Monday morning in the Preacher's
Study
First thoughts about next
Sunday's sermon (Lent 4C)
When presented with Jesus’ parable
of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15, Lent 4) it is very tempting for the preacher to
immediately plunge into the riches of this familiar story and to surface with a
sermon early in the week. However, since it IS only Monday, perhaps the time is
available for a short consideration of the big picture when it comes to
preaching. What is the reason for preaching; what is its purpose? What is God
trying to do through our words?
Richard Lischer caught my attention
with this statement. He writes, “For busy pastors the reasons for preaching are
hazy at best. It is as if we have been preoccupied so long with capturing our
culture’s attention, that once we have it we have forgotten what to say.”
(Richard Lischer, The End of Words: The
Language of Reconciliation in a Culture of Violence, Grand Rapids, MI:
Eerdmans, 2005. p. 132)
Here,
through parable and letter we are reminded of “what we have to say”. In the
letter, we find what Lischer calls, “the thesis statement of the New Testament”
in 2 Corinthians 5:19,
God was in Christ
reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them,
and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
When we speak of what God has done,
it is reconciliation. When we speak of what God is doing, it is reconciliation.
When we attend to the promises that God has made for the future, it is the
promise of reconciliation. We will need to use other words to explain and evoke
the truth of this, but underneath it all, is the dynamic of God in Christ
reconciling the world to himself. If someone asks me this week, “what is it
that you Christians have to say?” I would pick one word, and it would be about
this kind of reconciliation.
It is God's definitive gesture to
the world.
God is the one who is continually
turning towards us, reaching out, welcoming us home like the mother and father
run out towards the wayward child with open embrace. These parents who do not
allow for a grovelling speech, who do not insist on making the child wait on
the threshold, who do not want slaves, but sons and daughters.
Reconciliation. We are entrusted
with the message of it and we have the opportunity to participate in it. There
is nothing easy about it. In some circumstances it seems an offense. We do not
want to make reconciliation, and the steps of forgiveness necessary, to appear
any less difficult than they are. Reconciliation is not easily won. It requires
God’s leading participation.
What is it? There are at least three
forms of it.
At the heart of the cosmos is the
One who after bringing the whole creation into being also, out of love for that
creation, began the work of drawing-back-in an expanding, wayward creature. So
even at the cosmic level, everything is in need of being reconciled to God.
Following Chris Hadfield’s the view from a space station helps us get a glimpse
of both the cosmic and the earthly. Thinking of galaxies and universes, we
begin to fathom the scope of God’s ministry of reconciliation. Yet, down there
on earth, too, a second kind of reconciliation is needed. People need to be
reconciled to other people. You don't have to look past your own life, your own
church, your town, your local news. And finally, the ministry of reconciliation
also includes reconciliation with ourselves. There is enough work in this for
the rest of our lives. It is demand and it is promise. Every second of it is
immersed in the primary mission of God, so it is a thing worth doing, worth
saying, worth celebrating.
Todd Townshend is
Dean-Designate of the Faculty of Theology, Huron University College, London, Ontario. He serves as editor of OPEN, the
journal of APLM.
No comments:
Post a Comment