Domes - Our Monthly Newsletter
Dunbar UCC
March 14, 2010
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Reconciliation
I. Reconciliation: The reestablishment of friendly relations -- the action of bringing peace and harmony; the action of ending strife.
II. Paul told the Corinthians that in Christ, everyone is a new creation -- the old has passed away and everything has become new.
The old is the person we used to be -- mean, selfish, and always ready to fight. The new is someone like Paul or Jesus, who thinks of others more than themselves. Someone who wants the well-being of his or her enemies, and works for peace rather than war.
III. The father in the story we heard this morning was like that. He had two sons that were awful -- the kind of children we pray we will never have. In fact, how did such a wonderful father get two kids like that. (Must have been the mother’s fault!)
As different as they were, the sons had one thing in common -- each was selfish and had no empathy -- they didn’t understand other people -- and had no interest in doing so. As human beings, they were both failures.
IV. The youngest son told his father he didn’t want to wait till the father died to get his inheritance so could he have it now? This probably enraged the older brother because he was entitled to the whole inheritance and he was allowed by law to divide it as he chose. So the younger brother was actually taking what was his. How he hated him.
The older brother was as responsible as the younger one was frivolous. He worked hard every day and saved his money. But he suffered from the disease -- the spiritual cancer -- of self-righteousness -- the feeling of moral superiority that comes from thinking one's beliefs or actions are better than those of the average person. It’s a fatal disease because there’s no cure for it -- unless God strikes the person down like Paul on the road to Damascus.
V. Though both brothers were awful human beings, the younger repented -- he was beginning to care for others.
We don’t know what happened to the older brother, but only an act of God could have saved him.
The father is what Jesus wants us to become -- a reconciler -- one who loves the stupid, the ugly, the immoral, the self-righteous -- always trying to bring peace where there is conflict. For all of us who follow Jesus Christ -- that is what our work is about.