A Fourth Church Sermon by Adam H. Fronczek

March 14, 2010 | 4:00 p.m.

Making Mistakes

Adam H. Fronczek
Associate Pastor, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Luke 15:11b–32
2 Corinthians 5:16–21

One of the things pastors hope to understand is why people come to church. I’m sure there are all kinds of reasons why people come to church; I’m sure if I stood here and tried to list potential reasons why any of you are here today, I would get some of the reasons right, and I would miss others. I’ll throw out just one possibility tonight: I think many of us come to church looking for something different than what we experience in the rest of our lives.

Many of us walk through our daily lives and observe things all around us that are not the way they are supposed to be. Again, I could make a list, and I’d get some of the things that might be on your mind and others I would miss. There’s a wide range of things that might be on that list. You might look around our world and be concerned today that we can’t get a worthwhile healthcare bill together and agree to pass it, or you may be concerned that you can’t stop fighting with your spouse or your kids or your parents. You may be concerned about the way the United States is exercising our military and diplomatic strength in the Middle East or about the way we’re not doing so in parts of Africa, or you may be frustrated that your job is unfair and your boss is mean to you. You may be concerned about the outrageous amount of gun violence in our city or the way it is strategically kept away from this nice neighborhood, or you may be concerned about the reality that some of us have no problem spending $16 on a cheeseburger while others are unable to get anything to eat at all. These are all things that are not the way it’s supposed to be. And in the midst of this list of things that are not the way they are supposed to be, maybe you come to church hoping for a sign of something different or better; maybe you come hoping to forget for a little while. Maybe you are even a little disturbed that I brought these things up at all when all you wanted to do is get away into this quiet space and pray.

Whatever your reason for being here tonight, welcome. I want you to know that if you are here looking for something different than what is out there, I think you have come to the right place. We often read the Bible and find its words very foreign or disconnected from our own daily lives in the twenty-first century. But I want you to know that if you read closely a passage like the one I read tonight from 2 Corinthians, it is difficult to deny that the Christians who wrote it, and the ones to whom it made sense, really felt like being a Christian made a fundamental difference in their lives; it made them different from the way they had been before they were Christians, and it made them different from others they knew who were not Christians.

Their world was more similar to ours than you might think. Let me tell you a little of what we know about it. In the first decades and centuries after the life of Jesus, when Christianity was born, the Roman Empire was nearing its apex of power. Rome was an incredibly powerful center of influence and wealth. The disparity between rich and poor was enormous. There was a serious crisis of leadership as each successive emperor inherited an office full of power that he did not work to create; most of the later emperors led dissolute lives characterized by indiscriminate sex and unchecked violence. Their appetites for all that was base and unjust trickled down to the general populace, who derived their own entertainment from attending the Roman games, where people were torn limb from limb by animals or clothed in oil-soaked garments and set on fire while crowds watched and cheered.

It seems a long time ago and a world away, but if you think these people have nothing in common with us, think again. Consider the way they lived and the way we live. Have you wondered why our politicians and professional athletes and civic and business and church leaders set such a bad example? Have you asked yourself in 2010, “Why is there such a crisis of leadership?” Have you looked at the list of reality programming and daytime talk shows and wondered to yourself, “Why do so many of us get our entertainment by tuning in to view the misfortunes of others?” You might know the world of the first Christians better than you think.

The question, then, for them—and for us—seems to be, What was the appeal of Christianity? Why is it different? What are these people talking about in 2 Corinthians 5? Listen to this quote, written in the second century, by a man who had recently converted to Christianity and was trying to explain its appeal.

[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 in Callings by William Placher)

Sounds like a good way to live, no?

Like this passage, the reading from 2 Corinthians suggests that there is something about being a Christian that is quite different from not being one. “Anyone who is in Christ is a new creation,” the reading says. We Christians “no longer regard anyone from a human point of view.” Our whole way of seeing and understanding and making our own contribution to the world around us is supposed to be fundamentally different.

The parable of the prodigal son, which we also read tonight, is one of the most well-known stories in the Christian tradition. In many ways, the story of the prodigal son is a particular story about the general situation I described to you regarding life in the Roman Empire. Listen to the story again:

A young man has come of age. He has little desire to work—perhaps he never learned how—and his father has some money, and although it is a serious insult and definitely not honoring one’s father and mother, family values are at an all-time low, so this young man goes to his father and says, “Listen, I know you’re not dead yet, but can I have my inheritance now?” His father, certainly grieved but perhaps thinking that his son is a grown man and must learn to find his own way in the world, consents and gives him the money. The young man goes out into that ancient Roman world I described, a world where, particularly if you have the money, the wine flows freely and the women are a dime a dozen, and he probably spends some time watching foreign servicemen and criminals be torn apart by animals or burned in front of a crowd. He has no job, or perhaps lost it, and the debts pile up, and soon he has nothing.

You may feel no sympathy for this man, but like many in our world, he’s young and he’s stupid and he made a mistake. And there is no social safety net for people who make mistakes or whose luck runs out, so he goes home. He knows the cruelty of the world in which he lives and he knows the disrespect with which he has treated his father, so he does not return home expecting the guest house or the apartment over the garage. He returns home expecting to be treated like a slave, which is the best-case scenario, because what he deserves and expects in this culture is not to be allowed back at all. But his father forgives him and welcomes him home.

This is a story I think we can all connect with for at least two reasons. First, many of us know a family like this: parents who have a child who has gone astray in some way and they have to decide how long and how much to help that child and when to refuse to help anymore because the child needs to become an adult. We can also relate to the story because we have all made mistakes, and probably we have all made mistakes for which we do not really deserve to be forgiven. Furthermore, we can relate to this story because like that young man, we live in a harsh world where things often are not the way they are supposed to be, so whether we deserve it or not, we don’t always expect forgiveness.

For all of these reasons, not only do we understand the story of this young man who made a mistake, but we also should still understand the appeal of Christianity. For as it was once said, “[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.” Sounds like a good way to live, no?

Communion is a sign of this kind of life. That’s why we share it together here each week. This is a table like that one where the prodigal son was welcomed home. This is a table where, when we have made mistakes, God welcomes us home. This is a table where we are forgiven and sent out into the world to remember that we are called to something different.

Amen.