Let us pray:

Come, O God, into our lives and into the world with healing and peace.  Come into our lives and into the world with joy and power.  Startle us again with your truth.  Give us quiet moments in the busy and noisy days ahead to catch a glimpse of the everlasting in the midst of the ever-fleeting.  Now in your grace open your Word to our hearts and our hearts to your Word.  In the Spirit of Jesus, Amen.

Our Gospel reading of the morning is the so-called "Lost Trilogy" from the Gospel of Saint Luke.  These marvelous stories Jesus told and which the Evangelist preserved for us – of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son.  Some of us here have known and treasured these stories for as long as we can remember.  For others here this morning they are brand new, some are even hearing them for the first time.

These three stories or parables are glimpses into the heart of God.  In Jesus of Nazareth we catch a glimpse of the face of God.  Jesus in these stories is speaking of God's amazing grace and love.  Jesus emphasizes God's longing to welcome us home when we freely return from our wanderings in the far country.  This is the message of each of the three parables, the lost sheep, the lost coin - in which God is represented by a woman, a fact ignored even today in many churches - and the prodigal son.  Luke gives us a picture of a God who allows us to make choices, even wrong ones.  And like a mother or father, Luke pictures God's overwhelming joy when we "come to ourselves in the far country" and begin the journey toward home.

This morning we ponder together God's amazing grace, love and mercy which invites each of us to come home, to turn toward God, to draw closer to God, especially these remaining days of our Lenten journey.  Come Home, Come Home:  All the exiles, all the wanderers, all the lost and lonely, all who feel themselves to be out in that far country, alienated and estranged from God, perhaps from others: from a friend or neighbor, a spouse or parent, a sibling to whom we said in a moment of anger, “That's it - I will never speak to you again.”  Whoever and wherever you are this morning hear the gracious invitation, “Come Home, Come Home.”

I suspect this may be one of the reasons why you are here this morning, this fourth Sunday of Lent, whether you know it or not.  You come here longing to recover something you lost along the way – longing to find your way home, to discover your spiritual home, a faith community, a place to belong.

Blessed are the homesick, for they shall find their way home.1  We are all, are we not, in some kind of exile.  “Homesickness” is God's tug at our hearts.  A kind of homing instinct planted in each of us.2  Our hearts are forever restless, till at last they come to rest in God.3  Thanks be to God for the invitation “Come Home, Come Home.”  May we say, “Just as I am without one plea, I come, I come.”  Yes, thanks be to God for God's amazing grace.

Last week we looked at what we called tangibilitating the Gospel.  Talking the talk is not enough – we are called to walk the walk, to make our faith tangible, visible, in our life each day, to bear our personal witness as bravely as we dare to the good news of what God has done and is doing for us and for the world in Jesus Christ.  Getting down to particulars.  Tangibilitating our faith.

As long as we leave the proclamation of the Gospel as a general affirmation of God's love and grace, all is well.  It is when we attempt to tangibilitate the good news of the Gospel that things can very quickly become interesting and exciting.  I am sure you have discovered this in conversations at the office or among friends or in your own living room.  “God loves all people,” sounds great; nothing to argue about or disagree with, as long as it is left there we have a marvelous statement on the inclusive dimensions of God's grace.  But when we try to figure out what God's love might possibly mean in relation to a war in Iraq or the growing gap between rich and poor, or to so many children in our nation living in poverty, or homeless people sleeping on the streets of Boston, or same sex marriage, then the conversation becomes interesting.

When you have the privilege of standing in this pulpit and are charged to tangibilitate the Gospel, applying this general affirmation of God’s grace to the particular issues of our day, then some folks are apt to say, “Pastor, you've stopped preaching and gone to meddling.”

This has been a challenge ever since Jesus preached his very first sermon in the synagogue in his hometown of Nazareth.  The folks were glad to see Jesus. The elders invited him to read Scripture, a text of his own choosing, and to comment.  Jesus chose a favorite passage from the book of the prophet Isaiah:  The Spirit of the Lord is upon me. . .he has anointed me to speak good news to the poor, release to the captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed.  The people loved that passage. They read it to themselves.  They were the poor, oppressed, captives. Rome was the oppressor. They waited for a Saviour to deliver them from Roman rule.  Jesus picked a good passage when he started to tangibilitate.  He began to get in trouble when he said: “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”  People turned to each other:  “Did you hear what he said? Surely he doesn't mean it - that he is the Liberator, that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him.  No, we must have misunderstood.”  So they overlooked it, gave him a pass for youthful enthusiasm. “After all,” they said, “we know him.  This is Joseph's son, Jesus the carpenter.”

Jesus should have quit right there and gone home for Sabbath dinner with his family.4  Instead, he chooses to tangibilitate his message even more. He tells two little stories – actually stories they already knew – about outsiders, non-Jewish people, receiving the grace of God.  This was too much; for the folk in the Nazareth synagogue were sure if they were sure of anything that they were God's elect, God's chosen.  They were in and everyone else was out.

These two little stories Jesus tells about a Syrian army officer and a poor pagan woman, stories which make tangible that God's grace extends to all people, turn that friendly hometown crowd into a lynch mob.  They not only kick Jesus out of the synagogue, but they run him out of town, trying to throw him over a cliff on the way out.  The peril of making the good news of the Gospel too tangible, the risk of getting down to particulars.

It is so difficult for so many religious people to come to grips with the truth that God's grace and love includes all of God's children.  It seems to be the nature of so many religions to build barriers rather than bridges, to protect those inside and to keep those outside out.  Shiite Muslims can't wait to get their hands on political power in Iraq, presumably so they can enforce their brand of Islam on Sunni Muslims who oppressed and persecuted and excluded them for the past forty years.

We Christians, sadly, often do the same thing, condemning one another to hell, excluding one another, slamming the door to heaven – so we think – because of our disagreement on this or that.  For example, reflect on some of the signs outside the State House two weeks ago.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ calls us to tangibilitate our faith; it challenges the status quo, challenges most especially our use of religion to shut others out.  The Gospel of Jesus Christ is about a grace and love that knows no boundaries and is for everyone.  This is not especially good news to those who look upon God's grace and mercy as their own private possession.

Someone tells of an encounter with a gas station attendant, asking him every week, “How are you doing?”  Always the same response, “Lousy.”  Week after week for months: “How are you doing?”  Always the same reply: “Lousy.”  Then one day he went in and asked his usual question:  “How are you doing?”  The guy responded:  “Great.”  “Oh, so things are getting better?”  “Nah,” the fellow said, “I just lowered my expectations.”

With the debate now taking place in this Commonwealth over same sex marriage, there appear to be those who have lowered their expectations of how the good news of the Gospel embraces all of God's children.  How, as we have seen in our Gospel reading of the morning, God in Jesus Christ calls and invites each of us to come home and to be embraced by the abundance of God's love.  A week ago Tuesday, your Church Council, after a two-hour discussion, passed unanimously a resolution in support of same sex marriage.  Jonathan Hauze, one of our seminarians, as part of his requirement for ordination led last month a three-part Bible study on same sex marriage.  It was well attended.  The last Sunday in February the series culminated in a forum in which the hall was filled nearly to capacity.  We will want to find ways to continue to be in dialogue and conversation with each other, we want to hear each other and listen carefully, respectfully and prayerfully to one another.

As we dialogue together we might begin the conversation by asking, “What is it that really threatens the 'sanctity of marriage' as it has come to be called?”  Is it, as Frank Rich has observed, “The reality TV craze from ‘Joe Millionaire’ to ‘Average Joe’ to ‘The Bachelor’ and ‘The Bachelorette’ working nightly to recalibrate the definition of marriage into a glitzy form of legalized prostitution?  Or is the sanctity of marriage threatened by the actions and attitude of Brittany Spears getting married for 55 hours, as she said, “just for the hell of it.”  And someone else selling pictures of the festivities including one of the groom sticking his hand down her pants, for up to a hundred thousand dollars to supermarket tabloids?  After her marriage was annulled, Ms. Spears told MTV, “I do believe in the sanctity of marriage – I totally do.”

Or is the sanctity of marriage threatened by an Administration which poses a one and half billion dollar program to promote “healthy marriage” when you might argue the money could be better used for housing, job training, to assist families and children living in poverty, to help the working poor – leading factors threatening the stability and sanctity of marriage.  Or is it an Administration and a Legislature which seek a Constitutional amendment to protect the “sanctity of marriage.  Prohibition was the only other amendment to our national Constitution which took away a right, and some can remember what a success that was.  All other amendments granted rights rather than removed them.  What is it that threatens the sanctity of marriage?  We need to dialogue with one another over this question.

The President says he is taking “a principled stand for one of the most fundamental, enduring institutions of our civilization.”  Since 1970 the percentage of Americans in this “enduring institution” has dropped from 68 to 56 percent. The percentage of households containing married couples with children from 45 to 26 percent.  The divorce rate among new marriages continues to be about 50 percent, moving someone to remark that marriage is like a besieged city – everyone who is in wants out and everyone who is out wants in.  As someone else observed, “If the Administration really wants to protect the sanctity of marriage, why not make divorce illegal and stone adulterers?”

Slavery was once one of the “enduring institutions” of our civilization and at least here, thank God, it is no longer.  Institutions change – sometimes for the better. Some of us can remember when inter-racial marriage was considered a threat to the enduring institutions of our civilization.  I doubt if anyone here would so regard it today.  Institutions change – sometimes for the better.

Talk of the defense of marriage, protection of the institution, a threat to civilization – no one is waging war on marriage.  It is just the opposite.  This is all about people longing to embrace it.

A recent editorial in The New York Times said, “Opponents of gay marriage have been loudly calling for a Constitutional amendment prohibiting any state from recognizing gay marriage.  Despite the parade of horribles they haul out, their greatest fear appears to be that giving gay men and women the right to join permanently with the ones they love will work out just fine, and that the American people will see that the fears being foisted on them are unfounded.”

It may well be a long, long road, as it was for civil rights, but at the end of the day there will be same sex marriages.  Those of you who are already married, ask yourself – when it happens, will it make your marriage any weaker?

There is a wonderful story about a telephone operator on Cape Cod who received a call each day from a man asking for the exact time.  This went on for months. Finally the operator asked why he called every day requesting the correct time.  The man replied, “I must get the correct time, because I am responsible for blowing the town whistle precisely at noon each day.”  “Well, that's strange,” replied the operator, “because every day exactly at noon I set my clock by your whistle.”  This is a parable of life, is it not?  We tend to get our time, our moral bearings, our values and principles from one another and from our culture.

As followers of Jesus Christ we march to different music, set our clock on eternal time, get our bearings from another compass. We try faithfully, bravely, courageously in the spirit of Jesus to run the risk of tangibilitating the Gospel.  As Jesus taught in our parables of the morning, God's love and grace embraces all of God's children.  No one is ever excluded.  Jesus practiced a radical, inclusive hospitality.  God grant that for each of us our turning these remaining days of Lent may be toward God and home.

“Softly and tenderly Jesus is calling. . calling for you and for me. . .come home. . .come home.”  As a shepherd seeking a lost sheep - as a woman seeking a lost coin - as a father or mother longing to welcome home a wayward son or daughter, the voice of God is calling to you,  “Come home, come home.”

Thanks be to God, in the spirit of Jesus. Amen.

1  Helmut Thielich
2  Barbara Brown Taylor
3  Saint Augustine
 4 John Buchanan

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