refreshed today.
posted by Ben+ at 10:40 AM
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The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; 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. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"
posted by Jennifer at 2:34 PM
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posted by Jennifer at 2:42 PM
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Our Gospel passage for today is a text that I am uneasy with. I have a definite preference for Jesus as warm, fuzzy friend, Jesus as comforter, Jesus as the nice guy. This is, admittedly, false. And yet, I am not quite ready to let this image go. So when passages like today’s Gospel force me to listen to stories and parables that I don’t like, I am confronting not only the text itself but also the images of Jesus and God that are my own creation.
The first part of the Gospel recounts the story of Galilean pilgrims to Jerusalem who are martyred by Pilate at the Temple, “whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.” Not a pretty image. Jesus goes on to mention the people “who were killed when the tower at Siloam fell on them.” Again, not a pretty image.
And his response to both of these events is to say: “unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.”
Perish as they did.
Make no mistake; this is a message to us, to me and to you, despite the historical, cultural and religious distance of the examples. This message is not about dying in the same circumstances, but about being taken from this life unpreparedly. Jesus reminds his listeners that these tragic deaths were not a consequence of greater sins and offenses, but that tragedies happen to those who are good and bad alike, and this is all the more reason to repent.
For, when Jesus tells us to repent, we are being called to be aware, to be ready for what may come without warning. In the Great Litany, most often used during Lent, we pray: “from dying suddenly and unprepared, Good Lord, deliver us.” Jesus is not saying that by repenting we will not perish, but that we will, one day, perish in a different way.
Although it seems like this story (and this sermon, for that matter) are focusing rather morbidly on death, that is not what all of this is about. By reminding us of our limitations as human beings, and particularly that we are finite beings, we are being called to live more fully in the present time. And that brings me to the second half of the reading from Luke.
Despite the initial, summary judgment of the fig-tree – rejected as a failure – the parable offers a message of hope, for the gardener proposes to do something unusual, to take the last possible measures. The fig-tree has been granted a reprieve.
The “sin” of the fig-tree is not that it did something bad, or even that it did nothing – it has been growing for six years. During the first three years, Levitical Law forbids eating the fruit of the tree, and three more years had passed, during which the owner had looked in vain for fruit. The tree had not born fruit in six years, since it had first been planted, but it had been doing plenty: growing taller, digging its roots deeper into the ground, sending out leaves and branches.
And yet, the tree was expected to produce fruit. The fault, then, of the tree is that it is not doing what it is called, meant and intended to do.
Likewise, the question that we must face in Lent is not, Can I make it to Easter without eating sweets? Or, how can I manage to stay awake without my regular fix of caffeine? But, Am I doing what I have been created and called by God to do?
A fig tree is good when it does what it is created by God in its nature to do: to bear fruit. By bearing fruit, it fulfills its particular and God-given purpose in the world. It would be awfully easy to transfer this directly to human beings and declare that each of us, individually and collectively, are expected to bear fruit (in a metaphorical way, hopefully).
I think that is too simplistic. God created each one of us with our own set of gifts, skills, weaknesses, and strange quirks. Before I can ask, Am I doing what I have been created and called by God to do? I must first ask what it is that God asks particularly of me. And the first step to asking what it is that God created and called me to do is to take stock of what I have to work with – and what I have to work on – (because believe me, we all have both).
God has expectations and demands of us. This is sometimes hard to hear in a society that prizes individualism, autonomy, and independence. The reality that we claim as Christians is that we are not autonomous individuals, but that we are dependent on God’s grace, love and mercy and ultimately that we are subject to God’s judgment.
God asks – demands – of all of us three seemingly simple things: to heed his call, to bless his name, and to be faithful to his purpose for our lives. This is what we are all to do in order to live more fully. But we are also uniquely called: to teach, to heal, to give time, to feed the hungry, and even to study and learn.
Making an honest assessment of ourselves continually is one small part of living, as Jesus asks of us, a repentant life, ready for whatever may come. Your calling now may not be how God calls you in five or ten years; being ready requires that we pay attention to how we grow and change and how our calling evolves with us. From this assessment, we can begin to discern what God is creating and calling us to do now, and from there, we can begin to do it.
Toyohiko Kagawa, a Christian and a lay leader in Japan during the early part of the twentieth century, wrote in a poem:
I read
In a book
That a man called
Christ
Went about doing good.
It is very disconcerting to me
That I am so easily
Satisfied
With just
Going about.
The story of the fig tree - and the story of this poem - invite us to consider what we would do with the gift of another year. What will we do with God’s gift of time to us? Will we be satisfied with just going about as usual? Or will we instead take the opportunity to discover how we can live into God’s call more fully, more faithfully, and – perhaps – more fruitfully?
Amen.
posted by Jennifer at 9:46 AM
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Moses was keeping the flock of his father-in-law Jethro, the priest of Midian; he led his flock beyond the wilderness, and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in a flame of fire out of a bush; he looked, and the bush was blazing, yet it was not consumed. Then Moses said, "I must turn aside and look at this great sight, and see why the bush is not burned up." When the LORD saw that he had turned aside to see, God called to him out of the bush, "Moses, Moses!" And he said, "Here I am." Then he said, "Come no closer! Remove the sandals from your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground." He said further, "I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." And Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God.
Then the LORD said, "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey, to the country of the Canaanites, the Hittites, the Amorites, the Perizzites, the Hivites, and the Jebusites. The cry of the Israelites has now come to me; I have also seen how the Egyptians oppress them. So come, I will send you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the Israelites, out of Egypt." But Moses said to God, "Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh, and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?" He said, "I will be with you; and this shall be the sign for you that it is I who sent you: when you have brought the people out of Egypt, you shall worship God on this mountain."
But Moses said to God, "If I come to the Israelites and say to them, 'The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,' and they ask me, 'What is his name?' what shall I say to them?" God said to Moses, "I AM Who I AM." He said further, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" God also said to Moses, "Thus you shall say to the Israelites, 'The LORD, the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you':
There were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, "Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them--do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did."
Then he told this parable: "A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'"
posted by Jennifer at 9:44 PM
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posted by Jennifer at 6:44 PM
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..to the Episcopal Chaplaincy at Harvard! We hold services of Holy Eucharist (Sundays at 5PM, Christ Church, 0 Garden Street, Cambridge) followed by dinner throughout the academic year, along with other events and activities.
