{"id":512950,"date":"2019-03-04T20:55:51","date_gmt":"2019-03-04T20:55:51","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2026-08-17T12:24:05","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T16:24:05","slug":"a-ministry-of-reconciliation-lent-4-c-2019","status":"publish","type":"sermon","link":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/sermons\/a-ministry-of-reconciliation-lent-4-c-2019\/","title":{"rendered":"A Ministry of Reconciliation, Lent 4 (C) – 2019"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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An image is formed by these lectionary passages, most especially by the epistle and the gospel story, of a God with open arms ready to receive us in a loving embrace. This image is constant and unchanging. Past and future don\u2019t exist in the eternal present of God\u2019s embrace: God is always waiting; God is always willing to take us in; God does not look back to our own miserable past, but God offers us the immediacy of love. Keep this image before your eyes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAll this is from God,\u201d St. Paul assures us, \u201cwho reconciled us to himself through Christ.\u201d This act of reconciliation is rather difficult for us to understand since reconciliation implies that each side has been estranged before coming together\u2014that, as we have drawn away from God, God has drawn away from us. Here is where language fails us, because, as both Jesus and Paul make it quite clear, it is we who have moved away, we who must return and be reconciled. God\u2019s arms remain open in order to embrace us when we return. These arms never push us away. Never.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the familiar parable of what has come to be called The Prodigal Son, the father has never stopped loving the child who chose to go away, to live a dissolute life. Through one powerful sentence in the story\u2014But while he was still far off, his father saw him\u2014we too see the father constantly on the lookout for his lost son. And even though this formerly rich, well-nourished, and well-dressed young profligate is now filthy, skinny, and in rags, the father recognizes him from afar and runs to meet him with open arms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The picture of the younger son who lives a life of sin and estrangement is nothing new. We recognize him all too well. He is the perfect image of selfishness\u2014he takes what the father offers and goes away in order to waste it. We recognize human selfishness because it resides in all of us; we recognize the sin of saying \u201cI am my own, I belong only to myself, I owe nothing to my Creator; I will do as I please.\u201d All we have to do is glance at this new form of estrangement ironically called \u201csocial media.\u201d The worship of Mammon and the fulfillment of all personal desires without regard to consequences are in front of our eyes daily in this age where nothing is private and nothing seems to be considered sacred. If we allow ourselves, we become witnesses to human lust, degradation, narcissism, greed, lies, and isolation pictured before us in films, computers, television, and media of all kinds. We see the condition of our own culture as we watch the younger son in this parable lowering himself to the ultimate degradation for a Jew of his time; to live among pigs. In the eyes and ears of Jesus\u2019 Jewish listeners, nothing was dirtier than dealing with pigs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the story ended there, with expressions of \u201cIt served him right because he was an ungrateful son,\u201d the depression and desperation would be complete. But, thanks be to God, the story does not end there. The young man looks at his condition and is first aware of the terrible needs of his body, of hunger: \u201cHere I am living among pigs while even my father\u2019s servants have enough to eat.\u201d Of course, this is a selfish reaction, but we are tied to the needs of the physical self and it\u2019s an honest reaction. God gave us life and life must be preserved. But immediately, like the psalmist, the young sinner acknowledges his sin and does not conceal his guilt: \u201cFather, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.\u201d This is the beginning of repentance, of turning around, of knowing that we don\u2019t belong to ourselves alone. Our separation, our sin, is first against heaven and then against those who have loved us. Acknowledging this state is the first step toward reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The young son sets off to return to his father, confident that he will be received, because he knows his father\u2019s heart. And he is not wrong. The father is indeed keeping vigil, his arms open, his eyes searching the horizon to see the returning son, to recognize him as his own, no matter how disfigured he now is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When the young man left his home years before, clutching his treasure, his thought was: I can do what I want. I am my own. Now he returns knowing that he belongs to his father, that he is not his own. And as he is received into the open arms of his loving father, he becomes the recipient of extreme generosity and largesse: excellent food, clean clothes, good footwear, and extravagant celebration\u2014although he deserves none of it. It is enough that he has repented. He enters into the new creation made possible by reconciliation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In St. Paul\u2019s understanding of the work of God through Christ, we can also understand the full meaning of this superb story. \u201cIf anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!\u201d In the image Jesus paints of his Father, we begin to see this new creation. The father of the Prodigal Son does not ask, \u201cWhat have you done to bring yourself to this condition?\u201d He doesn\u2019t reprimand and say, \u201cI warned you that this would happen to you if you lived according to your desires.\u201d No, he asks nothing of the past because the \u201cold has passed away.\u201d What comforting words these are. \u201cThe old has passed away.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, reconciliation doesn\u2019t stop there. St. Paul makes it abundantly clear that now that God has taken us back into God\u2019s embrace, \u201creconciled us to himself through Christ,\u201d we receive a new gift: \u201cthe ministry of reconciliation.\u201d We cannot remain enclosed in this loving embrace without becoming \u201cambassadors for Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is so much misery in this world, so much living in both physical and spiritual hunger and in the degradation of all that is holy. The ministry of reconciliation, of spreading the good news of God\u2019s new creation in Christ, belongs to us. This may be daunting, even frightening, but it is there. We cannot escape it. We must continue to remember that in this new creation, \u201cThere is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus,\u201d as St. Paul declares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a country that is bitterly divided, at a time when hatred seems to be winning over love and where hostility works against reconciliation, let us move as true ambassadors for Christ to spread the good news of God\u2019s embrace for all of God\u2019s creation and created beings. \u201cWe entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.\u201d St. Paul\u2019s entreaty rings in our ears: \u201cOn behalf of Christ.\u201d And the image of a loving father, of God\u2019s arms ready to embrace each lost child, stays before our eyes as we proceed in this Lenten season toward resurrection.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This sermon was written by Katerina Katsarka Whitley<\/strong>.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sermon-English-Lent-4C-2019<\/strong><\/a>Download<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An image is formed by these lectionary passages, most especially by the epistle and the gospel story, of a God with open arms ready to receive us in a loving embrace. This image is constant and unchanging. Past and future don\u2019t exist in the eternal present of God\u2019s embrace: God is always waiting; God is…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":201212,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_tec_requires_first_save":true,"_kad_blocks_custom_css":"","_kad_blocks_head_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_body_custom_js":"","_kad_blocks_footer_custom_js":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_tribe_blocks_recurrence_rules":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_description":"","_tribe_blocks_recurrence_exclusions":"","_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","ep_exclude_from_search":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1963,43,52,1953],"tags":[308],"class_list":["post-512950","sermon","type-sermon","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lent","category-sermons","category-sermons-that-work","category-worship-and-prayer-menu","tag-lent-4c"],"acf":[],"taxonomy_info":{"category":[{"value":1963,"label":"Lent"},{"value":43,"label":"Sermons"},{"value":52,"label":"Sermons That Work"},{"value":1953,"label":"worship_and_prayer_menu"}],"post_tag":[{"value":308,"label":"Lent 4C"}]},"featured_image_src_large":false,"author_info":[],"comment_info":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/512950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/sermon"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/512950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3478343,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/sermon\/512950\/revisions\/3478343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=512950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=512950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging.episcopalchurch.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=512950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}