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!