The story is told of a young Jewish boy – the youngest of his father’s sons. They were a happy family, but something arose. There grew a conflict between the boy and his father. As is so often the case, the conflict began to fester. It festered until it could fester no more and then it popped. “Father, give me what is mine and I will be gone. I won’t stay here…I won’t put up with this…I just can’t stand it. I wish you would just die, so I could get something out of our relationship. But give me my inheritance now and we will never have to deal with this anymore.”
The father gave the son his share and the son left home as he promised. It was fun for a while. He traveled the world, he spent many nights partying until late into the night. He bought the finest things money could buy. Finally he was enjoying life. No overbearing father…no silly rules…no clouds on the horizon, just clear blue skies. And he loved every minute. But the clear blue skies grew cloudy. Money began to dwindle. He couldn’t afford the late night parties anymore. He couldn’t afford the good life anymore. Slowly he began selling what he had to support the habits he developed. Soon he was left with nothing. No money, no stuff, no friends, no food or roof over his head.
He began looking for work. He spent many days inquiring about employment. He spoke to many people looking for anything that might help him get the things he needs. The best he found was a job on a farm. Now farming is noble work, but the boy found himself doing the grunt work…feeding the pigs. Good Jews have nothing to do with pigs. They are unclean. They are forbidden, but he had to do what he had to do. It paid him next to nothing, and every day he grew hungrier and hungrier. Finally one day he found himself daydreaming of eating the slop he was feeding to the pigs. He just couldn’t sink any lower.
We all understand conflict. We all know first hand what this kind of separation can do. We all know…and so did Paul. This morning’s text is 2 Corinthians 5:11-21. Hear the word of the Lord.
Paul’s experience with the church at Corinth certainly made him painfully aware of the damage these rifts can cause. The relationship between Paul and the Corinthians had been a very good one. He lived with them for 18 months. He gave the church a good start and a solid foundation. They were his pride and joy. He sent Timothy to oversee a collection for the ministry of the church in Jerusalem, but Timothy returns with bad news.
The Corinthians were being influenced by itinerant preachers. These preachers seem to have been somewhat questionable in their teaching. What’s worse though, they began planting seeds of division between Paul and the Corinthians. They questioned his authority. They questioned his credentials. They questioned whether he was the real deal – and the people began to buy into it.
Paul, not wanting to let this thing fester, decided to make an emergency visit to Corinth. We don’t really know what exactly happened on this visit, but Paul described it as a “painful” visit (2:1, 7:2). It would seem that part of the visit included some pretty harsh slandering of Paul (2:5-6, 7:12). Rather than staying, Paul left – hurt, angry, disgraced, and enraged. What had been festering was brought to a head. Paul wrote 2 Corinthians in the context of this broken relationship. He wrote to his beloved trying to make sense of what has happened. For Paul, what happened only made sense in the light of the cross.
These rifts – these broken relationships – are not unique to persons. Before there was ever a broken relationship between persons, there was a broken relationship between persons and God. We all remember the story of Adam and Eve. They were created in the image of God. They were put in a beautiful garden where they enjoyed and cared for all creation. They lived in a place where God walked among them. It seems like such a regular, unspectacular occurrence. Our minds lead us to images of early morning walks through dew-covered grasses, sharing the new day with God. We think of afternoon respites from the hot sun, with God under a shade tree. We think of evening strolls and saying our good nights to God who walks with us and shares life with us in the garden.
The only rule for living in the garden was to avoid eating the fruit of one particular tree. But Adam and Eve were tempted and ate of the fruit of the forbidden tree. Then they heard God coming and they tried to hide. Like little kids with mouths full of cookies when they hear Mom walking down the hall, they duck for cover. They found a place to hide. The rift had begun –
But they could not hide from God. No one can. God began questioning them. They began pointing fingers. The man at the woman – the woman at the snake. No one took responsibility for one’s own actions. Each tried to look for excuses, each wanted to blame someone else. The more they tried to cover it up – the more they tried to explain it away – the deeper and wider the rift grew.
God could not let them stay in the garden and so God sent them away. An angel was placed at the entrance of the garden to keep them out. No longer would life be a walk in the garden, but it would be one of hard work, of blood, sweat and tears. The rift was uncrossable. Life went from walking with God in the cool of the night, to one lived unable to even gaze upon the face of God without the fear of dying. We once were so close, but sin has made us so very far apart.
God loved us too much to let life go on this way, so he sent Christ. Paul really begins preaching: “We believe that Christ died for all,” and the church all responded…AMEN!
“We also believe that we all have died to our old life,” and the church all responded…AMEN!
“He died for everyone so that those who receive his new life will no longer live for themselves,” … AMEN!
“Instead they will live for Christ” …AMEN!
“Anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person…the old life is gone; a new life has begun” …AMEN!
“And all this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ” …AMEN!
“For God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting people’s sins against them” …AMEN!
No doubt the church was eating this stuff up. This is good stuff. This is the stuff of the gospel. God made people. People sinned. Sin created a barrier between God and God’s people. God tore down that wall by Christ. That is called reconciliation. Reconciliation is when people who do not have relationship with one another are brought back into relationship with one another.
In the Gospel story this morning, the boy realized that even his father’s slaves were taken care of better than he was. He decided to swallow his pride. He decided to return home. Maybe his father would hire him and he would at least have some food to eat. But the father did much more than that. The father had been waiting. He had done nothing but wait and watch since the day the son left. When he saw the son coming up the road he ran out to meet his boy. He wrapped his arms tightly around his son. He threw a huge party because his son had returned. They were reconciled.
In the same way, God reconciled the world to himself through Christ. “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” This is the message Paul preached to the Corinthians, and they loved it. They were with Paul all the way. But then Paul sprung the trap door on them. “God has given us this task of reconciliation” …the amen’s aren’t so enthusiastic. “God gave us this wonderful message of reconciliation” …the amen’s are almost non-existent. Paul does not stop with Christ’s reconciling work, he goes on to explain our reconciling work. God desire’s that we are reconciled to him. God also desire’s that we are reconciled to one another. It’s a low blow. It is like punching the Corinthians in the gut!
Paul was deeply pained that there was a deep rift between the church and himself. God was deeply pained that there was a deep rift between God’s Church and Godself. Both rifts are only healed in Christ. God has provided a means for all our rifts to be reconciled, and sets us to the work of being reconcilers.
This work of reconciliation must take place in three places. First, we must be reconciled to God. We’ve already retold the story. We stand with Adam and Eve as sinners separated from God. Especially during Lent, we acknowledge this. We look deeply at our own lives. We look deep into our own hearts. We remember who we are. We recognize our own sinfulness, we recognize the rift that sin causes. We remember who Christ is. We recognize the reconciling work of Christ in our life. We refocus our life on Christ and on his reconciling work. In Christ we are new. The old us is gone. He has recreated us anew in his image. We have been made right with God!
Second, Paul understood if we are to be reconcilers in the world, it is not enough that we are reconciled with God. We must also be reconciled with one another. Jesus seems to teach that this is at least as important as the first. “If you are coming to worship and you remember that there is something between you and someone else, leave your worship. Go and be reconciled to that person. Then come back and worship” (Matt 5:23-24, my paraphrase). How can we be agents of reconciliation if we are not reconciled ourselves? How can we be an ambassador of Christ if we refuse to embody that which he came to achieve? “You have heard the law that says, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say, ‘Love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you! In that way you will be acting as true children of your Father in heaven” (Matt 5:43-45). Be active in seeking to reconcile your relationships…for in that way you will be proclaiming Christ’s message of reconciliation.
Last, just as Christ was sent to the world to reconcile it with the Father, so too have we been sent into the world to reconcile it to the Father. Christ is the reconciliation we preach. Paul goes so far as to call us Christ’s ambassadors. An ambassador is one who is given the authority and power of another. For instance, the President cannot be in every country dealing with business. That poses quite a problem, so he appoints ambassadors. The ambassadors speak for the President with the full power and authority of the President. We are Christ’s ambassador. Christ is seated at the right hand of the Father and will come again. But he has left his Spirit who works through his Church. We are to speak Christ’s words and we are to do Christ’s work in the world. And it is all to be done as Christ would do it. Loving and forgiving.
Reconciliation is not an easy thing. It only happens by Christ. And the lengths to which Christ went is the measure of the cost of reconciliation. Our reconciliation was only by his persecution, his suffering, his death. He became the sin of man that we may become the righteousness of God. If people are to know this love of the Father, it is going to start by knowing the love of Christ in the love of His Church. To the glory of God: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.
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