On Easter, when we tell and celebrate the resurrection of Jesus, and remember all the different stories about people who saw him in the garden and thought he was a gardener, or in the locked room and thought he was a ghost, or on the road and thought he was a stranger, a question may rise in our minds: is it true? We want to know if something did indeed really happen, and, if so, what exactly was it that happened? Is it true or is it not true? But this is the wrong question, I think.
The better question, in the season of Easter, is what does it mean? And not just what does it mean? but what does Easter mean, for you? What does the resurrection mean, for this world in which we live? Let’s not tie ourselves up in the business of proving that it happened and move on to being changed by Easter and what it means to us.
One of my favorite writers, the Rev. Frederick Buechner, talks about the meaning of Easter in this way: “the proclamation of Easter Day is that all is well. And as a Christian, I say this not with the easy optimism of one who has never known a time whn all was not well but as one who has faced the cross in all its obscenity as well as in all its glory, who has known one way or another what it is like to live separated from God. In the end, God’s will, not ours, is done. Love is the victor. Death is not the end. The end is life.”
To me, Easter is sort of a wild, visionary day, because in the midst anger, injustice, war, and hatred, we proclaim that Jesus, who was the love of God living among us, lives God’s among us still. All the cruelty and blindness of humanity could not kill God’s love. And if we see this world with more than our eyes, then we will not just see the gardener, the stranger, or a faint imaginings. We will see love. And that world is a different kind of world in which to live.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Music and Worship
Music has the power to connect us with our deep feelings of wonder, thanksgiving, and sadness, and sacred music helps us to experience how God holds us together from the deepest sorrow to the highest joy. Last week, Betsy and I attended the annual Lecture on Religion at Hiram College to hear Dr. Don Saliers. Dr. Saliers has spent a career studying worship and theology, and has worked with hymnals and sacred music in many settings. He recently co-wrote a book with his daughter Emily, who is one of the Indigo Girls, a popular duo of singer-songwriters. The book is about the importance of music in our lives. He told us about a group of women, elders in a church he visited, who love the old favorite hymns such as "Blessed Assurance" and "How Great Thou Art" because when they sing those words they can still hear their parents and grandparents voices. He told us about a family who took their father to church when he was near the end of his life, who had lost most of his awareness about his surroundings. He had trouble concentrating on the service until it was time to sing the doxology. When the organ began he stood up and sang every single word: "praise God from whom all blessings flow."
Music touches us somewhere deep, near our inmost being. And that is where we find God, at the center of ourselves, holding us together. The book of psalms is the Hebrew songbook that Jesus prayed. The psalms reflect the entire range of human experience. When we feel on top of the world, we can hear the words of Psalm 96: "Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice!" When we walk through the valley of the shadow, we are touched by the words of Psalm 22, the same words that Jesus spoke from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Even when we feel that God has gone away, we have a song to sing to God in our distress. These psalms remind us that there is nothing we experience that is apart from God. God meets us in the joy and the sadness, and our psalms, our hymns, and the songs we sing all remind us that God is with us.
The psalms invite us to "Sing to the Lord a new song." The song we sing is the life we live.
Music touches us somewhere deep, near our inmost being. And that is where we find God, at the center of ourselves, holding us together. The book of psalms is the Hebrew songbook that Jesus prayed. The psalms reflect the entire range of human experience. When we feel on top of the world, we can hear the words of Psalm 96: "Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice!" When we walk through the valley of the shadow, we are touched by the words of Psalm 22, the same words that Jesus spoke from the cross: "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Even when we feel that God has gone away, we have a song to sing to God in our distress. These psalms remind us that there is nothing we experience that is apart from God. God meets us in the joy and the sadness, and our psalms, our hymns, and the songs we sing all remind us that God is with us.
The psalms invite us to "Sing to the Lord a new song." The song we sing is the life we live.
The Parable of the Prodigal Father - Sermon
This sermon was preached at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge on March 18, 2007.
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Dedicated to the Youth Mission Tour, and always to the glory of God.
If you were to take away all but three or four pages from all the books of our holy scripture, never to be seen again, and leave me with just a few pages to tell everything about God and God’s relationship to humanity and to the world, I would choose to keep the 15th chapter of the gospel according to Luke. It was the priest Henri Nouwen who wrote that “all of the gospel is there.” All of the good news is there. If you want to boil Christianity down to its essentials, simply read these parables. Start here, and the rest will follow.
It is usually called the parable of the prodigal son, but that title is not from Jesus or from Luke. You could call it the parable of the two sons, because the older son is also important, and better yet would be to call it the parable of the loving father, because he is the character in the story who shows us the character of God. It’s called the parable of the prodigal son because prodigal means rashly or wastefully extravagant, and that’s how the younger son loses his wealth and ends up hungry in a foreign land, feeding pigs and therefore ritually unclean. But prodigal has a second meaning, which is “giving in abundance; lavish or profuse.” That’s how the father gives to his sons: in abundance. And that is how God gives love, grace, and mercy to us. God is prodigal with love, and too often the church has forgotten and has tried to set limits to God’s graciousness.
I said that the entire gospel is in this parable, and it’s also true that my life is in this parable, and probably yours as well. I see my life in the younger son and in the older son, and finally I am called to see my life in the father.
The younger son goes to his father and asks for his share of the inheritance. Even before he leaves, he has burned his bridge. Inheritance normally follows the parents’ death. He wants an advance! In effect, he’s saying “I don’t want to wait around for you to die.” Everything that follows is a further rejection of his father. He leaves his family and his people’s heritage and goes to a distant country.
Isn’t this our story as well? We receive our life, our talents, and our opportunities as gifts for us to do with as we will. But having received as a gift, we forget the giver and use them to our advantage. Our true home is with God the giver. We find our home at the center of our being where we hear the voice of God that says “you are my beloved, on you my favor rests.” But we forsake our true home and look elsewhere, every-elsewhere for the love we long for so desperately. We follow the younger son to the distant country and spend ourselves dry for love.
But the love of the world has many “ifs.” I love you if you are intelligent, attractive, and healthy. I love you if you have a good education and a good job. I love you if you are productive and buy the right things. We never measure up to the ifs, and are left like the younger son, broke and unclean. But then, with hope, we may remember our true home. We may turn back to our home in God.
The younger son returns, and as he is returning, Jesus says that he is practicing his speech: “father, I have sinned; I am not worthy to be your son; please take me as a hired hand.” Isn’t it ironic that even when we are returning to our true home in God we think that the God to whom we are returning demands an explanation and apology, and that we will be demoted as a punishment. But the prodigal father has none of his confession.
While the son is still a long way off, the father runs to him. I always remember my seminary professor who would pause at this point in the story to remind us that wealthy Jewish landowners did not pick up their robes and run. It was not the honorable thing to do, but this father is not concerned with appearance. He runs to his son, throws his arms around him, and rejoices. The son starts his speech and the father drowns him out as he begins to plan the celebration. He gives him the family ring, a robe, and sandals, all symbols that the son is restored as beloved son, and no apology needed.
At this point we need to stop and ask a few questions. Is this kind of love practical? Isn’t this forgiveness a bit risky? Isn’t all this unconditional acceptance just a way of giving permission to go and do terrible things all you want and be forgiven in the end? What about our standards? What about right and wrong – what about morality? These are the complaints of the older son, and they are the complaints of the Pharisees who prompted Jesus to tell the parable by asking what he thinks he’s doing by eating with tax collectors and sinners. Aren’t you just giving those sinners permission to go on sinning?
I have committed many sins in my life, and I never went out and asked permission ahead of time - not from God, not from anyone. I just went out and did it. Showing mercy does not give permission. God entrusts to the us the good news of grace, and God does not need us to take up the job of enforcing standards of admittance to the true home where God welcomes us all.
One of my mentor’s was serving a church where a woman came to ask about joining. She had some important questions. For starters, what is your doctrine of hell? He told her that he has seen hell in the slums of third world countries where people die of contaminated water and starvation. That didn’t impress her much, and she insisted that the church must have a strong doctrine of hell to keep people in line and to make people pay for what they had done. Finally the minister asked her “how many people need to be in hell for you to feel comfortable?” She did not join the church. It was, perhaps, not the most pastoral way to answer her. But years later, her grandson, who was not particularly religious, died, and she returned to the church because it was the one place where she had heard something of the prodigal love of God for those outside the margins.
You see, the older son is as lost as his brother. The older son thinks that he has earned his father’s love because he has been loyal and obedient. He has stayed by his father’s side and worked for him all his life, and that is why the father loves him, or so he thinks, until the day that his younger brother comes home and the father throws a party. Do we think that God loves us because we have been so good? There’s a part of us that does, and this part of us has trouble with God’s grace for those who have not paid their dues like we have. We have been good, but we are trapped by our goodness to be bitter about the people get a free ride. In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, that many of us are reading this Lenten season, Phillip Yancey tells about the minister who played with the parable by saying that the father gave the young son a good scolding and then threw a party for the older son to celebrate all of his years of faithful service. A woman in the back row yelled out “yeah, that’s the way it should have been.” And don’t we feel the same way, especially when we have been the responsible ones, making sure that things got done while other people did as they pleased?
In this parable there are two sons who are lost, and the father - who is prodigal about love - runs out to both of them to welcome them home. He goes to the older son and reminds him “everything that I have is yours.” Sometimes we are so lost that we think we have earned what God had already given us. We have trouble with God’s non-comparing kind of love. But what a freedom it is to give up our comparing. No longer do we have to see people as less deserving than us. And we can let go our anxiety about those who seem more deserving than us.
We are both the younger son and the older son. We forget the love that is given by God, or we misinterpret God’s love as something that we have earned. But when we are welcomed home, we cease to be either son, and we become the father. That’s what this journey of faith is all about: being transformed by God into the body of Christ, so that we extend the prodigal love of God without ifs and without boundaries. We welcome the sinner and the tax collector, we welcome the criminals and the hypocrites, the slackers and the type A’s, the people who never set foot in our church until they hurt enough to come looking. Like the father in the parable, we become free to love and welcome completely, because we have been loved and welcomed by those same arms. We find ourselves in our true home, at the center of our being, where God says to us “you are my beloved, on you my favor rests.”
Note: much of the insight in this sermon is indebted to Henri Nouwen, from his wonderful book The Return of the Prodigal Son.
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Dedicated to the Youth Mission Tour, and always to the glory of God.
If you were to take away all but three or four pages from all the books of our holy scripture, never to be seen again, and leave me with just a few pages to tell everything about God and God’s relationship to humanity and to the world, I would choose to keep the 15th chapter of the gospel according to Luke. It was the priest Henri Nouwen who wrote that “all of the gospel is there.” All of the good news is there. If you want to boil Christianity down to its essentials, simply read these parables. Start here, and the rest will follow.
It is usually called the parable of the prodigal son, but that title is not from Jesus or from Luke. You could call it the parable of the two sons, because the older son is also important, and better yet would be to call it the parable of the loving father, because he is the character in the story who shows us the character of God. It’s called the parable of the prodigal son because prodigal means rashly or wastefully extravagant, and that’s how the younger son loses his wealth and ends up hungry in a foreign land, feeding pigs and therefore ritually unclean. But prodigal has a second meaning, which is “giving in abundance; lavish or profuse.” That’s how the father gives to his sons: in abundance. And that is how God gives love, grace, and mercy to us. God is prodigal with love, and too often the church has forgotten and has tried to set limits to God’s graciousness.
I said that the entire gospel is in this parable, and it’s also true that my life is in this parable, and probably yours as well. I see my life in the younger son and in the older son, and finally I am called to see my life in the father.
The younger son goes to his father and asks for his share of the inheritance. Even before he leaves, he has burned his bridge. Inheritance normally follows the parents’ death. He wants an advance! In effect, he’s saying “I don’t want to wait around for you to die.” Everything that follows is a further rejection of his father. He leaves his family and his people’s heritage and goes to a distant country.
Isn’t this our story as well? We receive our life, our talents, and our opportunities as gifts for us to do with as we will. But having received as a gift, we forget the giver and use them to our advantage. Our true home is with God the giver. We find our home at the center of our being where we hear the voice of God that says “you are my beloved, on you my favor rests.” But we forsake our true home and look elsewhere, every-elsewhere for the love we long for so desperately. We follow the younger son to the distant country and spend ourselves dry for love.
But the love of the world has many “ifs.” I love you if you are intelligent, attractive, and healthy. I love you if you have a good education and a good job. I love you if you are productive and buy the right things. We never measure up to the ifs, and are left like the younger son, broke and unclean. But then, with hope, we may remember our true home. We may turn back to our home in God.
The younger son returns, and as he is returning, Jesus says that he is practicing his speech: “father, I have sinned; I am not worthy to be your son; please take me as a hired hand.” Isn’t it ironic that even when we are returning to our true home in God we think that the God to whom we are returning demands an explanation and apology, and that we will be demoted as a punishment. But the prodigal father has none of his confession.
While the son is still a long way off, the father runs to him. I always remember my seminary professor who would pause at this point in the story to remind us that wealthy Jewish landowners did not pick up their robes and run. It was not the honorable thing to do, but this father is not concerned with appearance. He runs to his son, throws his arms around him, and rejoices. The son starts his speech and the father drowns him out as he begins to plan the celebration. He gives him the family ring, a robe, and sandals, all symbols that the son is restored as beloved son, and no apology needed.
At this point we need to stop and ask a few questions. Is this kind of love practical? Isn’t this forgiveness a bit risky? Isn’t all this unconditional acceptance just a way of giving permission to go and do terrible things all you want and be forgiven in the end? What about our standards? What about right and wrong – what about morality? These are the complaints of the older son, and they are the complaints of the Pharisees who prompted Jesus to tell the parable by asking what he thinks he’s doing by eating with tax collectors and sinners. Aren’t you just giving those sinners permission to go on sinning?
I have committed many sins in my life, and I never went out and asked permission ahead of time - not from God, not from anyone. I just went out and did it. Showing mercy does not give permission. God entrusts to the us the good news of grace, and God does not need us to take up the job of enforcing standards of admittance to the true home where God welcomes us all.
One of my mentor’s was serving a church where a woman came to ask about joining. She had some important questions. For starters, what is your doctrine of hell? He told her that he has seen hell in the slums of third world countries where people die of contaminated water and starvation. That didn’t impress her much, and she insisted that the church must have a strong doctrine of hell to keep people in line and to make people pay for what they had done. Finally the minister asked her “how many people need to be in hell for you to feel comfortable?” She did not join the church. It was, perhaps, not the most pastoral way to answer her. But years later, her grandson, who was not particularly religious, died, and she returned to the church because it was the one place where she had heard something of the prodigal love of God for those outside the margins.
You see, the older son is as lost as his brother. The older son thinks that he has earned his father’s love because he has been loyal and obedient. He has stayed by his father’s side and worked for him all his life, and that is why the father loves him, or so he thinks, until the day that his younger brother comes home and the father throws a party. Do we think that God loves us because we have been so good? There’s a part of us that does, and this part of us has trouble with God’s grace for those who have not paid their dues like we have. We have been good, but we are trapped by our goodness to be bitter about the people get a free ride. In his book What’s So Amazing About Grace, that many of us are reading this Lenten season, Phillip Yancey tells about the minister who played with the parable by saying that the father gave the young son a good scolding and then threw a party for the older son to celebrate all of his years of faithful service. A woman in the back row yelled out “yeah, that’s the way it should have been.” And don’t we feel the same way, especially when we have been the responsible ones, making sure that things got done while other people did as they pleased?
In this parable there are two sons who are lost, and the father - who is prodigal about love - runs out to both of them to welcome them home. He goes to the older son and reminds him “everything that I have is yours.” Sometimes we are so lost that we think we have earned what God had already given us. We have trouble with God’s non-comparing kind of love. But what a freedom it is to give up our comparing. No longer do we have to see people as less deserving than us. And we can let go our anxiety about those who seem more deserving than us.
We are both the younger son and the older son. We forget the love that is given by God, or we misinterpret God’s love as something that we have earned. But when we are welcomed home, we cease to be either son, and we become the father. That’s what this journey of faith is all about: being transformed by God into the body of Christ, so that we extend the prodigal love of God without ifs and without boundaries. We welcome the sinner and the tax collector, we welcome the criminals and the hypocrites, the slackers and the type A’s, the people who never set foot in our church until they hurt enough to come looking. Like the father in the parable, we become free to love and welcome completely, because we have been loved and welcomed by those same arms. We find ourselves in our true home, at the center of our being, where God says to us “you are my beloved, on you my favor rests.”
Note: much of the insight in this sermon is indebted to Henri Nouwen, from his wonderful book The Return of the Prodigal Son.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
The Giving Tree
Do you remember the children’s picture book called The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein? It is a parable of grace, not unlike the parable of the prodigal son. The Giving Tree tells the story of a tree who loves the young boy who comes to climb up her trunk, play in her branches, and eat her apples. When he is tired, he sleeps in her shade. When the boy got older, he didn’t want to play with the tree anymore, he wanted money to do other things, so the tree gives him all her apples to sell and make money.
Later, the boy who has become a man comes back and says that he wants a house. The tree gives all of her branches so that he can build a house. Now the tree is just a trunk. Years later, the boy is an older man who yearns to travel across the sea. The tree tells him to cut down her trunk to make a boat. He does. Now the tree is just a stump.
At the end of his life, the boy comes back to the tree. The tree has nothing left to give: no apples, no branches, and no trunk. But the boy is too old to eat apples or swing in branches or climb up a trunk. He simply wants a place to rest. He sits down on the stump and is happy.
I think that the tree is God. She gives her gifts with love without conditions, and when he returns again and again empty handed, she welcomes him with great joy each time, much like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. After the son asked for an early inheritance and wasted it all, he comes back home with his apology speech rehearsed. But the father doesn’t want to hear it. He’s just happy to have his son.
There is a mistaken idea that our relationship with God depends on us, as if God is waiting for us to explain ourselves, apologize, and present a plan for making ourselves better. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It is God who watches for us, and runs out to meet us with great joy, and wants everyone to join in the party thrown in celebration of being found.
Later, the boy who has become a man comes back and says that he wants a house. The tree gives all of her branches so that he can build a house. Now the tree is just a trunk. Years later, the boy is an older man who yearns to travel across the sea. The tree tells him to cut down her trunk to make a boat. He does. Now the tree is just a stump.
At the end of his life, the boy comes back to the tree. The tree has nothing left to give: no apples, no branches, and no trunk. But the boy is too old to eat apples or swing in branches or climb up a trunk. He simply wants a place to rest. He sits down on the stump and is happy.
I think that the tree is God. She gives her gifts with love without conditions, and when he returns again and again empty handed, she welcomes him with great joy each time, much like the father in the parable of the prodigal son. After the son asked for an early inheritance and wasted it all, he comes back home with his apology speech rehearsed. But the father doesn’t want to hear it. He’s just happy to have his son.
There is a mistaken idea that our relationship with God depends on us, as if God is waiting for us to explain ourselves, apologize, and present a plan for making ourselves better. In fact, it’s just the opposite. It is God who watches for us, and runs out to meet us with great joy, and wants everyone to join in the party thrown in celebration of being found.
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