God reaches toward us

"In the Linn Family's recent book, "Good Goats: Healing Our Image of God," the authors mention that Sunday's Gospel (Lk 15:1-3, 11-32) is easily misunderstood.
"Although the story of the prodigal son is often given as an example of repentance," they write, "it is actually a story of how God forgives and heals the unrepentant sinner."
They remind us of the story's original context -- a response to the Pharisees' complaint about Jesus' practice of welcoming tax collectors and other unrepentant sinners -- and stress how quickly we overlook the fact that the father in the parable forgives both of his "sinful" sons even before they show any signs of remorse.
The old man catches "sight of him (the younger) while he is still a long way off," runs out to meet him, throws his arms around him and kisses him before the boy even opens his mouth. Then, in the middle of his argument with the older son, the father assures him that "everything I have is yours" even while the boy is refusing his pleas to come into the banquet.
Defending us
The Linns point out that the Jesus whom we find in the Gospels frequently describes God as a defense attorney, rarely as a prosecuting attorney. Instead of accusing or condemning us, God protects us. That's one of the reasons the "religious fold" of Jesus' day and age had problems with Him. They thought salvation was something they, not God, had accomplished; it was something they merited, not something they were freely given.
We often forget the meaning of "righteous." When used in Scripture, it almost never implies someone has done something to merit God's favor. It simply means that an individual has a proper relationship with God, a relationship which God, not the person, has initiated.
The author of Joshua, for instance, credits only Yahweh for the good which befalls the Israelites when at last they end their exodus from Egypt and cross into the Promised Land (Joshua 5:9, 10-12). The newly-arrived Jews could have legitimately recounted and boasted about their own exploits in the wilderness as they celebrated this first Passover in Canaan. Instead, they heard Joshua remind them why they'd finally been able to complete their 40-year journey.
"Today," Yahweh proclaims, "I have removed the reproach of Egypt from you." In other words, "If you survived the perils of the Sinai and stepped dry-shod into the Holy Land today, it's not because of anything you did; it's because of something I did. Without me, you'd still be Egyptian slaves!"
God's work
Paul constantly writes from the same frame of mind. Though in the second reading (2 Cor 5:17-21) he emphasizes the uniqueness of every individual in the Corinthian community -- "Whoever is in Christ is a new creation!" -- the Apostle makes certain everyone remembers how he or she became that new creation.
"All this has been done by God," he writes, "who has reconciled us to Himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. I mean that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to Himself, not counting people's transgressions against them, and that He has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us."
Ministers of organized religion often find it hard to swallow, much less teach, Paul's theology of reconciliation. Going against popular opinion, Paul reminds us that we're not mediators of God's forgiveness; we're announcers of God's forgiveness. We don't forgive anyone; we simply make certain everyone knows God has already forgiven them and encourage them to respond to that forgiveness.
We're "ambassadors for Christ, God as it were appealing through us." Paul's message is always the same: not only can God save people without us, but often we ministers become the obstacles who block people from experiencing God's reconciliation.
Sunday's liturgical readings convey an insight which every true follower of God eventually reaches: God does all the work; we do all the receiving. Those who build their lives around this insight are the "righteous" people whom our Sacred Authors so frequently speak of -- people who love others because they realize they've first been loved by God, people who freely initiate relationships with others because they're certain God has freely initiated a relationship with them.

(03-19-98)