March 30 | Lent 4, Year C
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-12
Jesus describes the kingdom of God as a place of total restoration and rejoicing. Furthermore, the restoration is entirely undeserved and unearned. The key to our restoration does not lie in our righteousness, our service, or our love of God, but is motivated exclusively by God’s compassion. The only one in the parable of the Prodigal Son who is not motivated by self-interest is the father. The rebellious son who “repents” of his errant ways does so only because he realizes that he would otherwise starve. Even the son knows that he has forfeited his place in the family, and that begging to be brought on as a servant is an outrageous request. Yet his father immediately restores him to full sonship as soon as he returns. Not only is the son restored, but the father declares a feast to celebrate the son’s rebirth as an heir.
It is God’s love that allows for our rebellion. God’s love is true because it is the other-centered love that permits the opportunity to be rejected by the beloved. But his love does not end with such a rejection. Rather, God does not forget or write us off because we rebel. God is ready to come to us and welcome us back — indeed, to restore us — when we choose to return to him. Our motives are not questioned, and the humility of true repentance is enough. The first step in our restoration is acknowledging that we need God and that we are incapable of creating a lasting kingdom of our own.
St. Paul gives us another perspective on the teaching of the parable. Typically, he writes about the way of the world and the way of Christ. From a human or worldly perspective, all things are experienced relative to the self. People are sorted into categories like friend, foe, family, colleague, lover, hero, helper, or bore. In short, everyone fits into one of two summary categories — “for me” or “against me.” From a worldly mind, even Jesus is regarded in that manner. We might be attracted to him because of what we think he can do for us. Perhaps we need healing, we have reached the end of our human resources, or we think he promises us prosperity in this life. Alternatively, we might reject Jesus because he interferes with how we wish to live or he troubles our consciences.
While the human, worldly perspective is natural to us, the divine perspective can only be ours by gift. To reconcile humankind to himself, God sent his Son to show us his view of the world and to demonstrate how life is lived based on the divine perspective. Jesus’ whole life was centered on God — loving him, obeying him, and fulfilling his purpose. The gift of reconciliation with God is ours through our response of Jesus’ call to follow him. To follow someone is to walk in that person’s steps and do what the leader does. To follow Jesus, we need to keep our eyes on him. There is no way of following someone we are not watching, and with our focus on that person, our leader becomes the center of our life.
When Christ is our center, then he becomes the lens through which we see and interpret everything, and we say that our life is in Christ. Our transformation is so radical that we are truly a new creation. It is a recreation because of the magnitude of the change. But it is also a recreation in that it is the work of the Creator and not ours. It is God reconciling himself to us through Jesus that causes the change in those who believe. The resulting change in our worldview issues forth in a change in our purpose for living and a new motivation to serve God’s reconciliation to others. If we are in Christ, then we have moved out of ourselves and live to serve God and our neighbors.
The first step in becoming reconciled to God and a reconciler is to repent and believe.
Look It Up: Psalm 32
Think About It: God is our hiding place. How do we hide in God?
The Rev. Dr. Chuck Alley, former rector of St. Matthew’s Church in Richmond, Virginia, teaches anatomy at Virginia Commonwealth University Medical School.
