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There was a full house at the concert hall the other night; no one expected what took place. When the season ticket holders and major donors arrived, their seats had been moved to the back of the main floor and the upper areas of the balcony. In the box seats, the front center balcony, and main floor sat guests brought in from homeless encampments in that part of town, as well as university students and quite a few refugees and migrants rounded up from nearby centers. At the intermission these guests were invited to the private reception lounge with complimentary snacks and drinks. The season ticket holders and major donors had to stand in line in the lobby to purchase the overpriced cocktails.
Fact check: The above is fiction. Perhaps it stirred in you the feeling Luke is aiming for in chapter 15. I love the coming Fourth Sunday in Lent. Like the pink candle for Joy Sunday during Advent, on the fourth Sunday in Lent we get the most famous lessons in the gospels about rejoicing in the goodness of God’s work. This year it’s the parable about the runaway child, the older sibling, the waiting parent, and that glorious invitation to the party: “It was right to celebrate. This one was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found.”
The context is the grumbling about Jesus, who welcomes sinners and eats with them.
The point of the three parables: “Rejoice with me when the lost is found.”
The punchline invitation: "Join me in celebrating my extravagant loving welcome."
Today’s lessons are good preparation for this Sunday’s call to Rejoice. “If it is by the finger of God that I cast out the demons, then the kingdom of God has come to you.”
Prayer
Keep watch over your Church, O Lord, with your unfailing love; and, since it is grounded in human weakness and cannot maintain itself without your aid, protect it from all danger, and keep it in the way of salvation; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Jack Reiffer
Pathways Editor
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