Nation of God

Nation of God
Sunday, June 29th, 2003 (first sermon preached as Pastor)
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Psalm 117

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! 2 For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!

He’s protecting her!

The image was unforgettable. It was 1991, and I was watching a news report on the U. S. troop activities among the Kurdish people of northern Iraq, in the aftermath of the gulf war, trying to deal with the mass exodus of hundreds of thousands of refugees into eastern Turkey.

In the background, an army helicopter was lifting off after having delivered a load of supplies. A marine was in the middle foreground, kneeling towards the camera, his arms around a little girl, probably no more than 5 or 6 years old. As the helicopter lifted off, the marine hugged the girl closer to him, wrapped his arms around her, and took his cap off and placed it over her head, protecting her from dust and small pieces of debris being tossed around.

The following Christmas, my sisters, brother and I arranged to all be in Chile together, it being my parents’ last one to spend there before returning to the States for retirement. We were traveling in the southern part of the country, and stopped for a meal at a restaurant in Pucón, a small town on the shores of lake Villarica. As we sat waiting for our meal, our discussion wandered to how we each felt about the war that had been fought earlier that year. Suffice it to say that the opinions around the table ranged from one end of the political spectrum to the other. In recounting the moment captured on videotape that I’d seen, I got so choked up that I was almost unable to complete the thought.

Celebrating the 4th of July has always been a mixed bag for me. Having grown up in the southern hemisphere, July is deep WINTER, not high summer, so there were not many picnics and fireworks displays to attend. There were OBSERVATIONS of the fourth of July, by expatriate citizens as well as Chileans who were friendly towards or admiring of the United States.

The only opportunities I had to attend and enjoy a 4th of July picnic was when we were back here in the states on furlough. That ended up being twice before I came back to the States ‘for good’. Once when I was 7, then 10. What was most memorable – and miserable - for me, was the heat and the humidity of Western Kentucky, rather than anything having to do with commemorating the Declaration of Independence. I’d grown up on the edge of the Atacama desert, the driest desert in the world. My sense of identity during childhood was much more tied up with Chile’s equivalent of George Washington: Bernardo O’Higgins (that’s a good Hispanic name, isn’t it?) in his struggle to win independence from Spain and Arturo Prat and his heroic and fatal boarding of a Peruvian ironclad ship in the War of the Pacific.

The context in which my Chilean patriotism was developing was radically different from that in which my sense of patriotism for the United States would develop several years later. Chile was under a military dictatorship for the last 7 years I lived there. There was no vocal opposition to the regime of Augusto Pinochet, or if there was, they were summarily labeled communists and if not already, exiled or imprisoned. I have no real memory of opposition being voiced even in small groups, until my last two years of high school, and then by only 2 or 3 people in my school. It was simply unheard of.

Coming back to the states, by contrast, presented me with a seeming cacophony of voices from all sides of any given issue. There was no ONLY and ‘official’ – and therefore in my mind correct – position espoused by a fatherly figurehead.

At first, I felt lost amidst the clamor. While I longed for the safety I felt in hearing and accepting a single point of view, in being confronted by thoughtful, intelligent, reasoned opposition I began to develop a sense of respect and appreciation for the free interchange of ideas. I did not always agree with one side or the other, but the manner of discourse was captivating. I’ll admit, CSPAN is not my favorite channel, or one that I will linger on for more than a few minutes, except on rare occasion, but to know that congress is in session, and policy is being hammered out, and compromises are being reached for hopefully the good of the majority of the people, is a powerful thing, especially when you’ve lived in a society that at one point in recent history decided to settle differences with bullets instead of debates.

Even more powerful than that, witnessing a presidential election has proven to be an emotionally moving experience for me. However you feel about the politics involved, the fact that the government of this country is able to peacefully transfer power between parties is still a point of which we as citizens can be justifiably proud.

There are two flags at the front of this sanctuary: The flag of the United States, and the Christian flag. How do you feel about both being present? (Janice answered: Proud!) Does having them both say more about how we as a congregation feel about the separation of Church and State, or freedom of religion? For a long time, I had to struggle with the fact that a national symbol was displayed in a house of worship, where we preach that God loves all people, regardless of nationality. Then I realized that having the flag of the United States in the sanctuary was recognition of the fact that within our identity as Christians, we must also recognize, acknowledge, and celebrate our identity as citizens of this country, with our own national history, culture, and worldview.

It is entirely appropriate to pray for God’s blessings on our country, just as we would for our community and our congregation. It is entirely appropriate to thank God for blessing our nation, just as we would thank God for blessing our community and our congregation. We would, in fact, not be fulfilling our role as intercessors in prayer if we did not do so.

As Christians, we are called to be salt and light. When you add salt or light, both are dispersed into whatever medium they are introduced – be that a dish of food, a darkened room, or a nation.

We must be thankful that we live in a society that values freedom. That in and of itself is cause for praise. Were it not for the experiences of the founders and signers of the declaration of independence with ‘established churches’ in the various colonies and in England, and their foresight in dis-establishing a state church, we would not be who and what we are today, but probably something very much different.

As Baptists, we can be proud of having had some influence in the first amendment being included in the bill of rights. One of the basic tenets of our doctrine is the separation of Church and State. Both the freedom TO practice our faith as well as to be without faith have to be true options and are necessary if we are to allow for a choice to be freely made to follow Christ.

At the same time that we are thankful for that freedom, we must also recognize that our truest, deepest, and most profound freedom is not derived from legal documents, but through the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. In our own congregation, through news from Sondra and Tiffany Smith, we know of countries where it is illegal to become a follower of Christ, and yet it still happens. The freedom we find in accepting Christ as savior is found regardless of whether we are here in Emmerton or across the world.

In Galatians 5, Paul writes:

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." 15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

In three sentences, we receive from Paul a synopsis of what it means not only to be a member of the body of Christ, but a good citizen as well – of whatever country you live in. Think of it. One preacher has said, if we all followed this command, we wouldn’t need any laws! We wouldn’t need any police, or courts, or jails either!

In 1st Peter, 2:9, we find an even clearer proclamation of what it means to follow Christ:

9 But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

And now we find ourselves back at the Psalm. What is our response to freedom, to God? What is our response to Christ? God does not coerce. God does not force us. God allows us to choose. God draws us near, in infinite love. And in joyous reply, we respond in praise and worship:

1 Praise the Lord, all you nations! Extol him, all you peoples! 2 For great is his steadfast love toward us, and the faithfulness of the Lord endures forever. Praise the Lord!

If you are here this morning and are oppressed, weighed down by the law of sin, and guilt, and shame, your invitation is to come and learn what it feels like to be the citizen of a new Kingdom, free from that burden.

If you are here this morning and are looking for a place where you can continue to exercise the freedom you’ve already found in Christ, your invitation is to join with us in being that salt and light.

If you are here this morning and already know Christ and are already a member of this family of faith, your challenge is to find new ways to spread that light, to be that salt, to be ever more aware of the Holy Spirit’s movement in your life, and to be as responsive to him as possible.

Let’s pray.

Tough Act to Follow

Sunday, June 15th, 2003
Upper Essex Baptist Church
Trinity Sunday
Father’s Day

Text:

Luke 15:11-32

11 Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later, the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, "How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands." ' 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22 But the father said to his slaves, "Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate. 25 "Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, "Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, "Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' 31 Then the father said to him, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.' "

“Just STOP!”

I could hear them in my voice: exhaustion, stress, anger, and impatience.

The words were directed at my daughter, Hannah, who is 7, and had just a few minutes earlier been told by her grandmother that she was not going to be able to read the promised book to her that night because it was already 10 O’clock, and we were all going to be getting up early the next day to move the family to Emmerton. Hannah’s Uncle Scott and Aunt Becky and cousins Breanna and Colin had come over to help us load the truck and spend some last few hours with us before the move.

I had spent the day driving a vanload up to the parsonage and then loading the truck. 5 hours of driving and 4 hours of sweating and straining to get furniture and boxes had taken it out of me.

The computer was set up in the room where the kids were sleeping, and I was in need of some dedicated time to compose my thoughts for this morning, and was sitting at the desk.

Hannah was disappointed as only a 7 year old can be when a promise to them is not kept. She was quietly crying and sitting on the bed. Unknown to me, her grandmother walked past the doorway to the bedroom, and she called out in a plaintive voice,

“Grana, where are you going?”

I whipped around and said,

“Just STOP! It is after 10, and you need to go to sleep! Please lay down! So STOP!”

I could hear in my voice how harsh I was sounding, how cold, how uncaring that she was probably crying in part because this was the last night that we were going to be living so close to Grana, with whom, by all counts, Hannah has a special relationship, a mutual admiration society, if you will, and Grana wasn’t going to be able to read to her one last time there.

*****

Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son is, very simply, the story that brought me back to Christ.
Steve Shoemaker, one of my former Pastors, has a sermon on the parable, in which he describes the homecoming scene differently from the way I had envisioned it in my mind:

The father lives not out in the wilderness, but on the edge of a town, at the end of Main Street. His son has to walk THROUGH town in order to get home. The younger son’s behavior has been an offense not only to the family but also to the village. He has broken the rules that help keep a community intact. The whole town probably condemned the boy. Their attitude was, “If he comes back, let him come back a beggar!”

In the parable, Jesus vividly describes how much the father loves the son. Rather than let him suffer the humiliation and abuse of the villagers, the father has compassion, and HE sprints to his son and hugs him and kisses him – the verb describes affectionate, repeated kissing, more like a mother greeting a long-lost child than a father’s formalized greeting.

The Father stepping into our place.

Taking on our humiliation, our abuse, and our shame. THAT is why Jesus did it. God takes it upon himself to reconcile the world TO himself through the cross.

God runs to us.

The gauntlet that we should have walked, all the shame and humiliation we so richly deserve, is taken and wiped away by the love of a sprinting, hugging, kissing father who wants nothing so much as to welcome us home.

The image of such a loving God is compelling enough to draw me closer every time I read this passage only if I put myself in the prodigal son’s position.

From either of the other two perspectives, the parable becomes a challenge.

There are at least two other stories going on in addition to the prodigal son’s, though. There is the older son’s story, and there is the father’s story.

Being an older brother myself, and having a younger brother who at one time in his life was prodigal in his own way, there for a while I was more than able to identify with the elder son in the parable. I was the one who’d been ‘the good son’. The judgmental, almost pharisaic way in which the elder son responds to the younger son’s return and the ensuing party was not that far removed from some of my own self-righteous thoughts and attitudes –this was before it was my turn to play the prodigal, and what subsequently brought me to the point of identifying so much more with HIM.

The other story is the father’s.

Father’s day is getting to be a tough holiday for me. I think I’m a pretty good son, now, again. I think I’m doing OK as a husband. As a brother, well, you can ask him. I’ll warn you, he’s got some stories to tell on me that to this day make me cringe to remember. My CURRENT relationship with my brother is something that I treasure. I love and respect him very, very much. When it comes to fathering, though, it’s a different story.

Nothing is more important. Nothing.

And nothing is more difficult.

And nothing has come harder.

Nothing will make as much of a difference to the people who mean the most to me than this business of being a father.

There’s a song that came out several years ago, by a contemporary Christian trio of singers, Phillips, Craig and Dean, entitled “I Want To Be Just Like You” the refrain (chorus?) goes like this:

Lord I want to be just like You
‘Cause he wants to be just like me
I want to be a holy example
For his innocent eyes to see
Help me be a living Bible, Lord
That my little boy can read
I want to be just like You
‘Cause he wants to be like me

I never get through a hearing of the song without pretty much dissolving into a puddle.

As you may have read, Jerusalem Baptist Church, just down the road a ways from here, called me to be their Pastor last Sunday. Over the last 2 months, as we’ve been meeting with them and waiting to hear from them, in addition to carrying on with the Hispanic ministry for the association, I’ve been able to experience … and sometimes enjoy something that I’ve not had an abundance of over the last 3 years – free time with my children.

The rain we had over the last couple of weeks made it hard for the boys to have any outside play time, and either Caleb’s or Judson’s anxious and repeated requests of, “now can we go to the park daddy?” or, “now can you play with me daddy” would sometimes become too much to withstand, so the replies to emails got delayed, the sermon preparation got put off, and the papers I’m supposed to be working on for a couple of classes that I took at seminaries remained undone.

I wonder if the younger son in our passage had to ask more than once for his share of the inheritance. Since the context is a parable, it’s a purely hypothetical question, but it would be hard for me to imagine an actual father agreeing to the request on the first go-around. It brings to mind the commercials that are on TV now for the AARP, where the man walks into the office of the CEO of a huge insurance company and asks him to ‘fix’ the problem people in their 50’s and 60’s have in trying to get affordable health insurance after they’ve lost it, and the CEO pauses a moment and says “ok”. The other version of the commercial has a woman calling the President of the United States and after a minute or two on hold, reaching him, and asking him to fix the funding of Social Security, to which he answers ‘Of course’. The voice over comes on and says ‘if it were that easy, you wouldn’t need the AARP’.

Reading the passage and placing myself in the father’s position is sometimes a similar exercise in the study of the improbable. After all, the main point Jesus is trying to make in telling the parable is to try to help his hearers understand the nature of God and his kingdom. The father in the parable represents God. A tough act to follow, if there ever was one!

But I think Jesus intended for there to be more to it than just that description of God. There are layers in the parables that Jesus told that speak to us in different ways at different times in our lives. Not only was Jesus describing God’s Kingdom, he was describing how we are to act as a part of that Kingdom, and as a part of God’s bringing that Kingdom ever closer to reality in the world. We can’t get away from the implication that, as the father acted, so should we.

In short:

Be generous:

Our possessions, the things we own, are just that – things. They are not and never have been as important as the relationships we have with each other. That goes for blood relatives as well as brothers and sisters in Christ that we find in our respective communities of faith – our church families. How radical would it be to part with a third of your possessions at the request of a member – any member – of your family?

Be forgiving:

It is one of the most basic of Christian virtues and activities, and is one of the hallmarks of our faith, because it is through forgiveness of our sins that we become followers of Christ to begin with. To quote Steve again,

Forgiveness is the step of finally giving up your attempts to make the past different. The past cannot be changed; it can only be forgiven.

Be conciliatory:

Here is where we’re challenged to step in to settle arguments. To be peacemakers. Over the last week and a half I’ve been following with deepening sorrow and hope the tortured attempts between Israeli and Palestinian leaders to once again bring peace to the middle east. While that is an example on a national scale, it can be equally vexing and complicated a matter to try to bring estranged family members to reconciliation. Nevertheless, we’re called to try.

And lastly, be celebrative.

Tony Campolo tells of his being on a trip to speak and, unable to sleep, going to an all-night diner. He is approached by a couple of women there, who by the way they dress are obviously prostitutes, and they find out he’s a minister. He finds out it is one of the women’s birthday, and that she’s never had a birthday party in her life. Ever. They end up throwing her a birthday party, there in the diner, at 2 AM. In the middle of it, the woman asks Mr. Campolo what kind of God his church believes in, and his response to her is “one who throws birthday parties for prostitues at 2AM”

The father in the parable exemplifies these four attributes, and by implication, Jesus seems to be telling us,

“You’ve been like the younger son and the older son, try being like the father”.

*****

I asked Hannah to forgive me for being so short with her a few minutes later, as she was going to sleep. She looked at me and smiled and said ‘it’s ok daddy. Some people just do that’. I thanked her, and promised her that I would continue to work on not being so short tempered.

If you are here this morning and you feel like the prodigal son, your invitation is to have that change of heart, and turn, and begin the return to the father who will run to you and throw himself around your neck and welcome you home.

If you are here this morning and feel like the older son, hear the gospel of grace: God is saying, “All that I have is yours. Come join us! Your brother was dead and is alive now. How can we not be joyous and celebrate!?

If you are here this morning and long to be even a little bit, like the father in the parable, man or woman, your invitation is to follow Christ as your Lord and Savior, and let him mold you and shape you into that generous, forgiving, conciliatory and celebrative person that our Heavenly Father who loves us so wants us to be.

Let’s pray.

Only Christ, Only Love

Only Christ, Only Love
Sunday, June 1, 2003
Jerusalem Baptist Church
1 Corinthians 2:1-5

1 When I came to you, brothers and sisters, I did not come proclaiming the mystery of God to you in lofty words or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified. 3 And I came to you in weakness and in fear and in much trembling. 4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.

Manuel was 11 years old. We were sitting cross-legged across from each other off to one side of the central plaza in the town of Orihuela, in the southeastern state of Alicante, Spain. It was close to 11 at night, and the place was packed. Though 11 PM is late for most of us here in the States, in Spain, in summer, it is the equivalent of early evening, where some restaurants don’t begin to serve dinner until 10.

The heat of the day keeps people indoors out of the sun for the better part of the afternoon, and things start to pick back up after 6 or even 7 at night. Our program, hosted by the local Baptist church, didn’t start until 8 or 9PM. I and my team mates had just finished performing a puppet show In which we had explained the meaning of each page of the little book without words, you may be familiar with it, where the color of each page represented something: black was sin, red was the blood of Christ, white stood for being washed white as snow, green represented our growth as Children of God, and Gold represented Heaven. Dozens of children who were playing in the plaza had gathered around as the guitars started up, listened to the choruses, and stayed for the puppet show. We each had a stack of the booklets, and were handing them out to the kids who had been paying attention and could tell us what each color meant.

We were supposed to be following up their explanation of what each color meant, getting to the core of what the message was – that they needed Christ. For the most part, I was just enjoying their good humor, joking, and encouraging them with hints about each color.

Manuel was different. He confidently stepped up to me, and I held up the book, open to the black page. He looked me right in the eyes and said “Pecado”. That’s Sin in Spanish. I asked him what “Pecado” meant. He explained it pretty clearly: anything that separates you from God.

I turned to the next page, the red one, and he gave me the explanation with almost no hesitation. I asked him if the sins that Christ died for included his, and he nodded his head.

I turned to the white page, and he went through that one, as well as the next two.
With each answer, it became obvious that there was more going on than a simple repetition of what he’d heard a few minutes earlier.

I asked him if he wanted to sit down, and as I did, a couple of his friends who had gone in line before him and had been running around playing, ran up to him and made as if to get him to chase them. I expected him to shrug, and run off with them. Instead, he shrugged them off, and motioned them away, and told them,

“No, esto es importante”

…

Paul says, “I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.”

What is it that is so compelling about Christ crucified? Is it the manner of death? The pain? The beating and torture he suffered?

All those details are arresting, and significant, but they pale in comparison to the reason that is at the heart of the matter: WHY did it happen? Why THAT death? Why the beating and the pain? Why the suffering?

In Luke, chapter 15, we find one of the best stories that helps us understand WHY.

11 Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later, the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, "How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands." ' 20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22 But the father said to his slaves, "Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.

The parable of the prodigal son is one of the most familiar stories of the New Testament. Most of us could retell the basic story with no hesitation.

Steve Shoemaker, one of my former Pastors, has a sermon on the parable, in which he describes the homecoming scene differently from what I had envisioned it in my mind:

The father lives not out in the wilderness, but on the edge of a town, at the end of Main Street. His son has to walk THROUGH town in order to get home. The younger son’s behavior has been an offense not only to the family but also to the village. He has broken the rules that help keep a community intact. The whole town probably condemned the boy. Their attitude was, “If he comes back, let him come back a beggar!”
In the parable, Jesus vividly describes how much the father loves the son. Rather than let him suffer the humiliation and abuse of the villagers, the father has compassion, and HE sprints to his son and hugs him and kisses him – the verb describes affectionate, repeated kissing, more like a mother greeting a long-lost child than a father’s formalized greeting.

The Father stepping into our place. Taking on our humiliation, our abuse, and our shame. THAT is why Jesus did it. God takes it upon himself to reconcile the world TO himself through the cross. God runs to us.
The gauntlet that we should have walked, all the shame and humiliation we so richly deserve, is taken and wiped away by the love of a sprinting, hugging, kissing father who wants nothing so much as to welcome us home.

…

“No, esto es importante”

“No, this is important”

I looked at Manuel, slightly stunned to be honest, not really knowing where to start, and finally asked him if he wanted to talk about what he’d just explained to me. Traditionally, Catholics in Latin America and Spain have a narrow perception of Christ, and it is mostly limited to how they see him most often: nailed to the cross, bleeding and in pain. The resurrection is celebrated at Easter, of course, but then Christ is taken into heaven. There is little immediate connectedness with a living person, and for the rest of the year, until Advent, the images surrounding them in church or hanging around their necks is the one of Christ Crucified. Over the next few minutes, Manuel and I talked about Christ being not just a man who died on a cross thousands of years ago, but of the fact that he is a living person, with whom we can enter into relationship, and who is with us every day. We can talk to him, and as we grow closer to him, we begin to recognize his voice. That July night in 1986, my new friend Manuel met my old friend, Jesus.

Paul continues,

4 My speech and my proclamation were not with plausible words of wisdom, but with a demonstration of the Spirit and of power,

As the Rappahannock Baptist Association’s missionary to the Hispanic population on the northern neck, one of my activities is leading early morning devotionals once a week at History land Nursery, the site across the river and above Tappahannock.

I was somewhat nervous on the morning of my first one, and I greeted the men and went right into reading from the passage I’d chosen and then rattled through the devotional pretty quickly, and ended with prayer, wished them a good day, and headed on out into MY day. I realized later that I needed to make some adjustments.

The following week, I explained that catching them before they went to work meant that they HAD to be at the location, but they didn’t HAVE to listen to the devotional. I was there for THEIR benefit I went on to explain that I was also coming as ‘solo yo’, ‘just me’. I intentionally didn’t bring a Bible, stood before them and explained that if all I did was stand before them and read a passage and say a few words about it, but didn’t put those words into action, they would only BE words.

What I was there to do was to introduce them to Jesus Christ, and deepen their relationship with him.

What Paul was testifying to in Corinth and around the Mediterranean, what was radical then and is radical now, is that you can know Christ, “So that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.” I believe that was what Paul was speaking of. A demonstration of the Spirit and of Power.

What more powerful way to demonstrate the Spirit than to introduce someone to a risen Lord and have that person respond? Christianity is not only a set of rules to live by. It is not only a set of teachings put down on paper by followers of a martyred leader 2000 years ago. It is a relationship with a living, risen Lord.

Though the parable does not end with the celebration, we do not know how the younger son went on with his life after being welcomed home.

How would you have reacted? Did he continue to live off his father’s generosity? Did he fall back into old ways of being, unable to overcome the force of habit?

Isn’t that the question for each of us today? We are confronted with a God who extravagantly, ridiculously, sacrificially rebuilt a bridge that we had burned, a God who loves us so much that, even though we have gone and squandered our inheritance, made selfish choices, with no thought of how it would affect others around us, when we get to the point of recognizing our mistake, and turn, and begin to walk through the gauntlet of self-recrimination, we are confronted with a sprinting, hugging, kissing, welcoming God who celebrates our homecoming with so much joy that it leaves no room for any other emotion.

It is in the person of Jesus Christ that the gauntlet has been run. It is through the humiliation of the cross, taken upon himself, that God has shown his love for us. It is ONLY through Christ and ONLY by his Love that we are once again being welcomed home.

How will we respond? Will we continue to live as we did before? Will we do the same thing tomorrow that we did
yesterday? Will we think the same way tomorrow as we did this morning? Or will we fully engage in that relationship, letting Jesus mold us, shape us, and make us who God intended us to be all along?

Just as the parable ends without telling us what happened to the prodigal son, my knowledge of Manuel ends that night. I left the next day. I entrusted him to the care and nurture of the congregation and the Pastor of the Baptist Church of Orihuela. I don’t know what Manuel is doing today. I think about him often, and pray for him, but I have not had any further contact with him.

Perhaps it is better this way. When we come face to face with Jesus, we each have to make our own choice, and no one else can make it for us.

Lets pray.