Rejoice With Me........

Luke 15:1-32

 

What is our appropriate response to life? How are we to respond to the events of an ordinary or a not so ordinary day? Life is the stuff that happens to us while we are waiting for life to arrive. In this place we often look past what is already here in search for something that is probably not going to come our way.

 

We strive for success, knowledge, power, wisdom, relationship, control and security, and find ourselves over an over again falling short of the goals we set or hope for  our selves.

 

We look around and see others who appear to have more than us and either give up or double up our efforts to achieve. Daniel Kahneman, Noble prize-winner, when asked what the formula for success is answers as follows: “Skill + luck = success”. To be a great success the formula goes this way, “Skill + great luck = great success”. If this is true, and experience and reading tells me, on all probability it is, then what is our response to life as we now experience it?

 

How do we live with the randomness at the centre of all existence? We couch randomness in the language of choice and causality and forget what happens is not necessarily about the choices we make or a cause we can easily identify. A whole range of seemingly unconnected factors come together in a perfect storm resulting in the situation we find ourselves in. Sometimes this is indeed a happy coincidence, other times it is disturbing and/or tragic.

 

We were watching the story of the development of the A380 super air liner recently, and in it they discussed the incidence in which one of the Rolls Royce engines caught on fire. The cause? A small drop of oil had fallen onto one of the rotors in the engine which, when it got hot, caught fire. A random event no one could saw happen. I noticed also that someone is suing Malaysian Airlines over the crash of MH370 because they, and I quote, " failed to ensure the aircraft safely reached its destination". 

 

I find it interesting people perceive life is not dangerous, vulnerable and random, that somehow we can render life harmless, controllable and predictable. Frankly I do not wish to live in such a world. How far have we come that we take the adventure out of life, that we see death as something we can in fact avoid, or at least put off, and not understand that it is death, the loss of life, that gives its essential value to life?

 

In each of the three stories Luke gives to Jesus, there is only one response: “Rejoice with me……….” In each of these stories someone has experienced misfortune. One the bad luck of losing a coin, another a sheep and yet another had a son leave home inappropriately. For those around them, each event would have been a catastrophic experience.

 

A shepherd has 100 sheep and loses one. It doesn’t seem like a big loss, he still has 99 doesn’t he? Why would he not be satisfied with what he had and put the loss down to something that just happens? Everyone loses a sheep now and then don’t they? Foxes, injury, illness or walking off the edge of the cliff? Why would you spend the time looking and leave behind the 99 you already have? Aren’t you putting what you have at risk? Who is watching over the ones left behind?

 

The theme is repeated with the woman, probably a widow, who loses one silver coin and has 9 remaining coins. She stops everything she has to do and pulls the place a part to chase down the elusive coin. She still has 9 but the washing stays unwashed, the kitchen untidied and the meals unprepared as she searches for 1, 1, coin.

 

The prodigal son, or the prodigal father, depending on how you see the story, reminds us that it is not just objects that get lost, but people, subjects of our love and relationships, who go missing. They or we make decisions separating us and leaving us searching for ways to reconnect and rediscover each other. This story is tragic. A headstrong young man demands his independence and embarrasses his father, and family, in the eyes of the villagers. He leaves, and his grand scheme unravels. and he finds himself returning home with his tail between his legs. His father, who has been waiting for his return, comes out to meet him. His brother doesn’t, and doesn’t want the lavish party his father throws. It seem unfair as he has been faithful and not ever had such a party thorn for him.

 

In all three stories, there is only one response to the onlookers, doubters and critics, “Rejoice with me…”

 

If our first response is to rejoice we will

• Embrace and accept the situation. Not all situations end with us finding the precious item we are looking, but if it’s like my office, I always find something else I lost along time ago! This not a frivolous statement. If we reflect on our situation we will indeed find something we have lost, a new perspective on a situation, a greater understanding of what we already have, an awareness of new possibilities hidden in old hurts and frustrations, and more. And we are to rejoice in what we discover.
• Recognise and value others. For those who lose objects, we may be tempted to respond, it’s only 1 sheep? What’s the point? But that 1 sheep is valued and has a value to the farmer and because of that the farmer is compelled to seek it out. In reference to the prodigal father, both son’s are of value and the older son is being challenged to see, not only what his brother means to his father, but what he also means to him, party or no party.
• Shift from self to others. We often judge a situation from the outside, from what we value, from our life experience and dismiss what it means to others.

Rev Ben Gilmour, a friend of mine who is the minister at the Paddington Uniting Church in Sydney, has just returned from a trip to Jordan and writes:

“We are told by the media that refugees are bad people, just money hungry (economic) or possibly even terror agents. What I witnessed was families just like yours and mine, trying to make the best of it in the face of real terror.

The stark reminder that I can't get out of my head is that, I saw my sister in the face of refugees, my mum and my dad, my nephews and nieces, with all the human dignity and love and complexity that family brings here. There was no us and them, it was only us.”

 

Rejoice with me as we reclaim our humanity and begin to live out of the wonder and wealth found in everyday life. Rejoice with each other as we stand together against the random happenings that define and influence our existence. Rejoice with those like the Syrian refugees who are able to find hope in circumstances we often judge and critique without standing where they are standing.

 

Once we begin to rejoice we recognise the sufficiency of God in all situations and begin to see God at work where once we only saw reasons, causes, faults, failures and hopelessness. The power of rejoicing to unlock possibilities lies in its ability to get us to stop looking at I, me, mine; and to give permission for God, others and each other to blossom and celebrate who they, we are, what is possible and what is already here.

 

Rejoice with me…  

Living With Loose Ends

2 Corinthians 5:16-21 - Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Today’s readings drag us into the complicated world of relationships and dysfunction. It is, without putting too fine a point on it, almost assured that relationships will be,at least at sometime in their life, dysfunctional, one side or the other gets out of sync and slips into a place of its own, unable to relate or live with the other. It happens in marriages and friendships, in professional and work areas, on the international and national political stage – it happens in almost all areas of life.

It is the stuff which makes life the most interesting.

Somebody is alleged to have said that it is what makes making up such a challenge and a skill. How to begin again, how to re-mind ourselves, retool our minds, so that what was in dysfunction functions again? How do we see in what appears to be a lost cause the possibility of re-commencement, re-engagement of new life and hope?

Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist Monk suggests; “Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, AND then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.”

Often our approach to this kind of challenge is built around ‘either – or’, ‘one or the other’, resulting in one or more of the parties having to back down so the other wins, all in the name of reconciliation and moving on. Unfortunately reconciliation built on that type of ideology is only temporary, for it builds resentment and hostility in all parties. Those who have backed down resent the loss and those who win think they should have won more.

In Hanh’s suggestion we find the neat little word “and” – “Reconciliation is to understand both sides; to go to one side and describe the suffering being endured by the other side, AND then go to the other side and describe the suffering being endured by the first side.”

And is one of the most useful words we have, unlike or which separates, and, unites – it brings together both sides of an argument and makes them one. It is about the ‘oneing’ of life in all its complexities. It makes one and when things are one they begin to work together to reconcile the differences.

My mobile phone synchronises with my computer. When I connect and hit synchronise the two reconcile or become one – what is on one is on the other – it notes the difference, the double ups and then either deletes or includes as appropriate, and after a few minutes you have the two, one. It reconciles the phone and the computer.

In our second reading today, Paul is battling to achieve the same result with the Christians at Corinth. Paul had, in a sense, raised these people in the faith, nurtured and brought them through only to find now that they are estranged from him because of the influence of other so called Christian leaders. We are not told who, but obviously they were persuasive in getting the Corinthians to follow them and to leave Paul.

Perhaps out of anger, but probably out of concern for those he ‘loved’ and a concern that they are receiving good teaching; Paul responds. He does so with some of the clearest theological teaching we find in the New Testament.


Paul's appeal for reconciliation arises out of a complex, messy human situation. Much as he desires the Corinthians to be reconciled to God, Paul also earnestly yearns for some kind of reconciliation between the Corinthians and himself. These are not two separate issues. Paul recognizes that what goes on in human communities, how we relate to one another, has implications for how we relate to God. It is not just about us; nor is it just about God. It is about how we understand ourselves to be in relationship with God and with one another, all in the same moment. The two are inextricably linked.



To illustrate this, Paul juxtaposes two ways of viewing one another, using the example of the Christ. At one time, he says, we looked at the one we call the Christ and saw, nothing special: perhaps a prophet, perhaps a fool. We judged on the basis of our human experience ("a human point of view"). Then something happened that allowed us to see in Christ the one in and through whom God reconciles the world to God's self. Paul does not specify what this "something is", and it is different for each of us. We experience the presence of God not only in our own lives, but come to recognize the presence of God permeating the entire cosmos. Our way of seeing has changed, as well as our understanding of how we are in the world, as Paul goes on to say "if anyone is in Christ, there is an (ongoing) new creation" (verse 17).

Ongoing, here, does not mean in the sense of evolution, but in the sense that creation, when it is sustained as we are in Christ, is in a constant state of renewal. This on-going act of creation, says Paul, occurs through Christ for it is "In Christ" we experience God reaching out to us and ourselves as creation restored; if we recognize ourselves as a part of this new creation, then we no longer view one another in the same way. Our vision has changed.

Reconciliation is not simply something to be desired; it becomes an imperative because we have experienced reconciliation with the one who has given us (new) life. If, in this most important of all relationships, we find that our "trespasses" (which can also be rendered "missteps") are not held against us, we too are challenged to reach across the boundaries and barriers that separate us, whether due to missteps, misunderstandings, or misconceptions, and find ways to renew our relationships as a part of the on-going act of creation.



Were Paul and the Corinthians reconciled? Holly Hearon suggests: “We do not know. The danger remains that one or the other side will confuse their status as ambassadors with the role of God, and reconciliation with conformity. As it stands, we are only left with the issues and the possibilities. Much as I like tidy endings, I am drawn to the open-endedness of this situation because it gives us room to consider what we might do in this, or any other, situation where we are still searching for the reconciliation that will open up the potential for the renewal of creation. It is in this act, says Paul, that we may become the righteousness of God.”

It is in this sense that the Gospel story of the Prodigal Son is also an incomplete reconciliation story. It ends without the ends neatly tied up. We are not sure of the Son’s motivation for returning, was he really repentant and coming home for the right reasons, or just for a hot shower and a good meal? What was the father’s motivation for accepting him back, true love or an attempt to save face in front of the local community? Where was the older son? Did he ever get over his resentment and reluctance to accept his brother back or did he stay forever out in the garden, unwilling to join the party? And what did the mother think, and did it really matter? What work needed to be done to build on this apparent reconciliation to turn it into a new beginning or did the dysfunctional family remain just that, a work in progress?

Reconciliation is what brings us to the Eucharistic table where we realize the reconciliation between humanity and God wrought by the action of the second Person of the Trinity Christ, fulfilling his relationship with God. Christ’s action was relational, bringing into being the forgiving action of God. The cross and the Eucharist are not Christ’s work but God’s. At no time do they become ours for no action of ours will reconcile us with God.

God through Christ reconciles the world to himself, even though it often feels like there are a lot of loose ends. And there are. God likes it like that.

The Degustation Breakfast

Well, last Saturday's Blokes Breakfast was indeed an occaision to remember. The Cooks Warren and Ian excelled themselves with 6 enjoyable and wonderful taste sensations. Warren particularly has been spectacular this year and we thank him (and Ian) especially for his efforts.

The idea of the Degustation Breakfast was linked diretly to the feast put on by the Prodigal Sons Father when he returned. This concept of valuing through hospitality is one which is embedded in the Gospels and in Jesus' concept of the Kingdom of God.

It is significant that his first miracle was at a feast and his last meal was at a feast - the Passover meal. Jesus bookended his ministry with hospitality and so much more of his teaching revolves around sharing or breaking bread with one another, typified in the Eucharist we share each time we ccelebrate it.

Last Saturday saw 26 men of all ages come for breakfast and stay for almost 3 hours, sharing a meal together and talking. And not just talking but sharing in a very real way.

What started out some 5 months ago as a traditional men's breakfast has developed into a monthly event, looked for and celebrated by all who attend.

It will be exciting to see what God will do with this event and the Blokes who attend in 2009!

A Fathers Heart Breaks

The heart of a father is at the heart of the Prodigal Son story. Over the last few days we have watched the heart of a father break on television. Dale Lapthorne, the father of Britt Lapthorne, has touched each of our hearts as we identify with his anguish and loss at losing a cherished daughter.

In watching on, I thought about the concerns and fears I have experienced as a father of an adventurous and lively daughter, who went to a university away from her home town at a young age, who decided to go to Osaka Japan after finishing university to teach English and immersed herself in the social life of the ex-pats in that city, who has back-packed to various parts of the world, only to return home and enjoy a vibrant (my interpretation of adventurous) social life at home.

Many times I wondered whether she was safe, what dangers lurked out there and what I would do if something happened to her. Yet nothing can prepare us for that moment except our own love and trust that gives them permission to travel and be alive and who they are. To live in the moment.

Yet the anguish when something happens maliciously, as it seems to be the case here, is something we can not understand or imagine unless we experience it for ourselves. My heart goes out to Britt's family and hope that in the midst of this they remember her for who she was and the good times they enjoyed together.

The Father in the Prodigal Son story shares this anguish and knows the agony of watching people leave, of finding a strength to cope, all the time wondering if his son was safe.

The bigness of his heart is shown by the welcome home and the the way he took his son back in. There is no sign of repentance or saying sorry by the son exccept that he knew life would be better if he went back. The Father doesn't allow the prepared speech to be uttered. He places his arms around him and takes him home.

And it is here the hard work begins for both of them. Rembrandts painting of the Return of the Prodigal Son shows the clear differentiation of the hands of the Father, one is soft and caring and the other hard and calloused. The inference is that the journey to this point has required, and the way forward will require, a combination of caring and correction, of love and of disciplne, of hope and of trust.

The return home is not the end of the story, but in many ways only the beginning for both of them. The healing, forgiveness, rebuilding of trust and hope and the movement forward into a productive life is only just beginning and will require effort, patience and compassion.

The Wildman Leaves - Prodigal Son

“Small boys become big men through the influence of big men who care about small boys.”
“Don’t wait to make your son a great man —make him a great boy”

The story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) explores the journey to manhood through the lives of three men at different stages in their journey:

THE YOUNGEST SON—the Wildman seeking to push boundaries and find his place in the world.
Testing Boundaries.
Establishing place in the world.
Conflict with father.
Separating from mother
Black & White world views.
Self focussed.
Wants it All, Now!

IT’S ALL ABOUT STEPPING OUT!!!

WHAT’S THE CHALLENGE FOR US:
In how we respond to our children’s journey.
In reflecting on and be honest about our own journey.
In responding to the high risk behaviour of young men.

Journey to Manhood

“I just don’t want to become a man, at least not the kind of man I have far too often seen.’
-Gordon, 18 “Real Boys’ Voices, William Pollack, Ph.D

The story of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32) explores the journey to manhood through the lives of three men at different stages in their journey:
The Youngest Son—the Wildman seeking to push boundaries and find his place in the world.

The Eldest Son— the Responsible man who does all the right things although fearing it may not be enough.

The Father - a man who embarks on the journey with both his very different sons only to discover he is being called to be a Grand Father, expansive, giving and accepting, beyond anything he thought possible.

Time to Think:
What is the challenge for us?
Where are we in our journey?
How do we reflect on our experiences to be able to help our sons, ours and all young men we meet, in such a way we walk them into being the man they desire to be?

Question to a successful man seen in a weekend paper:
What are you most afraid of: “Being found out.”