Letters to a friend(part 4)

I call it a sermon, but it's more of a short talk really. Guess maybe I could expand upon it, but hey. You don't prepare, you run out of steam...
This final letter was sent to a slightly modified group. The friend mentioned earlier was not included. Actually, if memory serves part of the reason for sending this one was because of the similarities between "Claire" and her. I guess I was trying to encourage the recipients.

Date: 15/01/2008
Subject: Some musings on the parables

So I wrote this sermon on the train this afternoon, full of clarity and detail, and by the time I got home it was gone. However, I managed to dredge it up again, for the most part, and here it is. Enjoy. My original plan was to make a recording, and maybe I will, but right now it's late and it's too short anyway. before reading it, I suggest reading the parables in question: Matthew 18:12-14 and Luke 15:11-32 even though if your churches are anything like the ones I attend you've probably learned them by heart!

As always, feedback is encouraged, welcomed, demanded even. particularly if you disagree with my theology! Also, it goes without saying that you should feel free to do what you like with this - it's creative commons licensed.

- -Stephen

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I want to start today by telling you a true story, about a friend of mine - let's call her Claire. Now, Claire and I went to school together for five years and I suppose it could be said that we where good friends. Claire became a Christian when we where both in p6, although looking back now I can safely say that I doubt the sincerity of her conviction. In the same way however I could easily say the same of my own - I think we both had some rather daft ideas. Claire was not from a Christian background, and her peers where predominantly unsaved, as where most of her family. By the age of 15 she was definately headed off the rails, and when she started at university at the relatively young age of 17, problems started to show. She took up with an atheist boyfriend, ceased attending church, and generally headed off in the wrong direction entirely.
To end on a higher note, Claire is now regularly attending church again and is a member of the CU. To the best of my knowledge she's also no longer in that particular relationship. However, hers is a story which is by no means unusual in this modern day.

The parable of the prodigal son tells us of an interestingly paralel story. We see the son goes to his father, and demands his inheritance - in other words he states that he wishes his father was dead! As I'm sure some of the more alert amongst you have noticed, this was a rather diret breaking of the 5th commandment - a fact which would not be lost on the Pharises to whom the Lord was speaking. The son set off to squander his money on wild living - he made money his god, breaking the first two commandments and quite likely the tenth. When he was done, his friends deserted him and he was left poor and hungry, living with pigs - animals concidered by Jewish law to be unclean. He'd hit rock bottom, well and truly.

So how does his father react to this? He waits for the son to come to his senses and return to him! And when he does, he's forgiven entirely for his transgresions and reinstated. His father holds no grudges, his son was lost and is now found, was dead to him and is alive again.
Let me repeat that: He waits for his son to come to his senses and return to him. And when he does, he forgives him entirely for his transgressions and reinstates him as his son and heir. He holds no grudges: his son was lost and now is found, was dead to him and is alive again. He waits for him to come to his senses. He doesn't care what his son did, what matters is that he realises he was mistaken.

The parable of the lost sheep has an interesting difference: the shepherd doesn't wait for the sheep to come to its senses and return, oh no. He goes and he looks for it. This is where I start complicating things, so bear with me. The Lord both reaches out to the lost and actively sets out to find them, and at the same time waits patiently, knowing they'll come to their senses and return. This isn't a contradiction in the slightest. the doctrine of iresistable grace states, quite rightly, that while we are bound to sin and totally incapable of turning from it of our own free will, for those of us that God calls it is impossible to resist. God looks for the lost, and they turn to him. He wills that they be saved, and it is so. As such, God knows that those whom he elects will come to their senses, and for them he waits. And it is through God's great grace alone that we are saved. If the shepherd chose to wait with the 99 sheep on the hill rather than search for the one lost sheep, then surely that sheep would have no chance. If the father had chosen, he could have forgotten about his son, refused to acknowledge him on his return. But she shepherd went to look for the stray, and the father waited patiently for his son to come to his senses. This is what God's love for humanity means.