Readings:

Acts 5:27-32, 40

Revelation 5:11-14

John 21:1-14

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

What is discipleship? That’s the question I want to ask today. What is discipleship? We are all called to be disciples of Jesus Christ, but what does that mean?

Our Gospel message today illustrates that, so does the first reading, so I want to look at those. Our Gospel reading today is from John, chapter 21. This is a third reappearance of the resurrected Christ to the disciples. In this story, the disciples who had scattered after the death of Jesus, afraid, have now gone back to their jobs. They’re now doing their former day jobs again. They’re fishing. Peter tells the other disciples, I’m going fishing, and they say okay, we’ll come along. So they go out and fish and they don’t catch anything. Jesus appears and tells them to cast their nets again. This is going to sound familiar, right? This happened when He first met them, right? He’s doing the same thing he did before. “Cast your nets again.” And then they have this huge number of fish and, amazingly, the nets don’t tear. 153 big fish but the nets don’t tear. It’s miraculous. Then they bring the fish back, and Jesus has a charcoal fire there and they cook the fish and they eat. This is a meal, and they have this meal together. It’s breakfast. They have this meal together, there’s bread and there’s fish, and this reminds us of the Eucharist. It’s reminiscent of that. It also is reminiscent of the feeding miracles, where Jesus fed 1000 or 5000 people miraculously with just a few loaves and fish. All of this indicates who it is. They know now, it’s Jesus. At first, they’re not sure what’s going on, but now they know, it’s Jesus. Jesus has made clear to them this is the risen Lord that’s with them. In addition to that, another meaning that we can derive from this is something that Jesus is teaching them. He’s teaching them something by doing. Seeing  that they actually have a good catch of fish and have a meal, He’s caring not only for their spiritual needs, because they need Jesus with them, but they also have worldly needs. They’re going back to their old jobs, they’re catching fish and they need to eat, too. Jesus is taking care of that. Just like he took care of the 1000. Just like he took care of the 5000. That matters, too. Taking care of people’s worldly needs, helping and serving others, as well as our spiritual needs.

And He asks Peter three times “do you love me?” Why three times? We all know what happened after Jesus has been arrested and is being killed. People there say, Peter, you’re one of them. Three times he denies Jesus and Jesus had foretold that this would happen. The third time, we all know the story, Peter begins to cry because he realizes, I did that, I denied Jesus three times. Jesus is giving him a chance to come back from that. That’s what’s going on. God gives us another chance. He’s going to Peter and He’s rehabilitating Peter. That’s what’s happening. He’s saying “Peter, do you love me?” And He does this three times. Peter doesn’t figure it out. We can see it, because we can read it. But you can imagine, Peter finally gets frustrated “you know everything, you know that I love you.” Jesus is teaching him this. Three times. And what else does He say to him? “If you love me, feed my sheep. Tend my sheep.” This goes to the heart of today’s message, which is, what is discipleship. Jesus is teaching Peter how to be a disciple. Peter has been one, but Peter has a new task ahead of him, because now he’s going to be the leader among the group of the former disciples and go out and preach the Gospel. He’s teaching them the key concept: “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.” Now, on the one hand, this is what Jesus is telling them, but notice, too, this is again also something He’s doing for them.  They went out to go fishing, they needed fish, and He made sure they got some. They needed a meal, they got a meal. They had some bread and they had some fish. He’s showing them what to do for other people. He’s showing them what discipleship means. He’s telling them what it means “tend my sheep, feed my sheep.” He’s also showing them what it means, because He’s doing that for them. He appears to them to give them spiritual comfort, which they need, because they been through a devastating event. The loss of their dear friend, the fear, and everything that they went through. They need that spiritual comfort. They also need that sustenance, and they get that from Jesus, too. They get both of those. He’s showing them what discipleship means, service and love for others, not just in words, but in deeds, too.

Now, let’s turn to Acts. The first reading today was from Acts, chapter 5, and this is an important event in the early church. The church is getting underway as the church, and  Peter and the disciples are there in Jerusalem. They’ve been preaching the Gospel, and they’re told by the Sanhedrin not to do that. I’ll read part of it. “When the captain and the court officers had brought the apostles in and made them stand before the Sanhedrin, the high priest questioned them. “We gave we gave you strict orders, did we not, to stop teaching in that name?”” This is the political and religious leadership of their people. The Sanhedrin are the top leaders of their faith, and they also have tremendous political power, they have law enforcement power. They had the court officers and the captain bring them in. They didn’t just invite them to come in, they made them come in. They had power. They had both temporal and spiritual power in their society, so these are powerful people. Look at how Peter reacts. Remember how Peter reacted before? We talked about this just a minute ago, right? He was afraid, which is understandable, given what happened with Jesus and all the horror of all of that. He was afraid and he denied Jesus. He tried to avoid being caught up himself, because he was afraid. But look at what he does now, when he’s hauled before this religious court. “Peter and the apostles said in reply, “we must obey God rather than men. The God of our ancestors raised Jesus, though you had Him killed by hanging Him from a tree. God exalted Him at His right hand as leader and Savior to grant Israel repentance and forgiveness of sins.”” Look at the change in Peter! Where does that come from? It doesn’t come from Peter. It comes from the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has transformed Peter into a courageous witness of the Gospel. This, too, is Christ. This, too, is God present among us. It is not us doing these things. It is God present among us, through the Holy Spirit, this is what’s going on here. The Holy Spirit made Peter into a heroic figure, willing to stand up against the top religious and political figures in his community. This is what Jesus Christ can do for us. This all goes back, too, to what Jesus told Peter. “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.” That is what Peter has been doing. They’ve been preaching the Gospel to the people in Jerusalem and when the powerful elite tell them to stop, he says no. “We must obey God rather than men.” That is discipleship. That is following Jesus Christ. That’s what discipleship means. Jesus told them what it means and he showed them what it means. And God’s presence through the Holy Spirit empowered them to do that, to be disciples.

So what does it mean, discipleship? Live the Gospel. Do it. Like Peter says, we must obey God. That means living the Gospel. Spread the Gospel. “Feed my sheep. Tend my sheep.” That’s what we do, and we can do it by words and we can do it through our actions. Just like Jesus showed the disciples how to do it. And be willing to endure suffering for the kingdom of God.

At the end of the passage we read from Acts, “the apostles leave the presence of the Sanhedrin, rejoicing that they had been found worthy to suffer dishonor for the sake of the name.” They were thankful that they had been put in this awful frightening position because they endured suffering for the kingdom of God. These are the things that discipleship means. What does it mean in our daily life? Because we’re not going to be often in the position of a Peter, or if ever. We are here to serve and to minister to each other. All of us. That’s why we’re here and that’s why we’re in the world as the Christian faithful, to serve and to minister to other people. We can show people what discipleship means. We can show people what the love of Jesus Christ means. We can tell people that, and we can demonstrate it in our actions for other people. We can live the Gospel. “Feed my lambs. Tend my sheep.” That is what discipleship means.

Amen.

Readings:

Acts 5:12-16
Revelation 1:9-13, 17-19
John 20:19-31

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

This is the second Sunday of Easter. It’s also called Divine Mercy Sunday, and that’s going to be my theme for today. What is divine mercy? How is it illustrated in Scripture to us? This idea of divine mercy continues to explain to us God’s love for us. God’s unbounded love for us and His grace for us. Here, we focus this week on mercy. It explains what Easter means because God’s mercy is a product of his love for us. God is merciful because God loves us.

This is shown in our readings for today. Our first reading is from the Book of Acts, chapter 5. The Book of Acts shows us generally what the early leaders of the church did, and what people of the early church did, and how they lived. It shows us what the early church was like and sets forth a model for us to emulate in the church today. There are a lot of ways in which the church today is, of course, very different. It’s a lot bigger and it’s socially acceptable, right?  We’re not having to hide out.

In the Gospel reading for today, they’re hiding out. They were suffering from persecution. We read from Revelation, which was also during a time when the church was being persecuted. That’s not happening to us here, thankfully. We can see what the church was like in those early days, so that we can understand what we should be like as a church today.

In today’s reading the apostles are engaged in acts of mercy. That’s what’s going on. They carried the sick into the street and Peter came by. People hoped his shadow would fall on them. People from the towns around Jerusalem came and brought sick people, and these people were being cured by the apostles. The apostles are curing people who are ill and these are acts of mercy. We’re not healing people here, but we can still be merciful to others. Ordinary kindness is something that we can do. I can’t heal the sick. I’ve not done it yet, anyway, but we can all be kind to other people. Ordinary kindness can help others. It can help relieve the suffering that people have. We see this when we were dealing with people. I see it in my job all the time. I see people who are stressed and upset, and just listening to them and caring about their problem makes a difference to them. You can see it in their face. And that kind of ordinary kindness is something we all have it in us to do. We all have the power to do that.

Our second reading for today was from Revelation. Revelation is a very puzzling and mysterious book to us. I’ll talk just a little bit about what it means for us. The author is a person called John, but we really don’t know who he was. We really don’t know. We know from what he says about himself, that he was he was banished for preaching the Gospel. He was banished to an island called Patmos. And there he was left. He was being punished for preaching and for his Christian prophecies. He’s a Christian prophet, that’s what we know about him. Otherwise we really don’t know anything about him. And much of the book of Revelation consists of a very symbolic language, describing the situation that the early Christians faced in being persecuted. It also does contain prophecy about the return of Christ, but a lot of the figurative symbolic languages are things that would have been very meaningful to the people who were in the situation that the early church faced. It’s very much about the persecution of the early church. But that that fact about it still makes it very meaningful to us, because this, too, is a message of divine mercy. What it does, it tells people Christ is still with you, even though you’re suffering these awful persecutions, and Christ will return. Christ is spiritually present among you, and will be physically present among you in the future. This, again, is a message of divine mercy and of God’s love for human beings. Look at Jesus’ appearance to John at the beginning of the book, and He tells him, basically, to write down what you hear. Look at what he says – this is the part of it that I want to focus on – “Do not be afraid. I am the first and the last, the one who lives. Once I was dead, but now I am alive forever and ever.” He’s telling John, I’m here with you, I am present with you and he wants John to tell the people that Jesus is present with them, too. And this is what the book of Revelation does for us. It is a prophetic book, but one important purpose of it is simply to show Christ enduring presence among the people, and this is a message of divine mercy. God doesn’t leave the people alone, even when they’re suffering terrible persecutions, which the church was at that time.

Our Gospel reading today continues this idea of Christ’s continuing presence among us. What happens is that Jesus appears to the disciples, and when He appears to them, He basically says Hi. “Peace be with you.” He greets them and he shows them His wounds so they can confirm it really is Him. Of course, they are delighted to see Him. It says, they rejoiced when they saw the Lord. What does Jesus do? He breathes on them and says to them “receive the Holy Spirit”. This is from John, chapter 20. “Receive the Holy Spirit. Whose sins you forgive are forgiven them, and whose sins you retain are retained.” He gives them the authority to forgive sins. Why is that important to us, today particularly? Why is this included in our readings for today? This is about divine mercy and Christ’s continued presence among us, through the church. Jesus is establishing the church when He does this, by giving them this authority.  It’s not them that are doing it on their own behalf, it’s Christ who is doing this through them. He’s creating the church and using the church as a vehicle to convey His mercy and His love to people, including us. So the apostles now are functionaries of the church, and they don’t forgive sins on their own. Christ does it through them, and this is God’s mercy and His presence with us, through the church.

Now, the second part of the Gospel reading for today is the story of Thomas. Everybody knows the story of doubting Thomas. Thomas wasn’t there when He first showed up, and this is a week later now and Jesus appears again. Thomas had told them, I don’t believe you, unless I see it with my own eyes, I’m simply not going to believe it. So Jesus shows up again about a week later and He tells him, go ahead, touch my wounds, put your hand in my side. Thomas realizes, of course, this really is the risen Christ. Look at what he says, he confesses Jesus is God. He says to Jesus, “my Lord and my God”. This confession of faith is particularly powerful. It comes from somebody who had been doubting, Thomas. Somebody who didn’t believe it until he saw with his own eyes. But then when he sees it, he recognizes Jesus is God. This is God before him. And this, too, is a message of God’s mercy and God’s love for us. Jesus came back to show God’s presence in our lives and also for the disciples, who were His friends. These people were his friends, and you can imagine, they had shaped their whole life around following Jesus and then Jesus is killed. They’re scared. They’re hiding. Part of the story is, Jesus appears in the room. The door was locked. He didn’t come in through the door. He appeared miraculously in the room and because the door was locked. They had to keep the doors locked. They were afraid. Jesus is merciful to them. He’s comforting them by showing them He’s there. He’s there with them, when He does that, He’s showing that to us, too. He showing Himself to us, so that we can understand He really is with us still, both through the church and in our lives personally.

What are the take-home messages for today? I think two. One is, again, God’s mercy for us. This is something that we just can accept. We can accept God’s mercy for us. God is merciful to us. God forgives us and God loves us. Let’s just accept that and believe it. We cause ourselves lots of suffering by beating ourselves up and feeling shame and all the rest of it, about our flaws and so forth. God forgives us for those things. Let’s accept God’s forgiveness and believe in it. It’s real. And next, God’s expectation for us, let’s be merciful to others, too. Let’s show kindness to other people, even if we can’t heal whatever their problem is or their illness. We can still be kind to other people around us, and this is what God expects for us. God expects us to reflect His mercy to us to the other people we encounter in our lives. So let’s be merciful to other people, too.

Amen

Readings:

Isaiah 50:4-7

Phillipians 2:6-11

Luke 23:1-49

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

Welcome everyone on this rainy Palm Sunday. Today, we’re going to talk about the final climactic days of Jesus’ earthly ministry. This week, we ask ourselves, do we welcome Jesus into our life? Is He our king? Is He our king in our lives? We’re going to think about this all during the coming Holy Week. This is the most important week of the Christian year. We often think Christmas is, because it’s a secular holiday, too and also because it’s just lots of fun. Everybody loves Christmas, but this is really the most important week of the Christian year. This, as I said, is the culmination of Christ’s earthly ministry, His passion, His death.

We began with a reflection on the suffering of Christ. This is in our psalm today. I want to talk about that for a minute. I usually don’t talk about the psalm, but this one is so poignant and so important to understanding what it is we’re remembering this week. This is from Psalm 22. In this psalm is a description of what’s going to happen to Christ. It’s a description of his crucifixion. This psalm is special. It’s unique. It really is foreshadowing something that will happen in the future, namely the manner of Christ’s death. And it gives us a glimpse into what He experienced, because remember, He became one of us. He became a person. He could experience pain and suffering just like we can. Look at what it says. I’ll just read a part of it: “They have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones.” Imagine the pain he’s describing there. “I can count all my bones.” How that must have hurt. The very people He loved so much that He came to save. He suffered unimaginable pain for us. He died for us. On Easter, at the end of next week, He rose from the dead. We will get to celebrate that next week, but now we’re going to focus on His suffering.

Our Old Testament reading today was from Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter 50, verses 4-7. The latter part of Isaiah includes four what they call servant songs. This is the third servant song. In the servant songs, there’s a description of a mysterious figure who suffers to help the people. Now this, in terms of the way we understand the Old Testament, is a couple of things. One is what they call a typology. That is something that foreshadows something in the New Testament. This suffering servant is definitely a typology of foreshadowing of the coming Christ. It’s also a prophecy. It’s a prophecy that describes Jesus as our suffering Savior. I’m going to read a part of it: “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard. My face I did not shield from buffets and spitting. The Lord God is my help, therefore I am not disgraced. I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.” Jesus accepted suffering. He did it out of faith. Jesus had faith, too. Remember, He was a person. The faithfulness of Christ is an example to all of us. He had faith so powerful, and obedience so powerful, that He was willing to die on the cross for us. He was tortured to death for us. He was willing to accept that. He’s not degraded, He knows this. I’ll read that last part again: ”I have set my face like flint.” Flint is something so hard we can sharpen a knife with it. “I have set my face like flint, knowing that I shall not be put to shame.” Not degraded at all.

Our Epistle for today is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians, chapter 2, verses 6-11. The point I want to make here is so clear, I’m going to read a brief passage, not from that, but from a paraphrase of it. “Jesus was divine from all eternity. Jesus was always divine, and yet He didn’t cling to his divinity. He emptied Himself and became one of us. He became a man. He became human, and He accepted even more humbling by going through, willingly, death by crucifixion on the cross and so God has exalted Him in a special way, giving Him the highest title in the universe, Christ.”

Now, we’ll read from Philippians. “Christ Jesus, though He was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, rather He emptied Himself, taking the form of a slave, coming in human likeness.” This is how Paul is explaining Christ to the people in Philippi. He’s explaining what Jesus did for them. This idea of self emptying. He gave up all of Himself for us. He humbled himself. He humbled himself coming down from what He was, to become one of us and willing to be murdered by us. He was obedient. He was obedient to God, the Father, even unto death. Even unto a horrible death, He was obedient to us.

Not in this place, but in lots of places Paul uses the phrase “to put on Christ”. He says, “I put on Christ. I wear Christ like a garment.” What does he mean? He means to imitate Christ. He means to try and understand how we should live by looking to Christ’s example. Look at what Jesus did, He emptied himself, He gave of himself to others, He was humble, He was obedient to God. These are examples to us that we see in large relief during Holy Week. The whole reenactment and remembrance of what Jesus did for us. This whole story is one of love, of God’s unfailing love for us. That’s what we remember today and all throughout this week of Holy Week.

The Gospel story today is from Luke, chapter 23, and, of course, this is about Jesus’ trial, His execution, and His death. He comes into Jerusalem for the Passover festival that’s about to happen, a major festival in the Jewish year. He receives a royal reception, which we reenacted today. People received Him as a king. This came to the attention of the authorities, who didn’t appreciate it. The people knew who Jesus was and they didn’t like that. They were resolved to kill Him. What does this tell us, this royal reception He received? One, that He’s the Messiah. And He is the Messiah. Jesus is who many said he was, the Messiah. And it’s also fulfillment of a prophecy, from Zachariah 9, chapter 9, which we read in part of our Gospel message for today, but that has to do with Jesus coming in to the city riding the donkey and being received as a king. The thing about riding the donkey, it’s an interesting historical matter. When we think of a warrior king, we think of him coming in on a stallion, waving his sword and so forth, but actually, even Jewish kings, they were riding in the town during times of peace might ride a donkey. That’s during times of peace. Jesus is the King of Peace. He’s entering Jerusalem as the King of Peace and we reenact that today. We reenacted it today with our palms, welcoming Jesus among us.

Now the reflection for this week, I started out with it and I’ll conclude with it, too. Ask ourselves: Are we welcoming Jesus into our hearts? Are we welcoming Him? Is He the king of our life? Does He really govern and rule our lives? This is the question each of us has to ask ourselves. Only we and He know the answer to it.

But what I want to suggest to you. You were given a palm when you came in. Take that palm with you put it this week where you can see it, because I want you to look at it and remember to ask yourself these two questions. Again, are we welcoming Jesus into our hearts? And is Jesus the king of our life? Let’s all of us reflect on that this week.

Amen.

Readings:
Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:8-14
John 8:1-11

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

This is the fifth Sunday of Lent. Next Sunday is Palm Sunday and then comes Holy Week and then comes Easter. Today, I want to focus on one thing: God’s merciful love for us.

Our readings today illustrate this one crucially important concept that really is the culmination of everything we’ve been thinking and talking about during this Lenten season. Our Old Testament reading is from Isaiah. Isaiah, chapter 43. The context of this, like last week’s Old Testament reading, is the Babylonian captivity. The people were being held captive by the King of Persia. In this passage, God is reminding the people how he saved them before. I’ll read part of it: “Thus says the Lord, who opens a way in the sea and a path in the mighty waters, who leads out chariots and horsemen, a powerful army, till they lie prostrate together, never to rise, snuffed out and quenched like a wick.” This is a reminder of how God led the Hebrew people out of captivity, out of bondage in Egypt. He’s telling them, I’m going to do this again. This is a message of hope. The people know what they have to look forward to. They know that they’re going to be released. They’re in misery right now, but their misery will come to an end. This passage is a reminder to them and to us of God’s mercy and love. This does in fact happen. The people are released. Cyrus, the Babylonian King, released the people from bondage and they got to go home. That’s the Old Testament reading.

In Paul’s letter to the Philippians, our Epistle for today, the occasion of Paul writing this letter to the church in Philippi is they sent him a gift. He’s in prison in Rome. That’s the context of this letter. Paul had a lot going for him before his conversion. He was a Pharisee, he was a rigid follower of the law. Remember, he took part in persecuting the early church. He was somebody who thought the law was going to save him. Now we know he learned through Christ, it’s not the law, but God’s grace that saves us. He was a Pharisee, a Jew among Jews, as he put it. He was a Roman citizen and he was also a very educated man. He spoke and wrote Greek fluently and eloquently. He had a lot going for him. But look at what he said. This is from Philippians, chapter 3. He says: “Brothers and sisters, I consider everything as a loss because of the supreme good of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. For His sake I have accepted the loss of all things and I consider them so much rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having any righteousness of my own based on the law but that which comes through faith in Christ.” All of that he had going on before, all of those things,  Roman citizenry, education, being a Pharisee, and all the rest of it, all that he says is rubbish. All that is nothing compared to coming to know Jesus Christ. And look again at where Paul is when he writes this, he’s in prison. He’s been imprisoned in Rome. We know from reading in Acts, he had been imprisoned before. This is an exciting story. We’re going to read it not too long from now. But he had been imprisoned before and escaped. There was an earthquake in the prison and he got out, and he had quite an adventure. This time, he doesn’t make it. This is it. This is his last imprisonment. He was a held under house arrest in Rome for about two years and ultimately was executed. And all he cares about is his relationship with Christ. All he cares about is that he has come to know Jesus Christ. That’s all that matters to him. He says: “forgetting what lies behind but straining forward to what lies ahead, I continue my pursuit toward the goal, the prize of God’s upward calling, in Christ Jesus.” He’s got his eyes on Jesus the whole time. This is what matters to him. Not all the rest of it. Not his adventures, not his former social status. All of that’s gone now. All that matters is what lies ahead. His earthly life is going to come to an end before long, but he knows that he’s going to see Jesus when it’s all over, and that’s what matters to him.

Our Gospel message today is a powerful moving story, and it’s a famous story, from John, chapter 8. The scribes and the Pharisees bring a woman to Jesus. They’re trying to trap Him. On the one hand, everybody knows Jesus is the teacher of God’s mercy, so they expect Him to do that. If He doesn’t, Jesus has a problem. The Roman law doesn’t allow them to just execute somebody. The Romans can do it, but the Jews can’t. They can’t just line somebody up and stone them. So if He follows the mosaic law and says yes, you should stone her, then He’s in trouble with the Romans. But what if He says, show her mercy? Well, then He’s violating the Jewish law. They got Him coming and going. They think they’ve really got Jesus now! They’ve got Him in a trap. What does Jesus do? He doesn’t say a thing. He begins to write in the ground. Right on the ground. We don’t know what he wrote. He wrote with His finger on the ground. We don’t know what He wrote. Some people suggest it may have been the sin of those who accuse the woman. He certainly knew their sins. He’s Jesus Christ. He knows them. He leaves it to their conscience whether to stone her. By doing what he does, regardless of what he was writing, it was up to them. What are they going to do? So He puts the ball back in their court. What do you think we should do? Do you think you should stone this woman? So by doing this, He avoids their trap and also saves the woman from a certain death. What does he do with the woman? He tells the woman to go and do not sin any more. It’s a beautiful passage. So he was left alone with the woman before Him. This is from John, chapter 8. “Then Jesus straightened up and said to her, “Woman where are they? Has no one condemned you?” She replied, “No one, Sir.” Then Jesus said, ”Neither do I condemn you. Go and from now on do not sin any more.””

What’s the take-home message for us? I think there are a couple of things that we should keep in mind, and both relate to this central concept that I want to talk about today of God’s merciful love for us. One, we are often like the scribes and Pharisees. Let’s face it. It feels good to judge the sins of others. It makes us feel good about ourselves. It makes us feel righteous when we can go, look at that sinner. That’s what the scribes and Pharisees were doing and that’s a part of human nature. We do that. We all do that. But God knows our sins and we know our sins, too, and we all have sins. Jesus tells us over and over again, throughout the Gospels, to look to our own sins, not the sins of other people. Clean up our own side of the street, that’s enough for us to do. So that’s one thing. Sometimes, we’re like the scribes and Pharisees. Let’s be aware of that when we’re in that position. A second thing, we’re also like the woman who was brought to Jesus. We are all sinners. God knows our hearts and so do we. We know our defects, we know our sins, and God knows them, too. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. That’s what Scripture teaches us. So let’s stand in her shoes for a moment. She knew what she had done and she must’ve been terribly afraid. She expected to die, probably, but Jesus forgives her sin. He recognizes it’s a sin. He doesn’t say it’s okay. He recognizes it’s a sin. He’s not soft on sin in that sense, but He forgives her sin. He is merciful and gracious and loving even though we sin. He loves us in spite of our sins.

There is a legend that this was Mary Magdalene who, of course, became one of the followers of Jesus, one of the disciples, a female disciple of Jesus. She’s very important in the stories about Jesus after his death and His rising, because she was the first to see the risen Christ. Is this Mary Magdalene? We don’t know. The woman is not identified. It’s kind of a legend. But we do know that this story reflects God’s merciful love for us. That’s what the story tells us.

To sum up: One, when we’re in the position of the scribes and Pharisees, and we want to judge someone else’s sins, show them mercy and forgiveness, like Jesus did to the woman. Second, when we’re in the position of the woman, know that God loves us and forgives us. That is God’s merciful love.

Amen.

Fourth Sunday in Lent 2019
 
Readings:
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 34:2-7
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
 
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
 
Today is Laetare Sunday. “Laetare” means rejoice and so as we near the end of Lent, we think of rejoicing. What do we have to rejoice about? Well, of course, a lot. That’s what I want to focus on today. We can rejoice because of God’s love and forgiveness. This truly is a reason for rejoicing.
 
The readings today remind us of the kind of things we have to rejoice about. The Old Testament reading is from Joshua. This part of Joshua is a homecoming story. The people have been released from bondage in Egypt. Moses led them through the desert and finally, without Moses, but now with Joshua taking over the leadership of the group, the people arrived in the promised land. They celebrate with the Passover meal. In the desert, they had rebelled against God repeatedly, and every time God forgave them. This is again what we talked about last week. God keeps giving us more chances. This is one thing we have to rejoice about. What a great thing it is that He never says, ‘three strikes, you’re out’. We get another chance. He forgave them. He brought them to the land that he had promised them. God kept his promise to them, even though they had faltered, God was unwavering in keeping His promise to them, and they knew they had reason to rejoice when they arrived there.
 
Our New Testament reading from today, our Epistle, is from Paul’s 2^nd letter to the Corinthians. Paul tells us, “whoever is in Christ is a new creation. The old things have passed away. Behold new things have come and all this is from God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and given us the ministry of reconciliation.” We are a new creation. We’re a new creation because of the shedding of Christ’s blood, which has made our renewal, our spiritual renewal possible, and our reconciliation with God and with one another. Christ has made this possible, because Christ is the sacrifice for our sins. Our sins are forgiven, so we have reason to rejoice.
 
Our Gospel message from today is a story we’re all familiar with, the parable of the prodigal son. Jesus is with people, and the Pharisees and scribes who, of course, are very suspicious of Him, say this man welcomes sinners and eats with them. He hangs out with bad people, he must be bad, too. And Jesus tells everyone this story, the parable of the prodigal son. This is a beautiful story and it tells us a lot about the nature of God and our relationship with God, and it tells us a lot about who Jesus is, too. Because remember the context: He’s talking about why he welcomes these people. These people that the Pharisees and scribes call sinners. So the story – there’s a wealthy man with two sons. The younger son demands his share of the inheritance and he’s given it immediately. This, as you expect, is not the norm, but it could happen under their law at that time. Somebody could give their inheritance away during their life, and this is what the younger son demands. So he goes off and he squanders it on a dissolute life, he has fun and throws the money away, basically. He winds up hungry and miserable. He’s feeding pigs, which of for a Jew at this time this would not be something that would be acceptable. He’s living in this absolute state of poverty and misery. He says, I wish I could eat what the pigs are eating and then he realizes he can go back to his father and ask to work for him. Of course, when his father sees him, he’s overjoyed. This is the moving, beautiful part of the story. He’s overjoyed, and he says, let’s celebrate. Let’s slaughter the fattened calf and have a feast. Well, the older son is unhappy about this. The older son is saying, look, all this time I’ve been working while he was out blowing your money on junk. So now he’s come back and you’ve never done this for me. I was faithful all along and he wasn’t. Why does he get this good treatment? And the father tells him, he was lost and now has been found. Now let’s loop back to the beginning of this passage in Luke. There is Jesus eating with sinners, people the Pharisees say are sinners. Jesus welcomes these people. Jesus loves these people. Jesus wants these people with Him. They were lost and have been found. That’s what Jesus is telling the scribes and Pharisees.
 
Think about our relationship with our children. We love our children. Our children are imperfect. Our children make mistakes, and yet we love them anyway. If they make a mistake and come back and try again, we are overjoyed. That’s what Jesus is telling us. Jesus was – among so many other things – a magnificent storyteller. He can use the image of the father and the son that we understand, to convey something about the reconciliation of ourselves with God. All of us, too, are prodigal children. All of us have made mistakes. All of us have strayed. All of us have fallen away. God always wants us to come back. God sent His son into the world for all of us. And God’s joy is our return to Him, when we do fall away. That older son, he does participate in God’s love, and that is part of God’s joy, too. The relationship between the older son and the younger son is a minor part of the story, because we should be reconciled to each other as well as to God. This is why the father is explaining to the older son, I know you’re a good son, I’m so glad, and I’m so glad my other son has come back to me.
 
Lent is a time for reconciliation and as we’re now on the fourth Sunday of Lent, we’re nearing its end. We talked about repentance, we talked about God’s grace and love, and today we focus on reconciliation and the joy that reconciliation brings. So let’s all be reconciled to God and to one another and let’s rejoice in the grace and the love of God.
 
Amen.