F. Harry Daniel
Second Presbyterian Church
Sermons: November 19, 2006

"The Heart of the Gospel"

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At the heart of the gospel is good news. What God says to us in Jesus is this: we are forgiven. Nothing more. Nothing less. This is the message that Jesus spoke and lived. He revealed a God of passionate committed love who is willing to do just that: forgive. God is committed to fixing what is broken and healing what is sick. There are many other things God could conceivably say to us. But this is where God chooses to begin.

Scripture Reading
Luke 15:11-24

Luke 15:11-24
Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them.

"A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

"When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.

"But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'

"So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

"But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe -- the best one -- and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate." (NRSV)

But we have a problem with this good news; it is almost too good to be true. It is unheard of, and not a little foolish. But it is true nonetheless. Because it is so incredible, distortions are always creeping in. The church doesn’t always get the message right. Most of us know forms of the Christian faith that convey a quite different message. They say things like this:

"If you are very, very good, God will love you." "If you are very, very sorry that you have not been very, very good, God will love you." Or, the most destructive distortion of all: "God loves you, but get back in line before God changes God’s mind." That’s not good news; that’s conditional news that requires a response from us. No, God’s forgiveness is unconditional.

It is very simple and one sided: "I forgive you." No ifs, no ands, no buts, no conditions. No demands, no commands. That is what the father did for the prodigal son and the elder brother in Jesus’ parable.

God might have put it more simply: "You are loved. I love you." That is true, but ambiguous. It might mean: "I love you because you are good." Or, "I love the nice part of you, but please do something about those other parts. Clean up your act, if you want the love to continue." Or, "I would like to go on loving you, but there are limits to my tolerance."

Instead, the good news is quite unambiguous: "we are forgiven." What this means is "I love you anyway and always, no matter what." No demands, no commands, no conditions. Paul got it right in Romans: "While we were yet sinners Christ died for us." His point was not that we are grotesquely sinful, but that God is astonishingly and unfailingly generous. Jesus did not simply say this, he practiced this and died living it.

This is who God is and what God does: love. And God’s love is not a matter of deserving. God did not send Jesus to tell us how bad we are. That’s bad news, not good news. Too often we hear the gospel as bad news. We are never right, always wrong, and we can’t have God’s love until…, there is always an until, until we repent. No! It is not a matter of deserving. God expresses God’s love specifically for those who do no deserve it. God’s love is always prior to repentance; it is what makes repentance possible. We can change if we know we are loved.

We are loved by God: that is the place to start. When we are least loveable, God says, "I love you." When we are least worthy, God says, "You are forgiven." When we take ourselves down to our lowest, most unattractive, most undeserving state – there is God’s love for us alive as ever. Good news does not begin with us and what we deserve; it begins with God and what God graciously, freely gives. Like the prodigal son in Jesus’ parable we are met, embraced and welcomed home.

This good news is true whether we believe it or not. God is always going to be this way towards us. Faith means recognizing that this good news from God is true. Our recognition may not be too confidant. We may have only a strong suspicion that this may be so, maybe only enough that we are willing to take a chance. Faith is not knowledge, nor is it evidence; it is trust no matter how weak. Faith means we trust ourselves to this good news. Faith is not believing doctrines; it is not believing ten impossible things before breakfast. Faith does not make God love us. God does not love us now that we have faith. Faith simply recognizes that God’s love is there for us and in us and among us. Faith frees us to live in partnership with God.

Given time, this good news makes a striking difference in our awareness of ourselves and of the world. We look at ourselves honestly, not making ourselves better or worse. We learn to love ourselves as much as God already loves us. We become free to give love to others, and to love God’s world. Our neighbors, everyone else, stand in the same position before God as we do. This gives us the freedom to forgive as we are forgiven, not based on rules or deserving, but given freely. We cannot accept forgiveness for ourselves while denying it to someone else. In this we are to be as gentle as doves and as wise as serpents, not engaging in suicidal silliness. But we do see our neighbor as fundamentally like us before God: forgiven, loved and summoned to love.

God does not withdraw the gift. But it does make a real difference whether we say yes or no. The answer is not really that simple, we answer with our whole lives. Love responding to love given is what this living is all about. It is a struggle for we are self-seeking creatures, deeply estranged from our Creator, disoriented in all our relationships, and apart from radical grace, destroying ourselves from within. We practice knowledge without love. We will need a lifetime in order to learn respect, mutuality, sharing and solidarity.

Deserve it? No way. But we are given forgiving love just the same. If we say we deserve it, we lie to ourselves and to others. Then we expend a life-threatening amount of energy protecting the lie. We become mean and narrow despising others and dealing harshly with ourselves. We think well of ourselves as deserving, and we think ill of our neighbors as less deserving. We think well of the successful as deserving, and ill of the failing and suffering ones as getting what they deserved. The lie makes things not better, but worse. That is bad news. That is not gospel.

Hearing the good news is a beginning. The rest of our lives is our response. To trust that God loves us in this surprising way, to hope that God will continue to do so, to love this triune God with all of life, to love our neighbors and ourselves, and to love God’s marvelous world – all of this is what makes the good news spread. We flesh out the good news in our lives together. Then we will understand that old Shaker song: "the gift to simple is the gift to be free, the gift to come down where you ought to be."

There is much to be learned and thought through and put into action. But so long as we believe that we are in charge of our lives, we are not ready to receive what God intends to give us. We are created for love, for being with. Little by little we surrender our idols. We find encouragement and discernment offered by friends. We learn to stay in conversation with one another and our ancestors in the faith. We learn to accept and to value the fixed points of scripture and the sacraments and to prize the surprises of life in the Spirit. And no matter how old we may be, we delightfully discover that we go on growing, maturing and changing by the grace of this good news.

Behold there is good news of great joy for all people: "God already loves us completely. We are forgiven." Now, take some risks. Accept your new citizenship in the kingdom of God. Make a new beginning with God, with yourself, with your world and with your neighbor.

But remember this: whatever my, your story, compassion will be necessary and faith whispers: "It will be given." In what is yet to be, we will find the gracious, forgiving God there.

Out of the turbulence of life, a kingdom is coming. It is being shaped even now out of our slivers of loving, bits of trusting, sprigs of hoping, out of our griefs and triumphs, out of our songs and struggles. We are gathered up and saved. God gathers together the pieces of our lives into which our busyness has broken us.

We are turned loose to go with God to the edge of maybe and now to welcome the new, see our possibilities, accept our limits, begin living to the limit of passion and compassion until…we become what God intended. Is this possible? Yes, for God is gracious beyond the telling of it! God is gracious beyond belief.