"A Six Word Idle Tale" March 27, 2016 Easter Morning

Isaiah 65:17-25 Luke 24: 1-12 “Former Things Shall Not Be Remembered” “Jesus Christ, Resurrected From the Dead” There is a popular tradition on Maundy Thursday and Good Friday of preaching Jesus Seven Last Words from the Cross: “My God, Why Have You Forsaken Me?” Seven is a number of wholeness and completion. As far as his humanity, this is “The End.” In answer to which, Easter morning has these Six words, six not seven, because six is an incomplete number, yet to be finished, pointing to the new Sabbath! Ernest Hemingway was once challenged to write the shortest of all stories, he used six words: “For Sale Baby Shoes, Never Worn” In those six words, we know the characters, we know what happened, we know resolution. We each fill in our personal interpretation of why, and whether this resolution ended the couple's relationship, or if through crisis and hardship created a commitment that had not been. "Improvisation" is what we do, making the story our own. Improvisation, much like musical instruments improvising in jazz, says a great deal about us as players: that we thoroughly know the story and its author and can be trusted to fill in, adding, making the story our own. Whether we are Optimists or Pessimists, whether we have hope, or believe in disappointment all depend upon our appropriating the story. A popular Internet Website has been created, identified as SMITH MAGAZINE, where people post their life own stories, the rule being that like Hemingway it must be in six words. Their first posting was “Not Quite What I Was Planning.” Their most recent post was “It All Changed In An Instant.” Steven Colbert submitted: “Well, I Though It Was Funny.” Two other submissions on a similar theme were: “I Cannot Sleep Without His Snoring” and “I Still Make Coffee For Two.” Some are clever: “Told to Marry Rich, Found Richard.” The late Screenwriter Nora Ephron wrote: Secret of Life: Marry An Italian.” We cannot control how people will react, what they may read into your life, but the six words we each choose to write say volumes about who we are and what we believe. The Bible contains over 775,000 words, all of which are turned inside out and upside down by the six words for Easter. There are over 2 Billion Christians in the world today, for whom these are the most important six words ever spoken: “Jesus Christ, Resurrected From the Dead” or as described in six words by Isaiah “Former Things Shall Not Be Remembered.” Each of the Gospels has a different jazz Improvisation on this dominant theme. Mark says A Young Man dressed in a White robe was sitting there. Matthew describes the women were greeted by an Angel descending from Heaven. John's Mary was greeted by two angels in White along with Jesus whom she recognized as a Gardener. Luke, today's Gospel has the women in the dark, before dawn, reaching the tomb they find it open and peer into the hole behind the rock. That is how death often feels to us. Holy, Mystical, Primordial, Earthy, but frustrating blackness and shadows we cannot see clearly, we do not understand. All they see at first, all that their minds can allow is “He is Not Here: Stole Him.” For all of us there is a piece of that with death too. We had them, we loved, comforted and held them, then they are stolen by death. Luke says “Two dazzling men stood with them.” What a marvelous description, not men in robes, not simply in white... “Dazzle” like a pressed white shirt, like new Tennis shoes on the first day of Spring, like the finest Table cloth at the finest meal, Brighter than anything we have ever seen. Dazzle is disturbing, but in a good way. In Greek, verbs are very important, and here, the strangers do not sit on a rock or fall from heaven, Dazzle and Bedazzle stood with the women. Death can make us feel alone and isolated and vulnerable. When others stand with us, we feel in solidarity, we feel empowered by being with others. Luke claims the women had been terrified, when the two men asked “Why Seek Life Among the Dead? Jesus Is Resurrected From the Dead.” The idea is as simple as being hopeful instead of depressed, as simple as believing instead of doubt. Suddenly, the women no longer assumed he must have been stolen from us, instead they believed he was no longer dead, he was alive, because dead bodies can not move, the living move and breathe and eat and drink, and we can seek him. They required no greater explanation, God Resurrected Jesus from the Dead. Different from Lazarus being brought back from death. God conquered death! Through the covenant commitment of Jesus with God, God conquered anything that could separate us from the love of God. Christ came. Christ died. LIFE again! Now to be certain we knew who this happened to, Luke names it was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the Mother of James, and also the other women, who ran to tell the disciples, but they dismissed what they said as an idle tale. Dead is dead. Dazzling Men. Resurrection. It is all illogical. This must be silly. But Peter needed to believe. Everyone always blames Judas as betraying Jesus, but Peter, Peter denied Jesus, denied being one of Jesus' Disciples, Peter denied even knowing Jesus. That is a pretty dark place reflecting on the final words we said to someone. Peter ran to the tomb, Peter peered down into the darkness of the grave, and although he did not see two dazzling figures in white, he did see Jesus was gone and the White cloths that had covered Jesus dead body were not where they had been, not bunched up or thrown aside as grave robbers might do, but folded up in a place as no longer needed. Peter went home, amazed by what he had seen and heard. Have you ever been where Peter was... sitting with death? Sitting in doubt, wondering if life after death could be possible, if God could be possible? Sitting alone, grieving what has been taken from you, you feel anger, you feel doubt, you want control, You certainly cannot see God, or believe God is going to sit with you. I have been there, been right here, sitting in tears questioning God, challenging reality that you have nothing to learn from his situation. Just because we pray, does not mean we get answers, not the answers we expect or want, and not right away. But I have found there can be answers that undercut the reality I thought I knew and give hope for a different future. Isaiah's prophesy, which undergirds and explains the Gospel is “God Creates New Heaven, New Earth. The Former things shall not be remembered.” What if you had assurance that all the stuff in the past, the words of anger and pity, and hurt, the things we left unfulfilled... What if you had assurance, not that it did not matter (because it did at the time, it did to us) but what if you had assurance all those former things were forgiven? If all creation, everything on earth, everything in heaven, were changed into something new by God, and stepping through into this new reality, the past shall not be remembered or brought to mind by anyone.

"Easter's Precursor", Palm Sunday March 20, 2016

John 12: 20-36 Isaiah 60 All Glory, Laud and Honor to Thee, Redeemer King! Today is Palm Sunday, the Climax, God and the World have been awaiting since the dawn of Creation. Genesis 1 began with God setting the rhythm for all Time and Space to sing Glory to God. That was the Original Divine Purpose of Life, of all Creation to sing Glory to God. In the beginning when all was a Waste and Void, God brooded over the face of deep unordered chaos. God commanded “Let there be light!” and there was light, in rhythmic balance with darkness, every day following every night. And God said: “It is good!” God separated the waters of chaos in the Heaven from the waters of chaos on Earth with an atmosphere and God separated the waters on the earth into seas, and fresh lakes, rivers and streams. And God said: “It is good!” God created plants in the seas and other plants on the land, each with their own seeds. And God said: “It is good!” God populated the heavens with stars and moons and constellations. God populated the seas with fish, swarms of living creatures; and on land, God populated with every living creature, reptile, bird and mammal. And God said: “It is good!” Beethoven Sang Glory to God, in penning the Ode to Joy. “Hearts like flowers open to the sun above.” Earth and Heaven reflect God's love. Stars and angels sing with field and forest, vale and mountain, flowery meadow, flashing sea.” The Gloria Patri, one of our most ancient elements of worship, reminds of the Order of all things: “Glory be to the Father, to the Son, to the Holy Ghost, as it was in the Beginning, is now and ever shall be, world without end.” The baby in the house knows God's Rhythm and Divine Purpose. Lying in the crib before fully awake. She does not yet know her name. She does not know the name of God, she cannot run or talk, but with the morning dawn, with the birds singing, the baby sings a baby's song Glorifying God. George Gershwin on a train from NY to Boston wrote “Rhapsody in Blue” feeling the clickety clack of the train, the steely rhythms, the bells and whistles, everything we often hear as distractions, Gershwin heard as “music in the heart of noise.” He described that rhapsody as The Music of the City, of life. Finally 1000 years after Abraham, 500 years after Moses, finally The Prophet Isaiah, High Priest of the Temple at Jerusalem, in the 60th Chapter of Isaiah prophesied “Arise shine; for Your light has come. The Glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness shall cover the earth, thick darkness the peoples. But the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. The nations shall come to your light, kings to the brightness of your rising.” Isaiah prophesied that the purpose of God's people being chosen as a royal priesthood, being Elect, was not to believe they were better or worse than anyone else, not to sit on their laurels as an Empire; but for all the Nations to witness God's Glory through Israel and for all the Nations in turn to come to God, to worship, to sing God's Glory. 700 years after Isaiah, on this day, some Greeks finally did! They came asking Jesus' disciple Phillip who was a Greek from Bethsaida; Phillip went to Andrew, and together they came to Jesus to announce: “Some Greeks have come to Jerusalem asking to see the Lord wanting to sing glory to God.” We should not be so surprised it took so many centuries, not when we have been fighting with one another, and killing those who also believe in Jesus for the last 2000 years! We have developed a warped understanding of “Glory.” Glory is not notoriety. Glory is not how many Tweets, or followers you have. Glory has nothing to do with awards or medals, or degrees. Glory means to recognize the True Nature of a being. What they are about. Who they really are, at times revealing even more about our identity than we know? I would confess that this is the point at which I struggle celebrating Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday ought to be this incredible celebration, because it is one of the few events identified in all 4 Gospels: Christmas did not get into all four. The Lord's Prayer is not identified in all four. The parables of The Good Samaritan & Prodigal Son, only made it into Luke. The Beatitudes are only in two gospels. But as much as we know This is The Climax of each of the Gospels of Jesus Christ; as much as Greeks coming to Jesus is fulfillment of Isaiah's prophesy; as much as finally humanity is trying to fulfill God's Divine Purpose for us by singing God's Glory; STILL we know what is coming... We know Palm Sunday is only the pen-ultimate climax! As much as today people cheer Hosanna, by Friday the crowds will shout Crucify. I explained my frustration to my son who is a GeoPhysicist studying in Alaska and California, and he responded “There is a name for this with Earthquakes, Palm Sunday is: The Precursor.” When an earthquake happens in Alaska, scientists track the shock triggering More Powerful later earthquakes coming to California. Geologists are developing a whole Early Warning System, just as we do for storms, so they can slow down subway trains, evacuate elevators before the Big One. Then he said two other things: So far, with everything scientists think they know, we have gotten this to as much as 6 seconds from the first climax event to warning people about the the big one coming on the 7th. And, as much as people think earthquakes are seismic and about vibration, this “precursor” is reflected in “light.” Causing me to wonder. Light is too familiar, in the Beginning, in Christ being the Light, Maundy Thursday we will have a Tenebrae service of increasing dark, and even in Earthquake Precursors. As the time between the first climax and the big One is 6 seconds, Palm Sunday being six days before Easter, instead of Palm Sunday being the Climax unto itself, Palm Sunday is the PreCursor of Easter. For Jesus, this becomes the point of No Return. We have each experienced that “point of no return” when hiking you struggle to reach a plateau and recognize you cannot climb back down! When you have been pregnant for nine months, you have been having contractions for 43 hours and now they tell you to start pushing! When standing before everyone you know, you look into the eyes of the person you love, seeing their searching for commitment and you state that for better and worse, in sickness and in health, you can be depended upon. Jesus declares that he is scared! He would rather this cup pass, but he came to provide salvation that could only come by his suffering, death and resurrection. This is no simple thing for Jesus, or for us, knowing he dragged us onto the cross with him saying “If anyone serves me, they must follow me.” Being Christian does not mean listening to Gospel music on the radio, putting a fish on your car, or showing up for worship. Being Christian requires that you not stand up for your desires, but that you do stand up, even lay down your life: for the needs of others. There is no courage in denying that you fear, courage is admitting you are afraid and moving forward. What happens on Palm Sunday is that finally, finally after the whole of all four Gospels Jesus has come to Jerusalem; after the 700 years since Isaiah, Greeks recognized in the Passover the need to find God and did so through Jesus Christ; after the whole history of the world, humanity joined the rest of Creation is singing God's Glory. But also, after this and as a Precursor of Easter, Jesus declared “Father, Glorify your name.” And God responded “I Have glorified it and I AM will Glorify it again. Palm Sunday as we reveal and discover who we really are, as we sing Glory to God claiming our identity as Creatures of God's Creation, God reveals who God is and the greater Glory only made possible by Jesus' following through for our Salvation.

"The Greater Scandal" March 13, 2016

Deuteronomy 15:1-8 Isaiah 43: 16-21 John 12:1-8 This week it was reported 150 Job Applications had been recovered of International Applicants to ISIS. More than Military Information, the scandal of this, is that over half made application to be Suicide Bombers. That their goal in life, their purpose, what each longed to grow up to be was DEAD and to cause others deaths with them. The Greatest Scandal is that when offered eternal everlasting life with God in the Garden, Humanity selfishly chose death instead. The point of Easter, the whole point of Christian Faith in the resurrection, is that death shall have no power, no fear to isolate us, that death does not have the last word. Instead of suicide bombers, the final and eternal hope is community. This day is more than the Start of Daylight Savings Time, more than indication of the coming Spring, According to the Bible readings we are six days before the Beginning of Passover. As much as we are Christian, we cannot forget that Jesus' Passion also fulfills the Scandalous Death of the First Born, Sacrifice by the Lamb of God for the redemption and salvation of the world! This means next Sunday we sing “The Palms.” It means that next Sunday is Palm Sunday with Jesus triumphal entry into Jerusalem where the pace of the story escalates to his Last Supper, his Betrayal, his Trial, His Crucifixion, his Death and Burial, AND After, our hope and expectation of the Resurrection of Easter! Instead of Death, living in the past with our fears recognize: God is Doing a New Thing! As today is 6 days before; today is also Days After. Yesterday being Saturday was the 7th Day, Jewish Sabbath. The day before that, Jesus had called Lazarus out of Death's Tomb. 3 days before, Lazarus had died. For several days before that, Lazarus had been ill to death, laying in bed with fever, vomiting and diarrhea, the windows of the house shut, the air in this still, hot dry village dead as so many visitors came and went, weeping, mourning, burning incense, bringing cut flowers that had died. WOW! Can you smell that? This house is filled with the stench of death! It is like when the Garbage trucks have been driving for days in August on their way to the Landfill. Death is the smell of bacteria decomposing, death is offensive, causing our bodies to withdraw and shudder. Not only the physical reality of Lazarus' illness and death; but the number of all the strangers, the incense; then also anointing Lazarus' dead body, the meals in that house for three nights before Jesus' coming, plus the Sabbath, smells of stale curry, garlic, 3 day old fish, lamb, all hanging in the dead air. Making the stench worse was Lazarus himself. He did not rise like Jesus on Easter Morning with the scent of lilies. No, Lazarus is The Walking Dead, the lifeless corpse of the past. When Jesus finally arrived at the tomb, he wept for the power given to death, he wept for loss, he wept for the scandal of life giving up; Lazarus and Mary's sister warned “LORD, there is going to be a stink!” Then Jesus' called out Lazarus, Jesus screamed, scaring death away, but there is nothing in that story about new life in the body of Lazarus. Jesus and the 12, Lazarus, Martha and Mary, all are there inside the house for dinner, they had the smell of FEAR on them, when suddenly Mary did something scandalous for an unmarried woman A) Mary let down her hair. B) Mary took a lavish amount of the most costly perfume and broke open the container. (When Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes were married supposedly she wore Clive Christian Number 1 Imperial Perfume, 2 ounces of which would cost most of us half a year's salary!) And Mary opened a Pound of the Stuff! Imagine the invigorating smells of Eucalyptus and Mint suddenly opened in that place of death. C)Mary did not anoint Jesus' head, as a King before his coronation, she anointed his feet as for the dead D) Mary not only anointed his feet, she rubbed it in with her hair! Any of these four would be embarrassing, but the Greater Scandals are these 1) the personal intimacy of Mary with her Savior. This is not Philosophical, not theoretical, but real. 2) She gave everything to this act of faith, without reservation. 3) In the presence of her brother's death, her anointing dared name Jesus' coming death, which he repeatedly had said “Tell No One”. 4) Rubbing the perfume into his feet with her hair, the scent of him and the excesses of the perfume would have been upon her afterward. While each of the Gospels describes this same story, John connects this with Jesus' closest friends, his adopted family: Martha, Mary and Lazarus; and John does two new and unique things with the story. Later, when Jesus prepares to share His Last Supper with his disciples, he strips and washes their feet drying them with the towel covering his waist. Jesus' using this washing as His Command to serve one another is a piece of what is different in Lazarus death and Jesus' resurrection to eternal life. Second, when she makes this personal extravagant gift, Judas argues why this was not used for the poor and Jesus quotes Deuteronomy 15 which we used in our Call to Worship this morning. According to a professor at Notre Dame: In the Ancient World Kings, Caesars and Aristocracy were in the top 1%. Moving down the Social Ladder, Tax Collectors, Police, Scribes and Priests were responsible for 5-9% of the economy. The merchants, farmers and fishermen represented 75% of the economy, who owned no worldly goods but worked at subsistence to survive each day, taxed for the land & lakes where they worked, for the nets & plows they used, taxed again for what they took out of the land & water, and for what they earned. Finally, below these were the Poor: the Untouchables, the Lepers, the Beggars, the Prostitutes, the Criminals made up the bottom 15% of the society. The distinction here, was not in how much or how little the poor earned compared to the Working Class, but that the Subsistence Working Class were connected as a community, while the Poor/ the ptochos had lost all Family and Friends and Connection, and means of making a difference, so they were forced to depend on receiving. In Deuteronomy, Moses made the point there will always be poor: the 1% always tax the 75%, therefore there will always be those without the power, without connection, forced to depend on receiving. In recent years, we have had Memorials for a generation who knew Subsistence. These are remembered by their children and grandchildren as able to sweat pipes, wire circuit boxes, pour footers and plaster. There were Family Farmers and Salesmen, who worked to put food on the table and a roof over the heads of their family. Somehow today, we have adopted the dream, of retiring at an early age with millions of dollars in our private portfolios. But the reality is that the 75% who had been at subsistence income have joined the 15% by losing connection to family and friends and community. Was it scandalous that Jesus, declared that there will always be Poor among you? Yes, but the greater scandal is that this has been the way the world of human society is designed to work. Was it scandalous that Mary break convention to let down her hair in public, for Mary to use an extravagant gift on Jesus, for Mary to anoint his feet as for burial of the dead, and for Mary to intimately touch his feet with her hair? Absolutely, but the Greater Scandal is that Death has been seen as the End. Her gift while providing an overwhelming scent that tingles the skin, came in contrast to the stench of lifeless death. Mary's Scandalous actions, Jesus Scandalous words, echo the prophecy of God through Isaiah, that God is doing A New Thing. Our Creator, in times of old was the Liberator judging and destroying Egypt; now is asking us to respond in faith, to live into a different reality where death is not The End. The Theologian Paul Tillich described that Growth always demands Sacrifice; something must be left in order to accept what is new. “If the new were part of the old, you would already see it as a possibility but instead God asks: “Can you see it?” recognizing that newness requires breaking the Cocoon. “Remember Not” is not a command of Forgetting, an absence of memory. Remember, this is the people commanded to remember their ancestor was a wandering Aramean, to remember the Poor and Sojourner, and to remember when you come into the Land promised you, remember who gave it to you. “Remember Not Former Things” is recognition of what we choose to remember and what we choose to forget, what we find on earth and what we lose, and the fears we free ourselves from. This morning we are invited to live a scandalous life, where our scandalous words and actions: HOPE, RESURRECTION, REDEMPTION, help others to recognize the scandals we have taken for granted.

"Preposterous Grace" March 6, 2016

Jonah 1: 1-6 Luke 15: 1-3 & 11-24 There needs to be a disclaimer before this sermon begins, that you cannot try to explain a joke, and this morning we explain two; which most people never recognized as being jokes. Parables are not only stories, they are exaggerated Satire. Like Jonah, the Two Sons and the Pharisees, we have no problem with “Forgiveness as a Concept” per se similar to someone else saying “Bless you” when we sneeze, but we have a hard time with GRACE: the limitless, unmerited, undeserved extent of God's Forgiveness, and Who God Forgives. The Grace of God is so unrealistic as to be Preposterous! When something is so far outside our expectations as to be ludicrous, you do not simply report the idea, you embellish and create an outlandish story or joke to emphasize how totally impossible this really is. Except, that with God NOTHING is impossible! AND because these stories are in the Bible and have been preached on so often, people no longer recognize them as being exaggerated satire, but Sacred. One minister preached on the Prodigal Son for a 16 week Sermon Series, at the end of which a woman at the door said “I am not certain about he or his father, but after this, I am sorry he ran away from home.” The Bible is the Sacred Word of God, but the Bible also speaks to the circumstance of Human Beings, and as such Scripture includes all the different moods of people like us. The problem when stories become too familiar is they lose their cutting edge, and parables like this become something more like a Self-Help Story for Adult Children: that you can always go home; completely missing the Satire of a rebuttal to our asking “Why does Jesus eat with Sinners!” or “Why prophesy grace, repentance, forgiveness to our enemies?” The people of faith had begun taking themselves too seriously, as if better than their enemies. They demanded Repentance in order to receive Grace, rather than the other way around. They began being divisive, unable to accept or forgive anyone who disagreed with them, let alone sinned against them, blaming anyone who was an enemy. Were they racist, Yes. Were they judgmental, Yes. Did they deserve punishment from God: Yes... Are we also racist, and do we deserve judgment? Probably! In the time of Israel's Wars with Iran, Iraq and Afghanistan, there was a Joke about how GOD's Grace in forgiveness of our enemies being Preposterous... God gave a prophecy to a Prophet, telling him to go to their enemy and say: “You are being Sinful.” All of which sounds simple, right? Except, the prophet knew God to be forgiving, and he did not want them forgiven. So he did not go North where he was sent by God, he went in the opposite direction, and he used his money to pay his way to get away from God and where God intended he should go as a Prophet to prophesy. So what did God do? God spit in Jonah's face with the Wind of Chaos! When you envision sailors, it is not as characters from Downton Abbey, but the Sailors on Black Sails. Yet the Sailors were each so afraid, they cried out to their gods and began to destroy the ship, to lighten their load from sinking. In the Ship that had been headed down South before being dragged down, Jonah was down in the bottom of the ship, where he laid down, and he was in the depths of sleep. In the midst of the chaos, the sailors became so desperate, the Captain left the helm and went down into the bottom of the ship to wake the “Dream-Interpreter” from sleep. And the sailors used the most corrupt way they knew for discerning the truth, they threw Craps: doing what they were told, they threw Jonah into the waters of chaos. Then the sailors recognized God to be God and sacrificed for their sins. As absurd as this is, we know that sinking in the water a Fish swallowed Jonah, taking him down a 3 day journey down to the foundations of the Earth. In addition to being a story of sarcasm, the emphases on going DOWN, away from God makes this is a story of depression. But when Jonah turns to pray to God, immediately, the fish is on the surface, vomiting him up, right on the shore of Ninevah where God wanted him to be. Wet & Stinking of Fish Guts, Jonah began to Prophesy, but not the Prophecy God gave him. Jonah prophesied: “There is no hope/ There Can Be No Forgiveness! God will destroy You.” Then Jonah sat down to watch. But the Enemy Repented, and God forgave the King and all the people of Ninevah, God even forgave the animals dressed in sackcloth and ashes! While Jonah sat unmoved, saying “See, I told you! God is too forgiving!” To which God asked: “And Are you angry about that?” Which Jonah says: “YES, Angry enough to die!” Every word is dripping with satire about us. Hundreds of years later, in the circumstance of Jesus, the target of righteous anger from this people was no longer Ninevah, but Sinners/Tax Collectors/Prostitutes among us, and Jesus consorting with them! Some have come to believe, we know this story too well, we skip over the hard stuff and before the Son ever leaves home, we already smell the Fatted Calf cooking and hear the seamstresses remaking the best robes. FIRST, Jesus identifies this is Not a story about The Younger Son needing Forgiveness. It is not a story about the Elder Son. There was a Man, who had two sons makes this a story about God. My father used to have a Bumper sticker that announced to the world: “We are spending or children's inheritance” because our inheritance was his property. Then again, he was furious after he had been in the hospital, saying “I gave my sons Power of Health Care & Power of Attorney but I never intended that you should use it!” Here, the younger son comes saying “Father, I wish you were dead, so I could have my inheritance.” And instead of being insulted, instead of reacting, this father, who must be the most understanding and gracious father in history, This father who is ___, gave the son what he asked! Being a fool what do we expect, suddenly possessing everything he ever wanted, the son wastes it, winding up not only broke, but so in debt as to be an indentured servant to a Gentile Pig Farmer, there could be nothing worse. As a Jew, wallowing in mud with Pigs was as low as you could fall. He was so far down in the social order, not even the Pigs would give him a bite to eat. He decided that his father's slaves were better off than he, so turned around, to go to his father asking to be a servant. What Jesus did not identify, which at the time would have needed no explanation, were two things: FIRST, that when someone shamed a respected family, or respected member of that family, the whole community felt responsibility to shame the individual before allowing them to darken their family's door. In that way, not much is different from our own community. They had rotten tomatoes, tar and feathers waiting for this bad-boy to come home. SECOND, that a Patriarch lived his life on pride and prestige, power and absolute control. Can you imagine Carson or the Dowager Countess running?! Demonstrating how preposterous is God's Grace, Love and forgiveness,... this Father runs through the Village streets, with his robes flapping in the wind, as demonstration of the unbounded love he has for a child returning home, AND his running to spare his son the shame and ridicule of the community. I think what Jesus was saying was: “Eat with Sinners? God would run to shield others from Shame and give those in need a drink out of my own cup and feed them from my own body and blood.” As if to make the story even more pointed, realize that while the Younger Son Sinned embarrassing their Father, and Repented and came home and was Received; the Elder Son also sinned bringing embarrassment on their Father in front of all their family and friends, yet the story ends without his choosing to come inside... UNLIMITED/UNMERITED GRACE offered but not yet REPENTANCE. Something I never saw before, is that in the story, the Elder is never referred to as Elder Brother, but only as Elder Son, because when the younger left, the Elder claimed to no longer have a brother. We named last week that Repentance does not simply mean saying “I am sorry.” Repentance is stopping to re-examine who God is and what life is about. So for the Prodigal: Repentance becomes what it takes for him to ever say “Father” again. While for the Elder: Repentance is learning to say “Brother” again.