Scandalous Grace

Sunday, Oct 8, 2023

Series: At Commons - Part 5

Community is shaped by the conversations we share. These questions are a tool to help you meaningfully engage with the themes of this week's teaching.

• Summary

  Message Summary: Today we look at the fifth affirmation in the journal - “Coming to understand that God is love we affirm surprising acceptance and scandalous grace as the way God chooses to heal all things” - through the lens of Luke 15.

  Inclusio - Jeremy talked about Luke’s favourite combination of “tax collectors and sinners.” This phrase is an example of an “inclusio” - a literary device to draw the boundaries and include everything in between. That will involve guilt by association (tax collectors) and guilt by reputation (sinners). We are quick to write people off, Jesus is quick to welcome them back in. The whole chapter address the attitudes of the religious folks who jeered from the sidelines.

  Preamble -The first two parables in the chapter set the stage for us. They tell us about what kind of God we want to believe in, while also building tension for the last part of the third parable (the prodigal son).

  What We Already Know - In Luke 15:17-20, the younger son comes to his senses or more literally came back to himself. He finally remembers who he was and snapped out of the false sense of self he was living out of. Seeing ourselves the way God sees us is what changes us for the better.

  How We Are Healed (Lk 15:25-32)We often hear sermons on Luke 15 that do not take us into the story of the older brother; but the lost coin, lost sheep and lost son are basically a set up for what’s coming next. After painting a story of a gracious and forgiving God that everyone would want to believe in, after getting everyone to nod in agreement about the goodness of God, Jesus tells the real story. The point of the parable is that Jesus is not trying to tell us something about God, he’s telling us something about ourselves. God is graceful, and if don’t get onboard, we’ll find ourselves miserable on the outside of the party by our choice. We are healed when we accept grace, allow it to take root in us and change us, and then start flowing through us. That is God fixing and healing us.

• Discussion

  Connect: Briefly share one moment or experience from this past week that made you feel grateful, and why you think it had such an impact on you.

  Talk: In the ‘Inclusio’ part of the message, Jeremy talked about how for Luke “sinners and tax collectors” was a phrase that didn’t talk about two specific groups, but referred to everyone who the religious folk would see as irredeemable, guilty whether by association or by reputation. Who would fall into those categories for us today? Who would be the people in our society today that “we generalize and we marginalize economically, and religiously, and at every point in between?” And why does Luke want to start the collection of parables by drawing our attention to the audience of Jesus at that gathering?

  Reflect: What strikes you most about the story of the prodigal son or maybe Jeremy’s take on it? Have you ever thought about the lost sheep, lost coin, and lost son as Jesus’ way to set the stage for what the story is actually about - that we can’t stop God being graceful, but we might end up standing outside the party being angry. How does that perspective shift your understanding of this parable (or maybe the whole chapter)? Why do you think this parable is so important for our Christian imagination and our practice of faith?

  Engage: Engage with this idea of coming back to yourself and seeing yourself the way God sees you as something that enables us to make better choices. How is this true in your life? Here’s Jeremy’s quote about the younger son’s experience of change.

  “This is such a core idea for me, one that I see woven though all of Jesus teachings. This idea that it’s actually seeing yourself as God sees you — coming back to your true self you might even say —this is what changes you for the better. So berating yourself as a sinner won’t make you more kind, but knowing that you are perfectly loved— as you are— that will make you less defensive, and that will slowly wear down your instinct to guard yourself with caustic words. It will make you more kind over time. Being angry with your greed won’t make you more generous, but coming to trust that you are actually perfectly cared for, held in God’s hand, that absolutely will, slowly, make you less selfish. So, coming back to your self comes before coming back to your senses, and it comes before making better choices.”

  Take away: Jeremy finished the sermon by talking about God's grace as both an invitation and an ongoing process of healing. "Grace isn’t just the invitation. Grace—taking root in you, changing you, surprising and confounding you and eventually flowing through you — that is God fixing you. That is God healing and preparing you to enjoy the kind of scandalous celebration that God‘s kingdom is made of. You are here because of grace. You will get there because of grace. And the more grace you can practise along the way, the better the party will be when the time comes. Because God is love, and the surprising acceptance and scandalous grace is not just your gift to someone else, it is how we are slowly steadily healed and made new from the inside out.” How can you (or how can we as a community, choose what way you want to go with this question) cultivate an environment in our lives that allows God's grace to do that work of transformation? How can we practice grace in our daily lives, and even this week?

• Prayer

  Pray: God of grace, Who is love, who has always been love, who works to show us divine love in our lives and in our history, Would you remind us today not only of your grace for us, but also for the ways that your grace pervades and fills and ultimately changes us from the inside out. For those spaces where we are holding on to hurts, perhaps longer than we have needed to, hurts that are no longer part of our healing, but are now holding us down and back and away from you. Would your grace for us turn into grace overflowing through us. May we forgive as we have been forgiven — and in that— might we sense your healing spirit. We trust that you are the same today as you were on the cross, as you were in creation, as you have always been from before time, Perfect, divine, self-giving love. So may that love guide us always back to you. In the strong name of the risen Christ. Amen

• Liturgy

  CALL TO WORSHIP Psalm 95

  MUSIC Curated by Kevin Borst
  Passion - King of Glory
  Phil Wickham - Back To Life
  Hillsong Worship - O Praise The Name
  Brooke Ligertwood - Ancient Gates

  PRAYER FOR THE CHILDREN IN OUR LIVES Written by Bobbi Salkeld

  At both of the morning services today we had child dedications and baptisms.

  Our posture at Commons is that both of these traditions express something beautiful about the mystery of God’s love at work in our lives. And so families choose the ritual that honours their beliefs and commitments.

  As part of our worship tonight, we pray for the children who were baptized and dedicated today: for Levi, August, Junie, Ariadne, and Grace.

  And we also pray for the children in our own lives –

  Be they nieces, nephews, neighbours.

  Children of your own, children long grown, or memories of your own childhood.

  Please join me in a prayer for the children in our lives.

  Loving God,

  I think back to a memory where I saw a neighbourhood kid slow his bike down on the sidewalk outside my house, balance on his tiptoes, until he could reach and grab a handful of golden yellow leaves off of the tree.

  I saw in this simple gesture the wonder of childhood the gift of being present and captivated by beauty and moved by curiosity.

  Maybe we all have moments like this where we witness children being children and something inside of us is stilled with awe and care.

  So today, we pray for the children in our lives.

  For those we worry about,

  For those learning at their own pace,

  For those who aren’t well, or who struggle, or who are having a hard time getting their needs met –

  God, bring help. Bring love.

  We pray for the children in our lives.

  At the start of a new school year making new friends and learning from new teachers, Discovering what they love and what they loath, Making choices everyday that can help or hurt – God, bring light. Bring love.

  We pray for the children in our lives. For a world that protects and nourishes them, For communities that delight and sustain them, For families and homes that provide support and find joy in being together – God, bring mercy. Bring love.

  Amen.