St. Paul’s United Church Sunday, March 7, 2010

Embracing Grace – Rev. David Mundy

Psalm 32 Luke 15:1-3,11b-32

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One of the many exciting moments at the Vancouver Olympics was the milestone gold medal victory by Heather Moyse and Kailie Humphries in the bobsleigh event. After they won the two women waited together, holding hands, looking as though they were sisters, and at one point they leaned in toward one another, faces close together, to offer an exchange of words. Even if we don’t really understand the sports, it wasn’t difficult to appreciate that incredible coordination and trust are necessary for the perfect start to every adrenalin-pumping run down the hill. Little wonder they appeared to be so close once the race is over.

It was surprising to hear that for a time these two women, Olympic champions together, didn’t like each other all that much and barely spoke. At the last Olympics Humphries, the driver this time around, was the pusher. Except that after an injury she was displaced by Moyse on Canada’s lead sled. She was bitter about the choice to replace her, even though she had healed, and it was not easy to let go of the hard feelings and start over.

Now both of them speak of that difficult time as an important part of their story on the way to gold. Mending that fractured relationship was part of the essential bonding that allowed them to become the best in the world at what they do. I didn’t hear them speak about forgiveness and reconciliation, but isn’t that what happened in the relationship of these two women? Without it they wouldn’t be celebrating victory.

This morning we continue our journey into the season of Lent with a story, a parable of Jesus which has to be one of the best known in the bible. It is actually one of three parables grouped together in the gospel of Luke which all emphasize God’s grace and reconciliation.

We’re told that Jesus is criticized by some religious leaders for his supposedly bad habit of hanging around with people who actually needed him. Those leaders seem to have spiritual indigestion because he is eating a meal with tax collectors and sinners. Rather than getting into a heated theological argument, Jesus tells them three stories which are sometimes called the Lost Sheep, the Lost Coin, and the Lost Son. It’s been pointed out that they could also be called the Found Sheep, the Found Coin, and the Found Son because of the outcome. The longest of the three and the most complex is the story of a father and two sons who find their way toward reconciliation, or at least we hope they do.

The younger of the two sons decides that he wants to strike out on his own and he is dis-grace-ful in that he chooses to be outside of the grace and loving protection of his father. And he makes a mess of things and when he has run out of options he heads for home, rehearsing what he is going to say to his dad along the way. Except that he doesn’t get a chance to deliver his little speech because the father runs out to meet his wayward son and then treats him like royalty, throwing a banquet to celebrate his homecoming. We like the first part of this parable the best, don’t we, it has such a Hollywood happy ending? You have to wonder if the Pharisees did a “slow burn” as Jesus speaks about this lavish dinner for the wayward son, since they had been criticizing Jesus for consorting with the riffraff in the first place.

Of course the story doesn’t stop there, although you might think it does the way we often hear about it in sermons. We discover that in his own way the other son is also dis-grace-ful in that he doesn’t want to extend grace and acceptance to his messed up brother. Every time this parable comes up I show you the best-known painting

If we are willing to listen, this parable is as much about the “good” son, the steady son, as it is about the one who crashes and burns. In a way, the dutiful son is also dis-grace-ful – that is, he decides that he will stand outside of his father’s graciousness and generosity of spirit because of his bitterness and resentment. The implication is that God is gracious and invites us to come into the improbable banquet of life.

Jesus was smooth, wasn’t he? In a little story that took only a few minutes to tell he not only challenged the basic assumptions of the religious leaders, he invites all who are willing to listen to examine our fundamental assumptions about forgiveness and reconciliation. Jesus knew that we are “hardwired” for justice and revenge. Justice is always important, but revenge is destructive, so he invites us to seek another way, the unnatural response of grace, forgiveness, reconciliation.

Have you ever had trouble letting go of your frustration and anger toward someone with whom you sense you should have a loving relationship, or at least a civil relationship, but just don’t?

That’s really a rhetorical question because I already know the answer. My experience is that there are a lot of really wonderful people in churches who struggle with relationships, even to the point of hating those they once loved.

Marriage counsellors speak of resentment as “relationship cancer,” and it is a sobering but accurate expression, not just for marriages but just about any relationship, whether it is in a family, or between friends, and even in the workplace where we often spend as many or more hours with co-workers as we do at home. There is something about the dynamic of close proximity and shared history which causes the cells of resentment and bitterness to metastasize in a truly destructive way.

Often when we think about letting go of resentment and anger we picture it in the context of a single event where we may forgive and move on. And sometimes it works that way. You go to a restaurant and the waiter is rather rude and you are annoyed. But since you don’t have to live with him you decide on the drive home that he was probably having a bad day and you let it go. That’s just fine, a little victory.

What about the stuff that happens over and over again, with the same people – did I mention over and over again? Maybe it is the sister-in-law who manages to say something to rub you the wrong way every time you have a family gathering. You tell yourself that you aren’t going to get hooked this time, but somehow it happens.

Okay, so it’s not a sister-in-law but it might be the sibling who seems to lurch from one crisis to another and the attention of the family seems to be constantly on its most dysfunctional member. Or it is the former life partner whom we might like to think of as our “ex,” yet they have such a powerful hold on our emotions that they might as well be walking around with us all day. There is nothing “ex” or former about them. You can actually “fill in the blank” here with the scenario which suits your life.

Sometimes we don’t know whether to laugh or cry about those powerful relationship dynamics. Recently I was flipping through the television channels as men are inclined to do and I came upon a vintage skit by a comedy duo those of you under the age of forty may not recognize. The Smothers Brothers, Tom and Dick, got a lot of laughs out of their sibling rivalry, and what was Tommy’s classic line? – “mom always liked you best!” More recently it was the sitcom brothers of Everyone Loves Raymond who got us to laugh at the foibles of families. It didn’t matter what Robert did in life, it was his brother Raymond who was the golden boy, especially with his mother. Brad Garrett did a wonderful job of expressing both bitterness and resignation as Robert.

While there was a lot of humour in both these shows, there was also a great deal of truth, don’t you think? In the first half of my ministry I preached just about all the time on the first half of this parable of the Lost Son and in the second half it has been on the story of the other son, who is lost in his own way.

This parable is open-ended really, it doesn’t give us a clear picture of what eventually happens. How do we write the conclusion of our own stories? We have to decide whether forgiveness and reconciliation are strengths rather than weaknesses. We have to decide whether what may feel like the power of resentment is holding us back from love. We don’t always realize that the strife in one relationship can block our ability to fully participate in other relationships which are so important to us. We have to decide that forgiveness is as much for us as it is for the other. Pastor and theologian Lewis Smedes has offered that “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.” How wise!

Of course moving toward grace is not something which we do in our own power alone, as much as forgiveness and reconciliation are our choices. Jesus tells us these parables as reminders that God’s expansive, lavish grace is the starting point for our own. Jesus reminds us that God is in everything every aspect of life, even the painful parts. But God doesn’t grab us by the ear and force us to sit at the banquet table and clean up our plates. It is always an invitation to participate and God does not want us to miss out on the feast and go hungry. Jesus invites us to come inside to experience the fullness of life. We pray that the grace God shows us in Christ can be reflected in our own lives, even though we may have to work at it consciously every single day.

This Sunday morning we have celebrated baptism together and this sacrament is the perfect occasion to celebrate and embrace the gift of grace in Christ who leads us into new life. As baptism is the gift of a “fresh start” we can ask for a new beginning in which healing and redemption happens. For this we can thank the God of all life, of all forgiveness, of all reconciliation.