4th Sunday in Lent

The Ministry of Reconciliation

Do we truly get it – that this is a place where grace is found?

What is true reconciliation? What is it to be reconciled? According to our trusted friends at Merriam-Webster to be reconciled is to restore a relationship. To bring back to completeness – for us in the church we see this as confession and absolution. We come together and in the words of the confession – together we hear that we are sinners in need of a solution for our fallen nature and that solution is Jesus Christ. Jesus is that reconciliation. Our ministry then is to be a place where that can happen. But to do this effectively we need to know this reconciliation personally, we have to know what scripture teaches, and find ways that we practically be that place of forgiveness and grace. Maybe it comes in killing fatted caves and putting the best rings on those who have in our best estimation squandered a life’s savings – but in God’s grace and love even the sinners find grace and a place of welcome right?

A ministry familiar with reconciliation and its power to transform would be Prison Fellowship. Not everyone they come in contact with is a success story. There are plenty of examples of failed transformation and reconciliation. But listen here to this story of reconciliation.

'The man I ate dinner with tonight killed my brother." The words, spoken by a stylish woman at a PF banquet in Seattle, amazed me. She told how John H. had murdered her brother during a robbery, served 18 years at Walla Walla, then settled into life on a dairy farm, where she had met him in 1983, 20 years after his crime. Compelled by Christ's command to forgive, Ruth Youngsman had gone to her enemy and pronounced forgiveness. Then she had taken him to her father's deathbed, prompting reconciliation.

Some wouldn't call this a success story: John didn't dedicate his life to Christ. But at that PF banquet last fall, his voice cracked as he said, 'Christians are the only people I know that you can kill their son, and they'll make you a part of their family. I don't know the Man Upstairs, but He sure is hounding me."

John's story is unfinished; he hasn't yet accepted Christ. But just as Christ died for us regardless of our actions or acceptance, so Ruth forgave him without qualification. Even more so, she became his friend.

Regardless of our actions, acceptance of God’s grace, or even acknowledgement of God’s action to bring about reconciliation God is still acting. God is at work in the prayers of mothers praying for their sons who are caught up in sin. God is moving through his spirit in the hearts of troubled women and men who have found themselves knee deep in the criminal court system because of drugs or violence. Can anything ever separate us from the love of God? Not according to Romans 8

? 33 Who will bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ Jesus, who died, yes, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, "For your sake we are being killed all day long; we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered." 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

These are words of POWER. These are words of GRACE. Can you hear them today? Where is your heart beloved? Listen to the Savior today who calls out to you in your distress, in your moments of sin and regret. Have you been in the shoes of the prodigal son – on your knees believing that you are not worthy to be called a child of God? Is that the end of the story? By no means.

So how do we make this a place of grace? How do we establish the church as a place for reconciliation to happen?

Applying the Word

1. A matter of perspective – Christ’s perspective.

a. 15Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

b. Careful beloved. We too can be caught up in this as well. Some sinners are in while others are not. We are all sinners who have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. If Jesus was sitting and eating with tax collectors and sinners – well shoot, he’s sitting with me.

c. If we see the world through the eyes of Jesus what do we see?

d. ¹⁶From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

e. A man in a bar sees a friend at a table, drinking by himself.
Approaching the friend he comments, "You look terrible. What's the problem?"

"My mother died in June," he said, "and left me $10,000."

"Gee, that's tough," he replied.

"Then in July," the friend continued, "My father died, leaving me $50,000."

"Wow. Two parents gone in two months. No wonder you're depressed."

"And last month my aunt died, and left me $15,000."

"Three close family members lost in three months? How sad."

"Then this month," continued, the friend, "nothing!"

f. Do we get it? Truly? It is a matter of perspective.

2. Be intentional and authentic to create a safe place.

a. Can you be real and authentic with the person sitting next to you in the pew. Could you tell them the deepest and perhaps darkest sins that you struggle with? If not what would it take?

b. Relationships. We sometimes take this for granted in the rural church. Everyone KNOWS everyone, or do we? Do we know truly what struggles our brother or sister may be going through? How can we build such relationships of authenticity? Where we can truly bear each others burdens, honestly hear each other and listen, offer guidance and love, and give to each other pardon and peace. This is grace and this is the place I believe God is leading his church to be.

c. You create a safe place for us pastors to make MANY mistakes. Take the people of Marion Lutheran in Gunder, Iowa.

d. ! ¹⁸I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; ¹⁹I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ ²⁰So 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. ²¹Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ ²²But 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. ²³And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; ²⁴for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.

e. The son expected to find hostility and would be happy with “being a slave” and “eating the pods pigs eat”. Expectations were very low. But the father did what was unexpected. Instead of judgment he found grace. A place of celebration because – “the lost has come home”. This is our Heavenly Father’s response – grace.

3. God will instruct us in His ways and lead us in the way of grace.

a. ⁸I will instruct you and teach you the way you should go; I will counsel you with my eye upon you.

b. ¹⁷So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! ¹⁸All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; ¹⁹that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. ²⁰So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. ²¹For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

c. If God has rolled away the disgrace from our eyes then why do we hang our heads so low?

d. This is a place of grace – amazing grace. A place of transformation, and place of new life.

1. Marvelous grace of our loving Lord,

grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt!

Yonder on Calvary's mount outpoured,

there where the blood of the Lamb was spilt.

Refrain:

Grace, grace, God's grace,

grace that will pardon and cleanse within;

grace, grace, God's grace,

grace that is greater than all our sin!