16 Pentecost 2007 Zion, Washington

The heart of the Christian Gospel is love; as in, "For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son..." We all already know that. The specific kind of love that is at the heart of the Christian Gospel is "agape"; which was first given its precise definition by St. Paul in the 13th chapter of his First Epistle to the Corinthians. We all know that too.

What we forget is that the most important expression of that "generous love" that is "agape" is forgiveness, reconciliation. That's the theme of the readings for today. And if you come from a background that holds God very high up and very far off, then you were shocked to hear and read the last line of today's First Reading. When Moses confronted God on Mount Sinai, with the words of the covenant that God had made with Abraham, "The Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people". (I've brought more than one fiery-eyed Christian to a full-stop with that passage of Holy Writ. Most people could never suspect that God would ever have the need to repent.)

And yet, there it is: Almighty God, the maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen, reminded by Moses the stutterer (remember that God told Moses to take Aaron with him to talk to Pharaoh, since Moses begged off, saying that he couldn't speak well) that He, God, had made a covenant with Abraham that his descendants would be like "the stars in the sky." And God smacked His own forehead, had "a V8 moment" and said something like, "Oh, yeah. I forgot." "And the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people." (I think that's pretty impressive. It certainly gives us all hope for the power of prayer to change things.)

And the sin which God forgave the Hebrews was the sin of idolatry. They had fashioned a calf out of the gold of their jewelry and had begun to worship it, because Moses had spent so much time up on Mount Sinai with God that they thought he was dead. They claimed that it was the god represented by the calf that had led them out of Egypt.

God was not pleased. What they did provoked the first line of the first of the Ten Commandments: "I am a jealous God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me." And, of course, this is consistent with the challenges that we all face when we get impatient with God and turn to other people, places and things to address those needs that we have, when we demand an answer in our time, rather than in God's good time. We forget God's jealousy.

God is a jealous god, and will not tolerate our idolatries; even though He may find it in His heart to forgive us, He will not pardon us for this great sin. There are consequences for our impatience.

When Moses returned to the camp and saw the calf and all the singing and dancing, he pounded the calf into dust, scattered the gold dust on the water and made the people drink it. And because of this sin, the Hebrews were forced to make the Exodus to the Promised Land a forty year trip; which meant that two generations would be born and two would die before they would enter the Promised Land, because of their idolatry at the foot of Mount Sinai.

But God will not destroy us, because we are bound to each other by covenants. For us, the first covenant with God is our Baptismal Covenant - and it obviously counts for something, whether we realize it or not. And part of our Baptismal Covenant with God states that when we "fall into sin, we will repent and return to the Lord." Even our covenant makes a provision for forgiveness.

So today's emphasis shifts from God's repentance to our own repentance for things done and left undone that cause pain and do harm to God, to other people, and to ourselves. So the psalm for today is Psalm 51, which is the quintessential penitential psalm that we read during the most solemn times of Holy Week. (We all already know that.)

And the heart of that psalm is contained in verses 1 and 11, the first and last verses that we read this morning, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your loving-kindness;* in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Create in me a clean heart, O God,* and renew a right spirit within me." We seek not only forgiveness, but also inspiration - "a new spirit", so that we don't go back and commit sins we've done before. An essential aspect of our Christian life is in using the moments of penitence and confession as opportunities to gain wisdom and inspiration, so that we learn from our mistakes and move on to fewer mistakes.

Please remember: the result of our prayers will not be found in feeling a particular feeling or in some great, dramatic event taking place. The result of our prayers will be seen in the fewer number of sins that we commit. And one aspect of the context of all our prayers is to remember the Comfortable Words of our holy faith, "Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners."

Even Jesus' own words in today's Gospel reading, "There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance."And no. This is not encouragement to follow St. Paul's foolish statement that we should sin boldly, that the grace of God abound all the more.

Those ninety-nine righteous people, here on earth, are the foundation of the community we seek, here on earth, which points us to higher things and to God in heaven, surrounded by angels and archangels and all the company of heaven who join our hymns when we sing, "Holy, holy, holy" and who presence surrounds us with prayer and disposes us to be inspired and to do good and to be holy.

Those ninety-nine righteous people, here on earth, don't provoke joy in heaven, because they already share the work of the company of heaven. Like any good servants of a king, a lord, or ... wait for it ... a dictator, the ninety-nine are only doing their duty. They are only doing what they have been called to do; and they do not expect any special treatment just because they are righteous. They are only doing their duty.

Consider this parish family of Zion. The righteous of our parish are the people who take the initiative and do things around here; and, frankly, that includes just about everyone in this parish family, new and old. And lots of things get done around here because, singly or together, each of us takes some initiative. And yet, there is great celebration when someone new rolls up their sleeves and joins the work.

If we sin, it's usually because we have failed to invite other people to join us in our work. Frankly, it's easier to just go ahead and do it ourselves. But a continuous reminder for the ninety-nine, is to find ways to involve that one new person who has joined the flock and who wants to join the righteous in doing good work.

Doing good work by ourselves, over a period of time, transforms that good work into a chore, and then into a chore that's resented. And then comes "burn out", and what began as a good work becomes an occasion for a number of sins: anger at the people we've excluded for not helping out, depression (anger turned inward) for not getting help, and a disillusionment with God for letting all this stuff turn sour.

The purpose of forgiveness and reconciliation is to keep the flock one flock, and for that flock to do the work of the righteous. We are not forgiven in order to go on our merry way. We are forgiven in order to do the work of righteousness. And no, that doesn't mean that we have to give up the fun in our lives and take on some "pinched piety" that makes us grim and unpleasant. Except for the most solemn events and chores, I've never seen truly devout Christians not laugh and have a good time while doing, sometimes, really difficult work.

Holiness is not humorless.

God is not grim.

Piety is not always penitential.

If we have been forgiven our sins and reconciled to God and our neighbor and our self, then there is no end to our gratitude and no end to our rejoicing. (It's not as though there's great rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents, and then God says, "OK! Enough rejoicing! Get back to work! And wipe those smiles off your faces!") I cannot conceive of Paradise without laughter. Notice the feeling that goes through your whole body when you laugh. There's a lightness, and yet also there's a new energy; relaxation, and yet also enthusiasm.

Too often, preachers and writers address the need for forgiveness in terms of the grim consequences of being separated from God. I think I prefer to focus more on the laughter of being united to God. Most of us seek happiness - it's even in our national Constitution.

Forgiven, we don't have to lie or to remember our lies in order to get our stories straight. We don't have to be cautious and careful and secretive. Forgiven, we live up-front, happy, wholesome lives; and find pleasure and joy in doing good and helping out. We find out how fun it is to try to make other people's lives better and holier and happier.

Yes. It's grim to be separated from God. What's more, it's great fun to be united to God. Yes. It's awful to run into the objects of our sins. What's more, it great fun to embrace the objects of our reconciliations.

So the Christian's call to repentance and reconciliation includes an invitation, an enticement to cast off the burdens of pride, anger, lust, envy, gluttony, greed, and laziness and to enter into the happiness of faith, hope, generous love, temperance, fortitude, justice, and circumspection (also known as prudence), in which one looks around and takes in what's going on around us.

Repentance and reconciliation aren't an invitation to a time-certain celebration in heaven. Repentance and reconciliation are an invitation to a lifetime with a sparkle in your eye, that makes everyone else wonder what you've been