Reconciled to be Reconcilers
2Cor 5:16-21; Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
Rev. Randy Quinn

While my mother was having her heart surgery, I was sitting in the surgery waiting room with my father and sister. I've waited in those rooms with other people before, but not very often have I sat waiting with my own family.

Sitting there, I found myself reflecting on the wonder of modern medicine and how amazing it is that they can do what they were doing! It's hard for me to comprehend how they open up a heart, sew a few pieces of veins on to it, and close it up again. And yet they've been doing this for over 30 years!1

I vaguely remember the first heart transplant surgery. I remember the discussions about it and the almost whimsical questions of whether or not it would eventually lead to other kinds of transplants.

In one school assignment, I remember writing a paper projecting what it would be like to have a brain transplant.

I don't know if we'll ever get to that in modern medicine, but I still wonder what it would be like. Would you remember the other person's life or your own? Who would you really be? The person whose body you have or the person whose brain you have?

These are pertinent questions for us today, since Paul suggests that in Christ we become new creatures. We are no longer the person we once were. In Christ, we take on a new reason for living, a new purpose in life, a new attitude towards other people.

Let's hear what he has to say to us today:

read 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

I've long been fascinated by maps. Maps of all kinds. World maps, street maps, even ocean charts. When I was single, I had an entire wall in my apartment with nothing but maps on it. Ronda sometimes thinks I'm strange, but I still take out an atlas once in a while and 'read it.'

When I was in the Navy, this fascination brought me to study ocean charts as well. I would notice little things that many people may not have thought about.

On most ocean charts, there is no land mass for reference, just latitude and longitude lines. So, I would wonder about the 'sound­ings', the charted depths at various points. I would notice patterns and wonder about the ships that had spent numerous hours measuring the depth of the oceans at these places. While I knew the answer, I still would wonder how they knew where they were when they checked the depths.

But the most interesting charts I pondered were of the Arctic Ocean. As you know, most of the Arctic Ocean is covered by ice, by the polar ice cap. Basically only two types of ships go there: icebreakers and submarines. For the most part, the only sound­ings listed on Navy charts are along the paths that U.S. submarines have taken. But that wasn't the most remarkable part of those charts to me.

The latitude and longitude lines in the Arctic look more like a bulls' eyes than a set of squares, centered on the North Pole in the very center of the Arctic Ocean. It is extreme­ly difficult to plot positions with lines like that since they are so close together.

So the cartographers choose an imaginary "East Pole" and "West Pole" of the earth. The result is square lines on the Arctic charts so navigators can more accurately deter­mine their positions.

To use these charts, there must be a radical shift in perspectives and the way navigators think about their position and direction.

It's that kind of radical change of orientation that Paul is speaking about when Christ comes into our lives.

We still have the same bodies, but we no longer use the same standards to measure ourselves by. And we no longer see others the same way, not even Christ (2 Cor 5:16).

Several years ago, I first heard a word that describes this change of perspective. The word is paradigm and I've seen it used in a variety of places since then. It's a word that speaks about models and frameworks. Generally, I've heard it used in the sense of 'shifting paradigms', of new ways to see things, new ways to think of things. It's this concept that expresses what Paul means when he speaks of a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).

When I was in college, I studied Building Construction. My dream at that time was to become a contractor who remodeled homes and other buildings, including churches.

It's that interest that still causes me to look at older buildings and look for signs of remodeling projects of the past. Sometimes it's simple things like adding a window or changing the color of the floor tiles. But many times it's a major change -- moving walls and redefining the use of rooms.

My grandmother's house in Wisconsin has been one of the places I've looked at over the years. It seems that each new generation living in it has changed several features of it.

In the latest remodeling project, as in all remodelling projects, some things were just painted differently. New wall paper in the front entryway, for instance. Other things had a dramatic change in the placement of walls and rooms, like making a bedroom into a dining room, taking out a bathroom and adding one in another place.

Too often, I think we look at our faith journey as a series of remodeling projects when really it is little more than repainting, recarpeting, or changing the furniture around.

When John the Baptist warned people to repent, he was telling them to make a radical change in their lives. When Jesus told people that the Kingdom of God was at hand, he was telling them of a major paradigm shift that had taken place.

And his parables all speak of a change in perspective, changing how we view God and each other.

And while Paul never heard Jesus preach, he knew about this paradigm shift Jesus spoke about.

Sometimes we forget that Paul had never read any of the gospel stories. In fact, his letters were written many years before Mark began to put the story of Jesus in writing. But Paul did have Luke as a traveling companion. And Luke says that he spent much time researching about Jesus (Lk 1:1-4) before writing his Gospel.

So I began to wonder, is it reasonable to think that Luke may have told Paul much of what he had learned? I think so. He may even have told him some of the stories he intended to include in his written record of Jesus, a record that we call The Gospel According to Luke.

Luke may even have told Paul about the Prodigal Son, a parable that only Luke tells. We have all heard the story of the Prodigal Son before. It's familiar enough that in many ways it's hard for us to hear it. We already know how it will end.

And we no longer notice the paradigm shift.

This passage from 2 Corinthians has influenced my reading of it, causing me to wonder if we have ever really heard it in its entirety.

The final scene of the story depicts the father outside trying to encourage his older son to join in the celebration of his younger son's return.

All-too-often, I have found myself reading this story from the shoes of the older son who is reluctant to share the extravagant love of God -- or maybe from the perspective of the younger son who has experienced that love. Rarely have I found myself standing beside the father pleading with his son to join in the celebration.

This is a major paradigm shift for me. It puts me in an entirely different framework, allowing me to see things from the perspective of God.

We have been invited to stand with God offering reconciliation to the world (2 Cor 5:19). Not just to those who are here with us this morning, not just our family members, but all of the world.

Paul reminds us that the most appropriate response to God's love is to make that love known to others, to act as reconcilers in our world. To be ambassadors for Christ (2 Cor 5:20).

Labor disputes, marriages in trouble, or even the wide split between political parties, seem to be appropriate examples of where we, as Christians, ought to be working for reconciliation. It isn't necessarily a matter of taking sides, but bringing Christ into the discussion.

We are given an entirely different framework. This is more than just a simple whitewashing, but a transforming event. It is like a brain transplant.

Last year at this time, my dad was involved in a remodeling project. It was an old greasy spoon restaurant that really needed to be torn down. But permits for remodelling are easier to obtain.

So they tore everything down except two foundation walls and began again. (Don’t ask me how that qualifies as a remodel, but in that county it did!)

What Christ has done in our lives is that kind of renovation. "Everything old has passed away; see, every­thing has become new!" (2 Cor 5:17)

Thanks be to God.

Amen.