Lent 4 C – March 10, 2013

Lent 4 C – March 10, 2013

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen. 

 

(Holds up picture of a pause button).  How many of you know what this symbol means?  That’s right, it is a sign that tells us to pause.  With this symbol we are generally pausing an online video.  It seems to me, though, that it might be useful to have a sign or symbol that reminded us that we often need to pause in our daily lives.  Pause.  Stop.  Take a breath or a break.

In the tradition of the church, today is the mid-point in Lent.  This is the Sunday when we are invited to pause from our Lenten reflections and our solemnities.  Traditionally it is known as Laetare Sunday….even the colors of the church become lighter on this day as the church uses rose colored vestments.  The word Laetare is Latin and means to rejoice.  We are reminded on this Sunday that even in the midst of Lent, we have reason to rejoice.

And this is what our lessons for today remind us of as well.  The Psalm leads us in what would be our singing…Happy are they…Happy are they it begins and it concludes with Be glad you righteous and rejoice in the LORD; shout for joy, all who are true of heart.  Different words from our usual Lenten fare.  Words that are a pause from our repenting and fasting.

The reading from the book of Joshua is a wonderful reading – and its brevity belies its heft.  At this writing the Israelites have come out of Egypt where they were held captive.  As they have journeyed and wondered toward the land God had promised to them, they begin to find their identity again.  While they were held captive, they forgot who they were, or more importantly, they forgot whose they were.  They left behind all of the rituals and traditions that made them the people of Israel and even took on some of the traditions of their captors.  When this reading begins God takes away their disgrace, God pardons their forgetfulness when it came to their identity as God’s people.  God hits the pause button on their self understanding and returns them to God’s fold.  In the verses just prior to our reading all of the men of Israel were circumcised, which was the mark of an Israelite.  The traveling nation of God paused for this ritual action and when they were finished and camped in Gilgal they observed another key tradition.  They kept the Passover there on the plains of Jericho.  They observed two vitally important ways of being known as God’s chosen people.  And when they were finished, they no longer had any need for the manna that God had been sending them as their daily food.  Because they came to know that they were God’s children again.  Because they ate the rich abundance of the land…no more manna fast, instead they had unleavened cakes and parched grain and the crops that were found in the land of Canaan.

They received a respite, a pause, in order that they might return to rejoicing.

And the Gospel reading brings us a story that is perhaps as familiar to those outside of the church as it to those within it.  The Prodigal Son.  The son who arrogantly wishes his father as good as dead to him so that he might have what is his due.  Of course he promptly squanders what he has and must return home.  Once home he is welcomed with wild rejoicing by his father and with bitter resentment by his older brother.  Too often, those of us who have grown up with this story hear it with tired ears.  We know the story almost too well.  And we miss what Luke is up to in his Gospel.

We gloss quickly over the introduction to the parable, the verse that really sets the stage and offers the reason for the story.  The Pharisees and Scribes, in other words, the church insiders, were criticizing Jesus.  He hung out with the tax collectors and sinners – why he probably even worked at the food bank and gave money to the homeless person on the corner and stayed every night with the women and children from Mary’s Place.  And for what?  The church insiders demand to know.

In the verses that we skip in our Gospel reading today we get two other parables from Jesus in answer to this critique.  First there is the story of the lost sheep, followed quickly by the story of the lost coin, and then there is the great climactic story of the lost son who is welcomed home.  And so that we don’t miss it,  Luke hammers his point home with the repetition like a ticking clock or a beating drum….throughout the stories….when the wayward sheep is back in the fold and the lost coin is found and the prodigal child returns home the word repeats, over and over….rejoice, rejoice, rejoice.  That’s the key to the point of the story.  Luke is not telling stories about being lost; Luke is telling stories about being found.

What we learn from this story is that God when we wander away from God…when we are lost like an errant sheep or child or a rolling coin, God rejoices when we are found.  God is a loving God who gathers us in.  It’s a beautifully simple pattern Luke the storyteller, Luke the healer, Luke the Gospeller, tells….something is beloved…..what is beloved is lost….there is a great search until what is lost is found….and then there is great rejoicing.

What are children told to do when they get lost – whether it’s at the park or in the grocery store or in the amusement park?  They are told to tell an adult or go to a safe spot or stay put.  They are told to trust that they will be found.  No one who loves a lost child ever gives up on them – no matter how lost they may be.

Beloved community, this is how we are loved.  We are loved by our Creator God so much that, no matter how lost we might be, we are never given up on.  No matter how we may have wandered or strayed….no matter how defiant we may have become….no matter how we may have demanded to have what we thought was ours and then squandered it in shameful ways….we are never just left in our lost-ness.

What would happen in our world if we could understand this?  Could we let go of the old ways of understanding God?  Could we stop thinking of God as judge on a throne in the sky, far away from us?  Could we let go of our image of God as angry landlord tossing Adam and Eve out of the garden?  Could we leave The Santa Claus god behind, the one who rewards the good and punishes the bad?  Could we leave God the magic genie who will grant us three wishes in the bottle?

In the midst of the Lenten season….in the midst of our remembering of Jesus’ trial that leads to a cross, we gather on this blessed morning to pause.  We pause to rejoice.  We rejoice because we are the ones who have found our identity in Christ, just as the people of Israel found their identity anew in God there in the wilderness on their long journey.  We rejoice because, as the Psalmist sings, our transgressions are forgiven and our sin is put away.  We rejoice because Jesus, the very one who welcomes sinners and eats with them….that very Jesus welcomes us and rejoices over us with gladness, because no matter how lost we may be, we are never beyond being found by God.

Rejoice, church, and give thanks to God!  Amen!

 

 

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