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Spring and the New Moon: Change the Paradigm V
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Frequently the themes of the Common Lectionary readings correspond with what is actually happening in the natural world. It is not surprising that this should be the case, given that the early institutionalized Christian church appropriated pagan festivals wholesale into its liturgical calendar. On this fourth Sunday in Lent, the Moon changes to New at 5:35 a.m. Spring begins on Tuesday at 8:07 p.m. The conventional interpretation of the readings for today is all about repentance, reconciliation, and forgiveness of sin – in short, new beginnings, starting over, changing focus – matching the metaphors of the New Moon, and the Spring.
Luke’s story of the Prodigal Son is front and center. Everyone knows this story: The younger son takes an early distribution of his portion of the heritage, and leaves home, leaving the elder son to his presumed and expected lion’s share. The younger son goes off to a far country, and squanders it all on wine, women (presumably), and song. At some point in the middle of this debauchery, when he’s spent it all, has maxed out his credit cards, and is reduced to actually working for a living, he comes to his senses and decides to throw himself on the mercy of his family. He offers to take a job tending the pigs, if only his father will give him a place to stay. Much to everyone’s surprise – and to the elder son’s chagrin – the father is overjoyed at the return of his son. He throws a major party and welcomes him back with open arms. When the elder son objects to this, he is told to deal with it. The son who had died has returned. The one who was lost has been found. Clearly, someone who repents and returns is more valuable than someone who never left in the first place.
In the reading from 2nd Cor. 5:16-21: Paul says that from now on we regard no one from a human point of view (i.e., we will not judge based on outside circumstances – such as the debauchery of the prodigal son). Paul writes, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” When Paul says “in Christ,” the usual interpretation is that we are reconciled to God by the sacrifice of Jesus. God is the reconciler, according to Paul, and the father in Luke’s story is the metaphor for that reconciling God. The Prodigal Son has repented, come home, been reconciled, and has been made new.
End of sermon, right? Time for Sunday dinner, and a nice nap.
Not so fast.
The readings once again provide conflicting interpretations of the nature of the God of Israel: Violent/non-violent.
The Apostle Paul was convinced that Jesus’ resurrection was the resurrection of a spiritual, mystical body, which was automatically part of the Kingdom of God – and that we who are living today can also participate in that Kingdom if we choose God’s non-violent distributive justice instead of the violent imperial theology of piety, war, victory.
In God’s kingdom of distributive justice, no one is judged by circumstance, but everyone is presumed to be transformed – or at least capable of transformation. Like it or not, the prodigal son’s brother learned there is no place in his father’s house for payback, for getting even, for locking people up and throwing away the key, for the death penalty. In God’s realm of distributive justice the assumption is rehabilitation and hope; in God’s realm of distributive justice, the assumption is that everyone has access to power and the assurance of food, clothing, shelter, medical care, and peace regardless of who they are or where they come from.
When Paul writes in his second letter to the Corinthians that “there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” John Dominic Crossan suggests “What better deserves the title of a new creation than the abnormalcy of a share-world replacing the normalcy of a greed-world?” In Search of Paul, p. 176. Because the coming of God’s justice is ongoing – for upwards of 2,000 years now – we are called to participate in a new creation– a new paradigm – a world based on letting go, and sharing, rather than keeping and greed.
The moon is new. The Spring begins next Tuesday. For thousands of years, the springtime of the year has been the time when Kings go forth to war. In the passage cherry-picked for this Sunday from the epic saga of Joshua’s conquest of Canaan, the Elves leave out the part about how the kings of the Amorites beyond the Jordan to the west, and all the kings of the Canaanites by the sea had been terrified by the drying up of the Jordan that allowed the Israelites to safely invade. Now, the Israelite warriors are freshly circumcised, healed, and ready for rape and plunder. They have eaten their passover meal of unleavened bread and parched grain possibly stolen from the abandoned farms, so they have no need for God’s magic manna. They will plant their own crops and lay claim to the land. Taken in context, it is a violent image that flies in the face of the quiet assurance of Psalm 32, and the courage of faith in the new paradigm that Paul and Jesus before him gave their lives for.
We can choose which God we will follow: The god of violence, pillage, war, greed – Imperial power that declares opponents and adversaries “enemy combatants” at best and inhuman at worst; that ignores evidence of the adverse effects of misuse of the earth in a paradigm of conquest and dominion – or the kenotic, non-interventionist God that Jesus pointed to, and that Paul ecstatically recognized.
Now is the time to make that choice – in our families, work groups, communities. That’s what repentance really means. Turning around. Changing direction. Choosing to participate in the new paradigm: covenant, non-violence, justice-compassion, and peace.