Revelation 21:1-7 (New International Version)
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.
The Prodigal Son story is found in Luke 15:11-32
Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.
2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
3 And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.
4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”
5 He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”
6 He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.
7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children.
The Prodigal Son story is found in Luke 15:11-32
Reflection
Acknowledgment, confession, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation. Our Bible is chock full of stories that reflect just that progression.
Every time the Israelites fail and start worshipping false idols, the prophets pull them back and they repent and God forgives them and there is a reconciliation between God and the faithful-faithless people.
One of those passages is found in:
Isaiah 57:1-14 (NIV) with God speaking to the Israelites:
The righteous perish,
and no one takes it to heart;
the devout are taken away,
and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
to be spared from evil.
2 Those who walk uprightly
enter into peace;
they find rest as they lie in death.
3 “But you—come here, you children of a sorceress,
you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!
4 Who are you mocking?
At whom do you sneer
and stick out your tongue?
Are you not a brood of rebels,
the offspring of liars?
5 You burn with lust among the oaks
and under every spreading tree;
you sacrifice your children in the ravines
and under the overhanging crags.
6 The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion; indeed, they are your lot.
Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings
and offered grain offerings.
In view of all this, should I relent?
7 You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill;
there you went up to offer your sacrifices.
8 Behind your doors and your doorposts
you have put your pagan symbols.
Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed,
you climbed into it and opened it wide;
you made a pact with those whose beds you love,
and you looked with lust on their naked bodies.
11 “Whom have you so dreaded and feared
that you have not been true to me,
and have neither remembered me
nor taken this to heart?
Is it not because I have long been silent
that you do not fear me?
12 I will expose your righteousness and your works,
and they will not benefit you.
13 When you cry out for help,
let your collection of idols save you!
The wind will carry all of them off,
a mere breath will blow them away.
But whoever takes refuge in me
will inherit the land
and possess my holy mountain.”
14 And it will be said:
“Build up, build up, prepare the road!
Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”
In the New Testament Jesus tells us stories; like The Prodigal Son, where a son, who leaves home, soon realizes that he has squandered his inheritance and goes back home, confessing his waywardness and begging the forgiveness of his father. He pleads for a job as a farm hand rather than his old place at the table, and the father embraces him and calls for a feast because his love for his son is greater than any misdeed of his son and they are reconciled one to the other; father and son. And then, the father turns around to his other son, who is sulking in the doorway, jealous of his brother and also needing his father’s love - and his father’s forgiveness. Confession, forgiveness, reconciliation.
It’s funny, we talk about being reconciled in our everyday language and what we mean is that we accept the reality of the situation; whatever it may be. We are reconciled to our fate, our work, our lives, our family; and it means that we face up to those things as they are, as they present themselves, as opposed to our fantasy or nightmare. We recognize reality; the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, and in that recognition we can embrace it, we can work with it, we can change it. Being reconciled allows us a certain freedom that was not there before, when we were trying to fit it neatly in a box and in the process squishing it all to get it in there, cutting off and out all kinds of things – not even noticing how much just wasn’t fitting into that particular box – friends, family, marriage, work, religion, church, life, Canadian history, climate change, economics, the list and boxes goes on.
I have a note on my computer with a quote from James Baldwin, it reads: “Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced”.
It reminds me that the more we know about something, the clearer our thinking may be – we might not like knowing it but that clarity may bring with it a wisdom, an openness, maybe even, a fearlessness to live into an unknown future.
I know it sounds pretty vague and nebulous, but think about those Israelites in Isaiah, worshipping false gods, sacrificing at alters willy-nilly, bringing idols into their homes, God sounds pretty mad about it all and yet this same God says: turn away from those gods and come back to me, confess your sins, change your heart, all will be forgiven, we will be reconciled and you will be my people again. God is welcoming them home with open arms, like the father in the Prodigal son, like us when we confess, like us when we forgive, like us when there is reconciliation one to another.
This God of love is the exact opposite image to that of St. Peter standing at the gates of heaven with a tally book in his hand and a list of names. The God revealed to us in Jesus the Christ is a God of welcome, “in my father’s house there are many rooms” and in it there is room for all. There is room for the wayward Israelites, there is room for the prodigal son and his brother, there is room for you and me and our neighbours – all of them, there is room.
And my suspicion is that we don’t always like that the God of love is so open maybe a little too open for us, we want to know that all our effort has been worth it, we are like the prodigal’s brother – just a little bit, we want to know that God has noticed our goodness, we want our good deeds to count. And they do, don’t they?- of course, they do.
Our lives matter, how we live matters, what we do or don’t do matters; and that is why as this confession, forgiveness, reconciliation matters. The whole process is a reflective process that is life giving, life changing, life flourishing, life abundant.
Confession acknowledges who we are and what we have done / not done; forgiveness of others and ourselves opens the door of our hearts because it is dependent upon compassion, seeing others are just like us despite appearances to the contrary, compassion blurs the lines to those things that divide and separate us and reconciliation is the acceptances that embraces the differences with open arms.
We know that life doesn’t always work according to this paradigm but it is a blueprint, it’s a plan that allows for a new beginning, it allows for relationship to begin again in a new way again and again, like Israel and God, like the prodigal father and his sons, like us. It allows for movement forward that is more than a repetition of the past or an endless progression of the present; it provides the opportunity for real change and the possibility of a better future.
The more I think about it, the more I understand that reconciliation has to do with what we heard about from Ezekiel last week: when God in his great goodness turns our “hearts of stone into hearts of flesh”.
The goal of reconciliation is the vision in Revelation 21 of “a new heaven and a new earth”, a vision revealed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), a new way of being in relation to everyone, a vision of peace for everyone, of enough for everyone, of freedom from fear, oppression, and violence. It is a vision of open arms and open hearts and open minds.
The whole purpose of the process of reconciliation is that change of heart; to be reconciled with each other, to be reconciled nation to nation, to be reconciled with God – we need a change of heart. It all has to do with hearts: hearts of compassion, open hearts, soft hearts, vulnerable hearts.
That is the vision of God’s kingdom here on earth, the vision of God’s Kin-dom here and now – that is the Good News Jesus revealed to us and for us.
May we live into such a Kin-dom Amen
Acknowledgment, confession, repentance, forgiveness, reconciliation. Our Bible is chock full of stories that reflect just that progression.
Every time the Israelites fail and start worshipping false idols, the prophets pull them back and they repent and God forgives them and there is a reconciliation between God and the faithful-faithless people.
One of those passages is found in:
Isaiah 57:1-14 (NIV) with God speaking to the Israelites:
The righteous perish,
and no one takes it to heart;
the devout are taken away,
and no one understands
that the righteous are taken away
to be spared from evil.
2 Those who walk uprightly
enter into peace;
they find rest as they lie in death.
3 “But you—come here, you children of a sorceress,
you offspring of adulterers and prostitutes!
4 Who are you mocking?
At whom do you sneer
and stick out your tongue?
Are you not a brood of rebels,
the offspring of liars?
5 You burn with lust among the oaks
and under every spreading tree;
you sacrifice your children in the ravines
and under the overhanging crags.
6 The idols among the smooth stones of the ravines are your portion; indeed, they are your lot.
Yes, to them you have poured out drink offerings
and offered grain offerings.
In view of all this, should I relent?
7 You have made your bed on a high and lofty hill;
there you went up to offer your sacrifices.
8 Behind your doors and your doorposts
you have put your pagan symbols.
Forsaking me, you uncovered your bed,
you climbed into it and opened it wide;
you made a pact with those whose beds you love,
and you looked with lust on their naked bodies.
11 “Whom have you so dreaded and feared
that you have not been true to me,
and have neither remembered me
nor taken this to heart?
Is it not because I have long been silent
that you do not fear me?
12 I will expose your righteousness and your works,
and they will not benefit you.
13 When you cry out for help,
let your collection of idols save you!
The wind will carry all of them off,
a mere breath will blow them away.
But whoever takes refuge in me
will inherit the land
and possess my holy mountain.”
14 And it will be said:
“Build up, build up, prepare the road!
Remove the obstacles out of the way of my people.”
In the New Testament Jesus tells us stories; like The Prodigal Son, where a son, who leaves home, soon realizes that he has squandered his inheritance and goes back home, confessing his waywardness and begging the forgiveness of his father. He pleads for a job as a farm hand rather than his old place at the table, and the father embraces him and calls for a feast because his love for his son is greater than any misdeed of his son and they are reconciled one to the other; father and son. And then, the father turns around to his other son, who is sulking in the doorway, jealous of his brother and also needing his father’s love - and his father’s forgiveness. Confession, forgiveness, reconciliation.
It’s funny, we talk about being reconciled in our everyday language and what we mean is that we accept the reality of the situation; whatever it may be. We are reconciled to our fate, our work, our lives, our family; and it means that we face up to those things as they are, as they present themselves, as opposed to our fantasy or nightmare. We recognize reality; the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, and in that recognition we can embrace it, we can work with it, we can change it. Being reconciled allows us a certain freedom that was not there before, when we were trying to fit it neatly in a box and in the process squishing it all to get it in there, cutting off and out all kinds of things – not even noticing how much just wasn’t fitting into that particular box – friends, family, marriage, work, religion, church, life, Canadian history, climate change, economics, the list and boxes goes on.
I have a note on my computer with a quote from James Baldwin, it reads: “Not everything that is faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced”.
It reminds me that the more we know about something, the clearer our thinking may be – we might not like knowing it but that clarity may bring with it a wisdom, an openness, maybe even, a fearlessness to live into an unknown future.
I know it sounds pretty vague and nebulous, but think about those Israelites in Isaiah, worshipping false gods, sacrificing at alters willy-nilly, bringing idols into their homes, God sounds pretty mad about it all and yet this same God says: turn away from those gods and come back to me, confess your sins, change your heart, all will be forgiven, we will be reconciled and you will be my people again. God is welcoming them home with open arms, like the father in the Prodigal son, like us when we confess, like us when we forgive, like us when there is reconciliation one to another.
This God of love is the exact opposite image to that of St. Peter standing at the gates of heaven with a tally book in his hand and a list of names. The God revealed to us in Jesus the Christ is a God of welcome, “in my father’s house there are many rooms” and in it there is room for all. There is room for the wayward Israelites, there is room for the prodigal son and his brother, there is room for you and me and our neighbours – all of them, there is room.
And my suspicion is that we don’t always like that the God of love is so open maybe a little too open for us, we want to know that all our effort has been worth it, we are like the prodigal’s brother – just a little bit, we want to know that God has noticed our goodness, we want our good deeds to count. And they do, don’t they?- of course, they do.
Our lives matter, how we live matters, what we do or don’t do matters; and that is why as this confession, forgiveness, reconciliation matters. The whole process is a reflective process that is life giving, life changing, life flourishing, life abundant.
Confession acknowledges who we are and what we have done / not done; forgiveness of others and ourselves opens the door of our hearts because it is dependent upon compassion, seeing others are just like us despite appearances to the contrary, compassion blurs the lines to those things that divide and separate us and reconciliation is the acceptances that embraces the differences with open arms.
We know that life doesn’t always work according to this paradigm but it is a blueprint, it’s a plan that allows for a new beginning, it allows for relationship to begin again in a new way again and again, like Israel and God, like the prodigal father and his sons, like us. It allows for movement forward that is more than a repetition of the past or an endless progression of the present; it provides the opportunity for real change and the possibility of a better future.
The more I think about it, the more I understand that reconciliation has to do with what we heard about from Ezekiel last week: when God in his great goodness turns our “hearts of stone into hearts of flesh”.
The goal of reconciliation is the vision in Revelation 21 of “a new heaven and a new earth”, a vision revealed by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7), a new way of being in relation to everyone, a vision of peace for everyone, of enough for everyone, of freedom from fear, oppression, and violence. It is a vision of open arms and open hearts and open minds.
The whole purpose of the process of reconciliation is that change of heart; to be reconciled with each other, to be reconciled nation to nation, to be reconciled with God – we need a change of heart. It all has to do with hearts: hearts of compassion, open hearts, soft hearts, vulnerable hearts.
That is the vision of God’s kingdom here on earth, the vision of God’s Kin-dom here and now – that is the Good News Jesus revealed to us and for us.
May we live into such a Kin-dom Amen
