The Wonders of Redeeming Love

                            “The Wonders of Redeeming Love”
                            2 Cor. 5:16-21; Luke 15:18-24
                            Sunday, March 14, 2010
                            Rev. David Hutchinson

On Friday, February 19, 2010, two events occurred simultaneously:
First, survivors of the Vanport flood were acknowledged at city hall in Portland for the first time.  The second event was, a rally protesting the events in the Aaron Campbell shooting.  
As the mayor handed out certificates to the survivors of the flood, some of the onlookers had just arrived from a rally expressing anger over the shooting of an African American man named Aaron Campbell by a Portland police officer.  The anger at the rally was reported the next day in the Oregonian newspaper.  A report of the acknowledgement of the Vanport survivors appeared much later in the February 24 edition of the Portland Observer rather than the Oregonian.  The Portland Observer is a newspaper “committed to cultural diversity.”
The anger and division in the Aaron Campbell rally took center stage.  Which is understandable.   The anger is not new, as the Oregonian article states.  The anger took center stage, while, in contrast, the acknowledgement by about fifty people of some of the survivors of the Vanport flood sixty-two years after it occurred is important but insufficient to create a climate of complete reconciliation.  And center stage it was not.
I think it is pretty clear that human efforts at reconciliation are imperfect.
    And they don’t always take center stage.
And yet….
Paul’s second letter to the people in Corinth says that “…in Christ, God was reconciling the world…”.  This is what God is doing.  In spite of us.
Regard no one from a human point of view, Paul writes…
In Christ we are created new…
Made new…
Reconciled…
And called to a ministry of reconciliation…
It’s pretty clear to me that human efforts at reconciliation are imperfect.
And yet…
I don’t know about you, but in spite of the imperfections I long for more hopeful acts like the Vanport flood acknowledgement - in spite of their imperfections.
As I stood in attendance, I wondered where this small step toward telling and hearing an important story would lead. I lived in Portland for 12 years before I knew about the Vanport flood.     How many of you know the story?
The Portland Observer called it “Portland’s Hurricane Katrina”…
On May 30, 1948 Vanport City was flooded and virtually wiped out. Prior to the flood, Vanport had been a home to poor families who had come to work in the shipyards, including 5,000 African-Americans.  According to a history by the Portland Bureau of Planning, “Although Vanport City sat in the midst of the flood plain of the Columbia River, there had never been any real concern for its safety.” 
Following the 1948 Vanport flood, a series of development projects displaced residents, and the interstate highway corridor, Fremont bridge, and expansion of Emanuel hospital left blocks of land undeveloped and leveled homes.  As new developments occur along Alberta Street in the area around Westminster Presbyterian Church, some people remember these stories because they lived them, but others have no memory of the events.
So I wonder about the relationship between remembering and forgetting.
Is it important to remember?
Is it important to forgive and forget?
Is it possible to do both?
I continue to wonder how to address anger like that expressed by those who attended the rally in response to the Campbell shooting, in the midst of attempts to remember things like the Vanport flood.  I believe the two events are connected.  I believe that telling and hearing the stories is a merciful way toward both justice and truth.  Maybe if we listen long enough we will eventually know what to do, as Celeste Carey, an organizer of meetings designed for people to do this kind of listening, once said to me.
Maybe if we listen we will know what to do.
And then do it.
Maybe it’s only by remembering that we can hope.
    That we can hope for a time when sins will be remembered no more…
            According to the Old Testament it is God’s intention
to remember sins no more.
    But what does that mean for us in the mean time?
    What does it mean for us who long for something that is still incomplete?
        Do we dare hope – for - a time when redemption will be complete…
        A time when the old HAS passed away and the NEW has come…
    I think it has something to do with being able to hear difficult things.
        Difficult things that nevertheless contain some truth…
    Sometimes we don’t want to hear the difficult things….
        But Shel Silverstein writes a poem about being fascinated with what is awful, difficult, and grizzly.  It’s called “The Blood-Curdling Story”:
That story - - - - - - is creepy.
        It’s waily - - and it’s weepy.
        It’s screechy and screamy
        Right up to the END.   / /
            It’s spooky.
        It’s crawly - - it’s grizzly - - it’s gory.
        It’s the AWfulest - - story.     / / /
            (Please tell it again !)
    Shel Silverstein wrote that - - about what I assume is a GHOST story.
    What gets me about it - - is how it COMBINES - - the sense of the awfulness of the story - - - - WITH - - - that line:  “please tell it again”.  
Which might be one way to describe the Gospel reading for this morning.
    It’s been called the parable - - of the “Prodigal Son”.   /   It’s a story about reconciliation.    /    And more than anything else - - - - it’s about a FATHER.    /   A father who - - is - - absolutely incredible.    /  
         - - and in some ways - - down right ANNOYING. 
        Annoying - - because of his - - grace.  
    If we loose a sense of that - - - we loose the whole point of this story.
    Jesus told this story - right after some Pharisees - had been ANNOYED - - that Jesus ATE - - with sinners.    /   The WRONG people.  
    Jesus told this story - - after explaining what it is like to FIND something that has been LOST.  
    And it is a story - - about reconciliation - - - but with a TWIST.  
    The TWIST is - - the role of the FATHER - - in the reconciliation.
    As one commentator has asked: 
“What is the part of the story - - that we just can’t FATHOM ?”
        Who is it difficult to identify with ?
    NOT - the son who goes off and spends money on wild living.  We understand him.   /   We may NOT think he makes good choices - - but we can FATHOM him.  We see people - - live that way.   Choose that way.   /   Maybe even WE - - can think of times when WE - - have lived that way.
    Well what about the ELDER son ?    Maybe we identify more with him.    
The older brother who was - out in the field - working.   Being responsible. 
He is self-righteous…..but we can fathom him.   Maybe even identify with him. 
    So - in any case - - - - we can FATHOM - - - - the two sons.  
    But the father.  .  .
    One who RUNS out to meet this son - - throwing dignity to the wind.   /   Lifting up - - his ROBES - - to reveal his legs.    /   Letting this younger son - - treat him like he were dead - - giving him all that money - - and then - -
        - - forgiving him.  
    Throwing a party !
    Defending his son from the insults of the community upon his return.
    Getting between his son and the scoffers who want to hurt him for leaving and being dishonorable – and instead of punishment – throwing a party and inviting everyone to join in and forgive and forget!
    Who can fathom it ?
    When we get to the point where we are comfortable with this story –
- I think we’ve lost it.   /  
    It is NOT about - - - saying - - - “hey - - no matter what - - everyone can pick up again - - no matter how badly you’ve messed up”.     /     It is NOT about that.  
    It’s about reckless love and grace.
    It’s about restoring the son to his humanity within the larger community.
    It’s about being an agent of reconciliation between the sons, and between this returning son and the larger community.
    One helpful insight for me - - is to look at the meaning of the word “prodigal”.   /   Prodigal - - does not mean - - “the one who returns home”.   /   It means - - “the one who was reckless”.    
    The younger son - - was reckless in spending - - - prodigal.  
    But the FATHER - - was prodigal too.
        Prodigal - - -in loving.     /     Reckless.       Reconciling…
    The father in this story did not shy away from the awfulness of what had
happened in his son’s leaving. The custom for someone who had done what he did, upon
returning would have been to completely cut him off from community. Their reaction
toward this returning reckless prodigal would have been hostility.
    But the father puts himself right in the middle of that hostility.
    He redeems it, in a sense.
    It is reckless.   And it is marvelous.
    The image of getting between his son and a hostile crowd is so much like what Jesus does on the cross.
In his book, ‘The Prodigal Friendly Church”, Jeff Lucas says that one of the marks of a Prodigal Friendly Church is that healing and suffering go together.
    We can’t separate the struggle from the hope.
    We can’t separate the suffering from the healing.
    So what would it mean for Westminster to be a place of reconciliation?
    What would it mean for Westminster to be Prodigal Friendly?
    To be a place of healing and of grace?
    The renown black theologian James Cone connects the cross and the lynching tree in his recent writings. He says that they need each other. They interpret each other. According to Cone, a contemporary American image for the cross - is - the lynching tree of the American South.  He says that the lynching tree liberates the cross from the false pieties of well meaning Christians. And the cross redeems the lynching tree and invests this unimaginable suffering with redemptive meaning.
    Redemption and suffering can not be separated, it seems.
    Which is sobering if you are NOT suffering.
    But if you are suffering, it is the ground of hope.
    And it is what makes redeeming love – so wondrous.
    Galatians connects the image of Jesus hanging on a tree…
        …with redemption.
    Galatians 3:13:
    “Christ redeemed us from the curse - -
        Having become the curse - -
        For it is written, “cursed is the one who hangs upon a tree””.
    In this season of Lent I can think of nothing more wondrous than that.
    Now –
-    Is it possible for us at Westminster to live into that?
-    Can we be with one another even in the midst of imperfection?
-    Can we be merciful to one another despite disagreements?
-    Can we begin to embody what Paul means when he calls us to be agents of reconciliation?   
If members of the milti-cultural Genesis church are still willing to be partners
with us after all the history of the Vanport flood…how can we not be humbled. I can hardly take it in. It is an act of mercy. Not something we go out and get, but something we receive. A gift of grace.
So can we be agents of reconciliation in response? If we can’t do it with one another - what chance do we have in the wider world?  In the midst of interim uncertainty…waiting on a PNC…hoping for a capital campaign…can we envision the community God would want us to be?
    If we can’t live it – then this sermon is just a bunch of words…