Joshua 5:9-12

Psalm 34

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

LUKE 15:11-32

Sermon – March 18, 2007

Fourth Sunday in Lent

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The Fourth Sunday of Lent is sometimes referred to as “Refreshment Sunday”. In some places, the liturgical colors are changed from penitential purple to pink to signify this lightening of the rigorous disciplines of Lent. This may have made sense in a time when during the period of Lent no flesh (meat, fish, fowl or eggs) could be eaten on any day (not just Fridays) and a strict fast was observed from sunrise to sunset each day of Lent. Now I know that we are not to judge others, but I would be willing to bet that no one in this congregation this morning is keeping a Lenten discipline that is even close to that. I certainly am not. I would probably therefore miss the mark if I preached a sermon this morning on why you can let up on your Lenten discipline for today and eat before sunset.

The word “Lent,” if not the season, comes from the Old English/Middle English term for spring, or more literally “the lengthening of daylight.” I like to keep this in mind when I come to Lent because it helps to remind me of something about what I am supposed to be doing and what I should be allowing God to do during this season. If I give up all flesh for forty days, fast from sunrise to sunset every day, go around bewailing my awfulness and sinfulness every time I get a chance and wear sack cloth and ashes to work everyday, but I am in as much dark about the love and mercy of God and how and where God is calling me at the end of Lent as I was at the beginning, daylight has not increased and spring is not coming no matter what the calendar says. Likewise, if I do virtually nothing for forty days and, at the end of them, I am still in the same darkness, I have not had a good and holy Lent.

Lent is a period of spiritual discipline, and spiritual discipline is above all else about how and for what we live our lives. It is no accident that the term “enlightened” is used in many traditions to describe spiritually mature persons. They are called enlightened because they have an unusually good understanding of what their lives are for and what they should be doing with them. They have also managed to integrate these into and made them real in their lives.

So, how does all of this bring us to the fourth Sunday of Lent and the idea of healing? Let me take a quick look at our lessons and then throw out some ideas.

“The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land.” (Joshua 5:10) The story of the Exodus, the forty years in the wilderness and the entry into Canaan is the story of growing up. In Egypt, the people were slaves. They did what they were told to do. They obeyed authority. They got up in the morning and spent the day doing what their taskmasters told them to do. They had little or no choice. They were basically not responsible for their lives and what they did with them. They were like very young children. Then God took the children of Israel out of Egypt and into the wilderness. There he taught them about life, about responsibility, about caring for themselves and others, about living in community, about life as God wanted life to be lived. They still were not ready to be on their own. He led them by fire at night and by a cloud during the day. He fed them manna and provided them with water. You might say that they had become adolescents. In today’s lesson from Joshua, the journey comes to its fulfillment. God leads the children of Israel to their destination – Canaan – and leads them over the Jordan into it. They eat of the produce of the land, and the manna stops. Suddenly there is no fire at night, no cloud by day. There is no manna or water for just the easy gathering. They must go out and plant. They must tend their crops and harvest them, if they are to eat. They are in their promised land. They can care for it, each other and themselves in such a way that life is rich and a blessing. Or, they can ignore God and all God has taught them. They can turn the Promised Land into a curse. God has not left or abandoned them, but the relationship has changed. They are no longer infants or adolescents, but adults. God wants them to walk with God, with each other and themselves as a mature, responsible friend.

Jesus tells today’s story that we heard in Gospel in response to the criticism that he has just received from the good, responsible, upstanding members of the church who kept a very strict Lenten discipline. What does he mean by keeping the company that he keeps? He is a scandal to all good church members who try seriously to follow God’s way and to live good, conscientious lives. Does he not know that the people he is hanging out with and telling that they are loved by God are sinners, accursed by God? It says so right here in the law.

You just heard the story, so I will not repeat it. Let me point out a few things that I think are important if we are considering Lent and healing. 1. Things did not go quite the way the younger son thought that they were going to go when he thought only of himself, took his part of the inheritance, and left home. What seemed like the promise of a wild good time did not turn out in the end to be one. 2. If you look carefully at the story, you will notice that he did not fully repent. As he was heading home, he was making up a story to get his father’s sympathy so that he could con his father into taking him back on the son’s terms. 3. He never got his story fully out of his mouth. His father did not give him a chance to screw it up again. 4. As soon as he saw the son, the father threw open his arms and welcomed him in love. 5. The thoughts of the older brother about his younger brother and the life he thought that the younger brother had been living tell us much more about the older brother and his imagination than they tell us about the younger brother. 6. The father’s reaction to the older son was as loving as his reaction to the younger son. He did not put him down. He did not rebuke him. He acknowledged his pain and invited him into the party.

Anyone who has done pastoral counseling, spiritual direction, any other type of counseling or has paid really close attention to themselves knows that all human beings have one thing in common. We all lie. We lie to God. We lie to each other. But most of all we lie to ourselves. God knows immediately when we lie. Others generally figure it out sooner or later. When we lie to ourselves, we can take decades to figure it out. Some people lie to themselves all of their lives. When we do this, we can turn life into hell. At least the younger son was honest enough to admit that he had messed up his life by what he did and to admit that he should do something about it. He was even humble enough to admit these things to others. These are all good signs and necessary.

As I said, the younger son was not truly penitent as we often think of it. He was, by his planned confession trying, in some ways, to control, even con his father. He was repentant though. He got up, turned around and headed for home. True repentance is not about feeling bad about what we have done or ourselves. It is about turning around and doing something about it. The first step is to look carefully at ourselves, what we are doing, and accurately assessing the state of our lives. In other words, we need to let some light into our lives so that we can actually see and admit what is happening. The first step in true repentance and a good Lenten discipline is to stop lying to ourselves. By the way, the lying can be about good and bad. It is just as destructive to fail to acknowledge the good in us as it is to ignore the evil. The second step is to do something about all of this.

My professor of liturgy at General Theological Seminary was Neil Alexander, now the Rt. Rev. Bishop of Atlanta. He used to say that we should drop the confession from the Eucharist during Easter to remind ourselves that forgiveness is an undeserved grace freely given to us by God. Confession is not a good work by which we manipulate God into forgiving us. God stands welcoming us and preparing the party even before we get there or get the words out. I sometimes think that during Lent we should have the absolution and peace first. Then we should have confession. After all, it is because we know that God is there welcoming and loving us that we can risk being honest with ourselves, others and God and then getting up to go home.

I could spend several sermons about the older son’s imagination, but let me just limit my comments to this. At least part of the wisdom of Jesus’ command not to judge others because we will be judged by the judgment we make of others is revealed in this parable. The older brother, in his anger, thought he thoroughly knew his younger brother. On the basis of that judgment, he made a terrible decision, if unchanged, one that would destroy the relationship with his father and brother and impoverish his own life. He needed to look at his own life and his needed actions first. He needed just as badly as the younger son to learn that it was not all about him.

Before I move quickly to the epistle, let me remind you that the father responded to the “good” son with the same grace and love as he did to the one who had squandered so much. In all conditions and at all times, God is waiting, looking for us to welcome us back and throw a party. It does not matter if we are alienated by our evil, our stupidity, our lack of discipline or our self-justifying discipline, God is there.

In the epistle, Paul reminds us that in Jesus, the Christ, God took this story and made it flesh. He incarnated it before our very eyes: “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”. (2 Corinthians. 5:19) In leading the Children of Israel over the Jordan, God called them to be adults. In Jesus, God calls us to be reconciled and to be ambassadors of God’s reconciliation.

But all of this is not just theoretical. It has to do with how we see our lives and live them. Are we the only important person around? How do we use the resources God has given us? How do our decisions affect others—both far and near? Are we ready to be adults, taking responsibility for ourselves and our decisions and using all of God’s gifts with wisdom and thanksgiving? Are we so filled with pain, doubt, fear, anger, or shame that we cannot let ourselves in let alone others or God? Lent is about letting in daylight. Lent is about letting in God’s light until the daylight is so great that it is eternal, and we are healed and home at last by God’s grace.

This then is true Lent and true healing: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”

Amen.

The Rev. William O. Breedlove, II, TSSF

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, Monmouth Junction, NJ