Lent… we are still in it. The word comes from the Old English, leacte, to lengthen (as in the days are lengthening) and so Lent is another word for Spring really. Of course, it is during Spring that we anticipate Easter, a time for earth’s rebirth, at least in the northern hemisphere. This time that we very intentionally turn towards God, as Jesus turns towards Jerusalem in our Gospel stories.
As we turn towards God, most of us are not so good at being God-like. I think most of us see other people as not particularly special, another person is someone we may like or dislike, but we definitely do not see as God sees. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” Wouldn’t it be great to be able to see as God sees? Still, most of us, most of the time, we see the “anyone’s”, and not the “new creations.” Now those people who we consider holy, like perhaps Saints, in the capital S version, the holy people… they seem to see everyone pretty much as God sees.
Exactly how God sees is best exemplified in the story of the prodigal son. It doesn’t matter how much the prodigal son had rehearsed his lines or what he said when he came back to his father’s place. The father was the one who was going to do the active work of reconciling. The father does this work, the child needed only to turn to the father, and yet the father is out there running towards the son. This is how God loves, this is how God sees. God forgives us and falls over Godself trying to bring us back into the fold.
What we also learn from this story is how God is towards the elder son. God doesn’t keep score. This prodigal son story is told to remind us of how God loves, but at the same time remember that it is also told to give the Pharisees an “aha” moment. I think we forget this, probably partly because we even call it “the story of the prodigal son”. This would have been crystal clear that Jesus was talking about the Pharisees when he included the older son. The Pharisees cannot help but identify with the elder son in this story. The story is about the relationship the father has with both of his children. This is the parent who wants the pleasure of the company of both of his children. In other words, it’s one thing to be pleased, happy, grateful that God is accepting of each of us when we screw up, but Jesus makes it clear in the story that God also wants other children to try not to limit God’s love. The older child doesn’t get to make the rules for the father. As Christians, we don’t get to decide how God is with people other than ourselves. Don’t try to make God’s love for others small, or as small as we ourselves can be.
In the Gospel story, even though the son is the one who messed up, it is the father who reconciles. The father makes it all okay. In 2 Corinthians, the basic meaning of the word “reconcile” is to make otherwise or to alter. In the New Testament, Paul is the only one who uses the word. It is only God who reconciles. God is the initiator and author of reconciliation, the remover of that which may make us estranged from God. But the tricky part is that to turn towards God only has real fruit if we turn towards our neighbor. Turning towards God actually involves making human relationship right— in other words forgiveness.
Archbishop Desmond Tutu wrote, “Without forgiveness there can be no future for a relationship between individuals or within and between nations.” So, the future for our world will depend not on staking claims, waging wars, etc., but in the difficult discipline of forgiveness that reconciles. This reconciling forgiveness is to what we are called by God. We are called by God to be reconciled with God, so that we can be reconciled with others.
This week, for some reason, the song Alice’s Restaurant popped in my head and I couldn’t leave it alone. I kept thinking about the line, “Kid, have you rehabilitated yourself?” Because we can no more rehabilitate ourselves than we can reconcile ourselves. It all starts from God.
“You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant.”
I will be bold enough to suggest that the kingdom of heaven just might be like Alice’s restaurant on Thanksgiving day, you know, only with a far more diverse group of attendees. The “Thanksgiving dinner that couldn’t be beat” could just as well be the invitation to and meal that we share at communion, where we are reconciled, and see as God sees. It may not be coincidence that Alice lives in the bell tower of a church.
“You can get anything you want at Alice’s restaurant.” You can get the forgiveness you need from God, no matter how far you have wandered. And you can ask for the eyes to see others as God sees, ready to reconcile, ready to forgive, ready to offer welcome to all at the table.
-Sarah Colvin
Joshua 5:9-12
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Psalm 32