Sermon - Fourth Sunday in Lent - The Ven. Pat Zifcak - March 27th, 2022

To view a video of the Ven. Pat Zifcak’s sermon, click HERE.

It was not too long ago that I preached on this parable in Luke. There was a father who had two sons. My focus was firmly on reframing the story to help us to place our empathy and understanding on the father and not, as so often happens, on the sons, especially the older. Fine, welcome him home if you must, but does he have to have an elaborate party, too? That is where the resentment lies. We could easily stay right there with the older son, feeling sorry for himself and angry with his father and definitely not ready to welcome and celebrate the return of his younger brother.

The parable has not changed. My relationship with the text has. This time, because I found a deeper thread running through Luke that holds all of the lectionary texts together for me this morning. Reconciliation. That is the purpose of this Lenten season. To go to the desert, to fast and pray, to ask forgiveness, and to turn back to God. God who waits for us; God who always forgives in response to repentance; God who invites us to begin again.

In Joshua, God replaced one miracle with another. Manna ceased and the Israelites ate the produce grown on the land. Egypt was behind them. God had delivered them to the land God had given them. Their response was to eat and bless the Lord. A new covenant. Reconciliation.

In 2 Corinthians, Paul expresses his theology of atonement. Everything has become new! God has reconciled us to himself through Christ. All things are brought back into a covenantal relationship with God. God has made it so. Reconciliation.

In Luke, there is the annoying parable. A father had two sons. Forgiving looks like condoning. The father welcomes the son home and, not only that, he gives him a huge party! Would the story be more acceptable to us if the father said, “ You are welcome here but you have some work to do before I can forgive you.” We should truly be grateful that forgiveness is God’s work. We are seldom so generous of heart. Our theologian to the deacons says, “if God were just, we would all be in trouble!” If forgiveness were only ours to give, every human relationship would suffer, I think. Reconciliation and forgiveness are not zero sum games. In the parable, the embrace of the younger son is not a rejection of the older son, eating with tax collectors is not a rejection of the Pharisees, and forgiveness of sinners is not a rejection of saints. Reconciliation.

Rituals of thanksgiving always seem to mark important transitions. The Passover is a clear example in this season. Our liturgies during Holy Week should be. From Ash Wednesday to Maundy Thursday to Good Friday, to the Easter Vigil and, finally, to sunrise on Easter morning, we are drawn deeper and deeper into the steadfastness of God, the sacrifice of Christ, and the powerful invitation to shout Alleluia!

Reconciliation returns us to a right relationship with God. God extends the invitation. Our work is repentance. We must find a way to turn back from whatever separates us from God. Imagine you are the younger son. Let go of your empathy for the older brother and think for a moment what it must have been like for the younger son to have come to the end of himself. What courage did it take for him to turn back to the one he had left behind, to admit his sins and ask forgiveness? What does it take for us? I think the same thing: we come to the end of ourselves and there is only God. This younger son did not just return. He returned with the intention of reconciling himself to his father. And who is the father in this parable? We know don’t we?

In this world and in our lives, there is only God. The stories of our salvation history retold at the Vigil are all we need, to know it is true. God is with us in the brightest day and in the darkest night, in the midst of plenty and in despair, when we stubbornly resist and when we turn back.

The father came out to meet his son, to stand where he was to bring him home. There was no expectation of repentance, simply joy that the one who was lost is found. Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. He knew the law, he knew what his gesture of acceptance would mean. In that moment, God in Christ broke through the condemnation to save the lost.

Although the Episcopal Church does not require confession in order to receive communion, there is a rite of reconciliation in our prayer book and we say a corporate confession in every Eucharistic liturgy. The rubrics say, “ The ministry of reconciliation which has been committed by Christ to his Church, is exercised through the care each Christian has for others, through the common prayer of Christians assembled for public worship, and through the priesthood of the Church and its ministers declaring absolution.”

Through Christ, we are reconciled to God. What we receive we must freely give. We are God’s ministers of reconciliation. Who have you come out to meet with open heart and open arms to offer God’s reconciling love?