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"The Other Side of Sin" Psalm 32, Luke 11:1-3, 11-32 A Sermon Preached By Rev. Peter W. Shidemantle
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Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 21, 2004 |
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PEBBLE HILL PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH 5299 Jamesville Rd., Dewitt, NY 13214 Phone: 315-446-0960
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We’re half way through the season of Lent, this long penitential season in the church. In the more highly liturgical Christian churches this 4th Sunday in the season of Lent is called "Refreshment" Sunday or "Mothering" Sunday. Apparently the church, back in an era much less secular than our own, figured that everyone needed a break right about now. So, for example, people who worked some distance from home were given time off to go home to visit their mothers on this Sunday. Today we don’t think of much needed breaks from the daily grind in quite this way. We need them to be restored and renewed, not to face God with our sin, but to face our job, or our kids, or our parents - or just the routine of our lives. A break midway through Lent is not something that draws much attention, but then again Lent itself doesn’t cause much of a ripple in the lives of most, and certainly not in the larger society. But the church, in its scripture readings for the day, shifts the focus off of sin and onto forgiveness, off the sinner and onto the forgiver. Penitence, acknowledgment of our sinfulness, sorrow for our sins, is a heavy thing to carry around for very long - which is why it’s not a terribly popular thing to do. Who has time for that, after all? Lent calls for us to be honest about our lives before God - and there’s a lot to be honest about. But Lent also invites us to grow deeper in our relationship to the God whose awesome holiness is expressed most fully in his love for us, and whose judgment never comes without the possibility of mercy. It’s not all sackcloth and ashes, not all spirits heavy with guilt. It’s also about the joy of forgiveness, of the real happiness that lies on the other side of sin. And so the Psalmist declares "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Happy are those to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit." In our gospel reading the wayward son returns home, and before he can get a word of confession out of his mouth his father runs down the road to meet him, wraps his arms around him, and throws him a big party because the one who was lost is now found. The joy of forgiveness. There is a prayer of Soren Kierkegaard that has always struck me as placing the real emphasis where it should be when it comes to sin and forgiveness: "Lord God, hold not our sins against us, but hold us up against our sins, so that the thought of thee, when it wakens in our souls, should remind us not of what we have done, but of what you have forgiven, not of how we have gone astray, but of how you have saved us." In the parable of the prodigal, the younger son who has taken his portion of his father’s inheritance and squandered it all, blown it, wasted it - when he "comes to himself" - gotten about as low as he could get, he realizes how far he has strayed from his father’s love. His focus shifts from his own pleasure and enjoyment to what he needs to do to be restored to his life. It’s not that he expects things to be as they were before. He’s burned too many bridges for that. He doesn’t deserve it, and he knows it. He works out a plan of what he’ll do. He knows he can’t get out of the mess he’s made of his life by himself. He dwells on it. He’s mired in it. Even as he is returning home he works out his confession in painful detail, dredging up the hurtful memories - ready to lay it all his father’s feet. His father’s concern was entirely different. He knew the pain his son was living with. He knew the foolishness, the grief he caused. He was helpless to do anything about it because this is what his son had chosen. But what he could do, he did do. He held his love for his son in his heart - and while the boy was still "far off" - still lost, still suffering the pain of his own stupidity, still mired in the hole he’d dug for himself, he reaches out to bring him in. The boy was as good as dead, and now he was alive. Jesus told this wonderful story in extreme terms. The son couldn’t have gotten lower. The father couldn’t be more loving. The elder son couldn’t be more resentful. And it speaks to us, I think, because most of us know of families, including perhaps our own, where these same dynamics are, or have been, at play - mothers and fathers, sons and daughters, sisters and brothers. It can all be such a messy entanglement of love and hurt, acceptance and resentment. The story Jesus tells us is really unfinished. The older brother remains outside, refusing to come into the party. The younger son will have to get up in the morning and live his way into his restored relationship in the family. And the old man is going to have to deal with it all, the consequences of his forgiveness and acceptance. It’s not easy living on the other side of sin. This isn’t a "happy ever after" story. It’s a story of being restored, of life being renewed through love, forgiveness and acceptance. That’s the ongoing work of a faithful life. We struggle with that. We struggle with that in our families, we struggle with it in our churches, we struggle with it in our world - as those who experience forgiveness, as those who try to love. But what makes this a "happy" work, a "blessed" work, is the knowledge that we are restored to God, that we are forgiven, that we are found. "Therefore if anyone is in Christ he or she is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come." (2 Corinthians 5:17) - and Paul continues, "All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation." We are a "new creation" in Christ. You see, it’s not just a matter of being restored until we wander off again, not merely forgiven until we sin again. There’s been a fundamental change, and it’s not a change of our own making. We’ve been made new! It might not feel like it, at least not all the time. You might feel like you’re wandering around looking for something that you might find to make your life more happy, more content or more filled. We often think of God that way, as someone to be found by our searching. But we’ve been found! We don’t stop learning. We don’t stop struggling with what it means to be found. But, for God’s sake, we need to know that we have. "Blessed/happy is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." I saw a woman at the grocery store a few months ago. Another woman, whom she knew, walked by her and asked her how she was doing, "Blessed, thank you," she replied. I guess she claimed it as her own. Is it presumptuous to walk around considering yourself blessed? Yes - and we should presume it. We should presume it not because of conditions of our lives - in the way we often think of blessings in material ways or in physical ways, in ways that fortune may have smiled on us, even in ways that our own hard work has brought about. That would be presumptuous, which is the elder brother’s problem in Jesus’ story. He couldn’t bear to see his squandering brother get the royal treatment when he didn’t work for it, not realizing his own blessing, that his father loved him all along. He presumed a special status, not flowing from his father’s love, but from what he proved by his own loyalty and work. But it was a joyless position, and there was no room there for anyone else. God does not calculate the way we do. And if we truly look into our own hearts, and are truly honest with who we are before God, we will be immensely thankful that God does not. On this "Refreshment" Sunday, may you find yourself refreshed in the always new grace and mercy of a God who does not hold our sins against us, but holds us up against our sins. May you find yourself, come to yourself, as the wayward son came to himself - knowing your true self as someone who can never stray so far that God’s love cannot reach you. This is what God wants for the whole world, and we are given the ministry of reconciliation so that we may share in this happy redeeming work. Blessed are you.
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| Copyright, Rev. Dr.
Peter W. Shidemantle. All rights reserved. Permission granted for
non-commercial use.
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