LENT 4

Call to Confession

We pause to consider how far we may have wandered from our home with God. Are we sometimes like a horse or mule whose temper must be curbed? Have we turned away from responsibility in order to seek shallow pleasures and selfish gratification? Or do we consider ourselves beyond reproach, looking down on those mired in the pigpens of life? Wherever we are, there is much to confess.

This call to confession relies on a reading of Luke 15:11-32, the story of the Prodigal Son. It will help you to read this story before Sunday. Few of us preachers ever actually preach about the Prodigal Son because it needs very little interpretation. Read it before Sunday and find yourselves in the story. Chances are good you will relate to either the younger or the older son.

Confession

O God we will not try to hide from you the wrong we have done or the good we have neglected. You know our transgressions. You have observed our pretensions. We have claimed too lightly the label “Christian,” for often we cut ourselves off from you and from the people we disdain. At times our rebellion leaves us hungry, alone, friendless. O God we are not worthy to be called your children. Grant us, we pray, your forgiveness and pardon and a renewed sense of who you intend us to be and to become. (Silent, personal confession)

This week talk show host Glenn Beck encouraged listeners to check their church’s website looking for the word “social justice”. To Beck, “social justice” is code for “Communism” and church members should “run” from churches which support “social justice”. I know this is just more incendiary stuff meant to attract attention. It is not an invitation to think critically and debate honestly the boundaries between personal liberty and the common good. It is just a Molotov cocktail tossed into an open window. Still, it does offer an opportunity to consider what it means to be a “Christian”. To what extent is our participation in this religion simply a pretension---a journey that we always talk about but never actually take? How likely are we to run from “social justice” not because Glenn Beck says we should but because it shames our satisfactions?

Assurance of Forgiveness

Be assured that God forgives the guilt of our sin. Happy are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sin is covered. Rejoice, for God has brought us back to life!

Third Sunday of Lent

Call to Confession

This Sunday, at 10:45 worship, we will be singing two short songs reflecting a southern, African-American Spiritual tradition. I chose these songs because I find them soulful and true-to-life. Though the words are quite simple—“You better min’ how you talk”—the theology is deep: we are accountable for how we live our lives, for what we say and how we say it. That is the lesson we will read in Luke 13:1-9.

You’d better min’ how you talk,

you’d better min’ what you talking’ about,

You got to give account in de Judgment, you’d better min’!

You’d better min’ how you shout,

you’d better min what you shoutin’ about,

You got to give account in de Judgment, you’d better min’.

Confession

Lord I’m bearin’ heavy burdens, trying to get home.

Lord, I’m climbin’ high mountains, trying to get home.

Lord, I’m standin’ hard trials, tryin’ to get home.

I chose this spiritual song as a confession after hearing news about K Latzka’s diagnosis of lung cancer. I felt a bitterness toward God for all of the cancer-stricken people I have known. The more angry I became, the more people I included in my diatribe against God. Then there was silence. Then I remembered a guy named “Job” from the Bible who said “I will not restrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul (Job 7:11)…for the arrows of the almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me” (Job 6:4). Mmm, I could hear the spiritual rising up inside me… “bearin’ heavy burdens…climbin’ high mountains…standin’ hard trials.” “Tryin’ to get home.” I am not sure how you are handling this news about K or other difficulties in your own life. Maybe you console yourself with “It is what it is” as you pack the additional burden onto an already heavy load. I turn to God in confession: “Lord, as a reasonably faithful man I suppose by now I should be able to put things like cancer into proper perspective…but I can’t. This stinks, to put it plainly.”

Assurance of Forgiveness

Will there be an assurance of God’s love? What form will it take? Will I understand why cancer exists? Will I hear what the man Job heard from God, something along the lines of “You can’t possibly fathom what is at work here…but I love you anyway!”? The very possibility of hearing a word of grace makes me crave worship-I can’t wait until Sunday to hear God’s assurances.