PARTY TIME

[This post is the final in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders’ devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in Psalm 32: 1 & 11 and Luke 15:22-24]

This is the day to take a breath.  This is a day of celebration. The parable reveals a father who is so delighted with the return of the lost that he stops production for a  party.  The compulsion that often captures those who are responsible for providing the resources for sustaining life is suspended.  Get the best food and the party hats and let us take time out to rejoice and sing for joy.  

When the alienated are finally reunited, when the hard work of forgiveness is under way, when the conversations that have been interrupted begin again, even haltingly, it is time to party.  It is time to acknowledge that something new is happening.  It is time to taste the first fruits of the reign of God.  It is time to allow happiness to overtake us and to shout for joy.

All too often we fail to join this party.  Our churches can be so caught up in holding people accountable for their mistakes that we can’t experience the joy of forgiveness and the freedom to discover a new way.  The burden of ungrieved loss and disappointment weights us down and we are lost in the prison of the past, unable to move forward into that new world of abundant life designed by God’s forgiving spirit.

Open your heart to God who  longs for you to join the journey toward a new creation.  Allow your burdens to be lifted so that, at least from time to time, maybe each Lord’s day, you might set aside your struggle to be right and allow God to give righteousness as a gift to you.  Then you can celebrate with the father, with the wayward child, and the steady child who stayed home.  Won’t you join the party?

Thanks, Giver of new life, for putting a new song in our hearts.

DENYING GOD'S DESIRE FOR FUTURE

[This post is the sixth in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders’ devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in II Corinthians 5:18-21]

God loves creation.  Divine life creates the world and declares it good.  All creatures are gifts of God.  God ‘s love is attentive and enjoys being in right relationship with the created order.  God creates partners with whom to discover the way life can be lived fully and faithfully.  God’s goal is the reign of God on earth as it is in heaven.

Therefore, God is committed to not holding our sins against us. In Christ, that is, through mercy and forgiveness, God acts to reconcile us with each other and with the divine will.  God’s agenda is to break down the walls of pain and injustice that divide us from the good that was created.  God has chosen those who claim Christ as Lord to be partners or ambassadors for Christ in the creation of a new world that reflects the divine desire of justice and mercy.

That new world will be different from the previous one. Our experiences, our mistakes, our discoveries, our achievements and failures will all be taken into the Divine heart through “the one who knew no sin” and will give shape and form to the new world that is being created.  Because God returns to us and does not hold our mistakes against us, we can be bold in our living, trying and failing, picking ourselves and each other up and trying again.  The future world of a reconciled people keeps calling us forward into new action. 

When we allow the mistakes, the hurt and pain of past offenses to capture us and create prison bars to keep us away from a new and reconciled future, we deny God the insights of our experience. We are kept from offering ourselves, broken and incomplete, for the service of God’s design.  Therefore, receiving Divine forgiveness is the devotional imperative of those who seek to follow Christ.  Are you open to be free to join God in an innovative future of grace and justice?

Beloved of all, take our hands and walk with us into your divine future.  

HEALING SPACE

[This post is the fifth in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders’ devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in II Corinthians 5:16-17]

Parables invite imagination.  We don’t know what happened to the prodigal’s family when they were working life out together after the party.  If their life was anything like ours we know that there was probably much trial and error, effort and failure, miscues and mistakes, tears and struggles. When life confronts us with situations that are without precedence, we must make up what happens next.  We don’t always know the best thing to do.  We don’t know the outcome of actions till we try them.

Living this way can be scary because we will make mistakes.  These are not intentional but are simply the result of life lived by experimentation and discovery. We will make choices that work out well and some that will create more pain and confusion.  Patient testing of direction and action are required to recreate life after the scattering and breaking of alienation.

Paul shares with us insights as to how God creates a healing space for experiment gone awry--a way to keep us from becoming the mistakes that we make.  He talks of a God who does see us from a human point of view.  God in Christ is in the business of innovation--of making a new creation.  God so desires that we join in that creative process that the Divine self is given to overcome our mistakes and our separation. 

This forgiveness releases the innovative energy that we humans can share and thus break down the walls that divide from God and each other.  We too can take the initiative, not seeing others as humans do, locking each other into our mistakes, but as God does, as humans who make mistakes.  This frees us all to join God’s journey of new creation.  Can you develop the divine eyesight and join in that journey?

Holy Initiator, be patient with us as we make our way to your will. 

TAKE SMALL STEPS

[This post is the fourth in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders’ devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in Luke 15:25-32]

 It seems the reuniting of a family would be cause for unbridled celebration. Hurt and separation are not desired. But betrayal and abandonment cut deep.  The brother who remained at home was wounded.  He not only suffered the loss of his brother who deserted him, but he was left to share his father’s pain.  It is hard when someone we love is hurt.  The cut is even deeper.

 So, when the happy reunion occurred, the older brother didn’t join in.  He could have done his duty and joined the festivities, but anger was deep.  He was not only responsible while his brother wasted his inheritance, but he also must now share the remainder since his brother was now a son again.  Not only the past needed to be grieved, but also the loss of the future that he had anticipated.

  Is it fair to ask the older brother to forgive his younger brother?  Certainly if the father’s desire for family unity is honored, then he has no choice.  But, don’t ask him to like it.  Overcoming deep and shaming pain is an arduous process.  Forgiveness isn’t simply declaring that it’s over.  Grieving the loss of the world you knew and the world  you hoped for takes time.  Being freed for a new tomorrow requires a forgiving spirit that must grow toward that liberated future.  It takes patience. Take small steps.  It takes prayerful conversation with the offending party and your own soul.

 Also keep in mind the mind of the father.  While the younger son has new opportunity and does not suffer permanent separation, the older son is the beneficiary of the steadfast presence and affection of the father.  While it may appear that the gifts of grace are only for those who do grievous offense, there is constant and faithful presence for those who never know the pain of separation. Hold on to  God’s constant grace.

Hold us, patient Redeemer, in your constant state of grace. 

SCATTERED STONES OF SEPARATION

[This post is the third in a series of devotions on forgiveness that I first published last year in a leaders’ devotional book, "Disciplines 2013" from The Upper Room. This is based on a reading found in Luke 15:20-21 and Psalm 32:3-5]

In the midst of conflict between family members, the changes that offend and alienate, and the losses of innocence and identity that result from those things, certain longings and actions follow.  The son who had left home, insulted his father and spoiled the family plans for the future, came to his senses.  He discovered that his longing for an independent and individualistic future was not as powerful as his longing for home and relationships with those who love and sustain.  In the absence of home, he discovered a hope for home.

Out of his loss and emptiness, he went to his father and confessed that he had made a mistake. He named the losses that he and his family suffered. In humility he realized that he could not come back into the family as he was.  He was not worthy.

But in confessing, an interesting thing occurred.  He discovered that the onerous burden that he and his family experienced was lifted. His father had been holding in his heart a pool of grace for his son. The family would never be the same.  The future would always be shaped by the experiences of the past.  He was welcomed back as a son, but no one would be the same.  Grace and forgiveness does not restore life as it was. It simply reconnects the wounded and scarred so that there is a chance to build something new.  

God’s agenda is a future where shalom is a reality.  His desire is for communities to be free from the power of the past to control their future so that the future might be rebuilt out of the scattered stones of separation and alienation.  Psalmists sing of the burden that is lifted when the heart confesses.  How have you contributed to God’s agenda in creating a heart of grace that reformation might take place?

Grant us the courage to confess, O God, and open ourselves to reconnection.