Changed for the Better

Return of the Prodigal Son, Rembrandt van Rijn, c. 1669, The Hermitage, St. Petersburg, public domain

Fourth Sunday in Lent, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! –2 Corinthians 5:17

Through the years, I’ve read some books about the changing face of religion in America. Two of the longer ones are by Robert Putnam, a brilliant Harvard professor. He also happens to be friendly and enthusiastic, with an ability to make complicated concepts easier to understand. 

Putnam says that while each younger generation attends worship less frequently than the one before it, one thing remains relatively unchanged. More Americans are involved in a religious congregation than in another other type of voluntary association, group, or club. The next most popular grouping is the very broad category “hobby, sports, arts, music, or other leisure activity.” Think of any other type of organization associated with schools, professions, service, or politics, and the percentage of involvement is even less.[1]

This broadly experienced association with religious organizations prompts a question: Why do people attend a church, really? People smarter than me have written books that try to answer that question, and the reasons are more complicated than they seem at first glance.  

People attend church 

·      to be educated in matters of faith and ethics; 

·      to be inspired by the music; 

·      to maintain loyalty to family, or friends, or a tradition; 

·      to preserve memories of the past; 

·      to find support in times of crisis; 

·      or to be part of an effort fix some of the problems they see in a hurting world.  

Underneath all of the reasons that we come to church, there’s another very important reason that we may not articulate well when we’re busy, tired, sick, or overwhelmed with challenges. At some deep level, we come to church hoping to encounter God in a way so true and powerful that our lives are changed for the better.

In our Presbyterian tradition, we’ve always put a lot of emphasis on the Bible, and the part it plays. Our practices reflect a belief that God can change us through our experience of hearing the Bible’s texts read, sung, studied in classes, and interpreted in sermons. Sometimes we think we’re distant and disconnected from Bible characters in their robes and sandals, but when we look deeper than old clothing and cultural customs, we find we’re like them in ways common to all people of faith. We know about being called by work or family to new places, and the feeling of being uprooted. We know about waiting for an expected blessing that never arrives, or when it does, comes with a new set of problems. We know about the deep sadness of family dysfunction. 

The fact that family troubles are universal and timeless explains, in part, why the story Jesus tells in the 15th chapter of Luke’s gospel, is still well known and often remembered. Because it’s Jesus’ longest parable, the characters are well developed.  It’s possible to see the story through the eyes of the loving father, or understand the action from the perspective of the angry elder brother. 

In the prodigal son, we see a familiar and somewhat common pattern of rebellion, which my parents’ generation might have described as a time he “sowed his wild oats.” We see how his seemingly good fortune turned bad. We wonder whether he really did go through a radical change of heart, or was it just the promise of warm food and a comfortable bed that drove the prodigal son from the pigpen toward home.

Like the elder brother, we may feel a lot of frustration built up through the years. How sincere and long lasting could little brother’s repentance be anyway? How could Father reward him more than me? 

There’s something deeply grace-filled about the Father welcoming his youngest son home. The way Jesus tells the story, we know that he means God is like that. If we take the returning son at his word, he has truly gone through a change of heart. We know Jesus means that the same thing can happen for us: we can be changed for the better.

In my files, I have a quotation, written in the second century by a man who had recently converted to Christianity, and tried to explain what this change for the better looked like. He wrote:

“ [Christians] do not commit adultery, they do not engage in illicit sex, they do not give false testimony, they do not covet other people’s goods, they honor father and mother and love their neighbors, they give just decisions. Whatever they do not want to happen to them, they do not do to another. They appeal to those who treat them unjustly and try to make them their friends. . . . They do not overlook widows, and they save orphans; a Christian with possessions shares generously.” Aelius Aristides, to whom these words are attributed, understood Christians to be transformed in a powerfully positive way by devotion to Jesus Christ.

That’s what the Apostle Paul is getting at when he says in Second Corinthians that anyone who is in Christ is a “new creation.”  

From personal experience, Paul understood better than most that when you wander too far from the father, you might get knocked off your feet by a blinding light, and somehow find it to be a grace-filled moment. He described the life-changing transformation to his friends in Corinth: “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; behold, everything has become new!”

According to Paul, one of the main things that becomes new is the character of our relationships. He describes it as the message and ministry of “reconciliation.” In our personal finances, we talk about reconciling the information in our checkbook register to the information in our monthly bank statement, and making those two sources of information compatible with one another.  In the context of relationships, reconciliation is the process of taking two dissimilar parties who are at odds with one another and making them compatible with one another. 

A Palestinian priest named Elias Chacour describes a time something like this happened in his congregation. The conflict was high enough that people could feel it when they walked in the door.  Methodist bishop Will Willimon once said that during such times, congregations look like the United Nations. There are so many differences in philosophy and expectations, it ends up being ineffective. We don’t expect much to happen because they’re just trying not to kill each other, and, in that context, not killing is considered an achievement.[2]

At the end of the service, Elias made what seemed a rather radical and startling decision.  He walked down the center aisle and, at the back of the church, locked the only set of doors and put the key in his pocket.  He told the people that, on the one hand, he loved them, but that, on the other hand, he was saddened to find them so filled with bitterness for one another.  Then, in the midst of the stunned silence, he announced that only one person could work the miracle of reconciliation in their village: Jesus Christ.

"So on Christ's behalf, I say this to you," announced Elias Chacour: "the doors of the church are locked.  Either you kill each other right here in your hatred, and then I will officiate your funerals.  Or you use this opportunity to be reconciled together before I open the doors again.  If that reconciliation happens, Christ truly is Lord."

Ten minutes passed.  No one said a word.  The people sat in silence, locked inside their church.

Finally, one man stood up.  It was Abu Muhib, a villager serving as an Israeli police officer.  He stretched out his arms and said, "I ask forgiveness of everybody here. I forgive everybody.  And I ask God to forgive my sins."  He and Elias Chacour then embraced, with tears streaming down his cheeks.  Within minutes, everyone in the church was crying, laughing, embracing, and sharing Christ's peace.

You may say, “It’s not my nature to be patient and understanding, to really listen to others, to admit I had a part in conflict, and ask forgiveness.”  You're right. We can't be changed fundamentally by pure willpower, with self-help books, or with the latest TED talk.  If we are to be different, our help must come from some creative power beyond ourselves.

Paul says the source of that kind of transforming power is Jesus Christ.  Pray, then, that his spirit will live in us more and more, that we may move beyond what is natural to what is supernatural.  When that happens, we’ll know that God has changed us for the better: “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

NOTES

[1] Robert D. Putnam and David E. Campbell, American Grace: How Religion Divides and Unites Us, New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010, pp. 29-30.

[2] William Willimon, “Transformation with the Trinity: Preaching That Disturbs,” a lecture delivered at the Festival of Homiletics, First Baptist Church, Nashville, 25 May 2007.

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