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God’s Mercy For the Asking
From the series: Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Text: Psalm 130:3-4; Luke 18:13-14
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost XII, August 30, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
If you, O Lord, should mark inequities, Lord, who could stand? But there is forgiveness
with you, so that you may be revered. Psalm 130: 3-4
God, be merciful to me, a sinner! I tell you this man went down to his hour justified ….
All who humble themselves will be exalted. Luke 18:13-14
There is more mercy in God than sin in us! There is more mercy in God than
there is sin in us! I think I will have you say it with me: There is more mercy in
God than sin in us! End of the sermon. Let’s receive the offering and go home.
(Charlie, that was not the time to applaud.) O.K. I’ll say amen .
If I could send you home this morning with that thought indelibly written on your
psyche, imprinted deep into the depths of your being, it would be worth the
offering. It would not be a Sunday morning spent in vain. There is more mercy in
God than there is sin in us. I hope that doesn’t disappoint you. That happens to
be a favorite statement of one of my favorite preachers. It is true and it is Good
News, and it is something that ought to set our feet to dancing. It is something,
I’m afraid, that has not come through clearly enough often enough. We talk about
Gospel, which means Good News. That is the message of the church. I am sorry
that the church has been identified by so many, though perhaps justifiably so, as
a place not of good news but a place of bad news, a place of gloom and doom, of a
kind of repent or perish syndrome that casts a shroud over the human
experience. For as a matter of fact the truth of the Gospel is that there is more
mercy in God than sin in us and, therefore, we are invited to place our hope in
God - not in our past achievements, not in our future prospects, but in God. Our
hope alone can be in God.
Psalm 130, a poignant prayer, a scream, a primal scream from the depths: “Lord
hear my cry,” is a straightforward statement full of candor about one person’s
experience of the human condition. “Oh Lord, if you should track my record, I
wouldn’t have a leg to stand on.” Or, in more biblical nuance, “Lord, if thou
should mark iniquity, Lord, who could stand?” But then we read an expression of
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Richard A. Rhem
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the faith of Israel at its very best: “But with thee there is forgiveness.” Doesn’t
that move you? Oh there are many times, I know, when one can hear that and not
be moved by it because one’s existential situation at the time has not
overwhelmed one with one’s own flawed, frail, human situation, but there are
times . . . Aren’t there times? Have you had times when the words of a Psalmist
were music to your ears and gave you just the words you needed from the heart to
say, “Oh Lord, out of the depths I cry to you. Lord, hear my cry. Oh Lord, if you
should mark iniquities who could stand?” But there is forgiveness for you. The
Psalmist believed that there was more mercy in God than there was sin in him
and, therefore, despairing of himself, he trusted God.
But not all in Israel followed in his example and took him as a model. There were
those in the days of Jesus who trusted in themselves, believed that they were
righteous, and despised others. Those two things often go together. Trust yourself
that you are righteous and check yourself. Very often the other side of the coin is
the despising of others, a contempt for other humankind. But Jesus, in order to
crack that armor, in order to break through to those who trusted in themselves,
told this parable, a parable of the Publican and the Pharisee. The parable is very
familiar. Just a brief little vignette that makes a powerful point that there are
really only two kinds of people in the world - those who go it alone and those who
trust in God. So the Pharisee came into the temple and began to pray a prayer of
thanksgiving to be sure, but really a prayer of praise of his own virtue, reminding
God of all the good things that the Pharisee had done.
Now, as I have said in these last two or three weeks, the Pharisees do get a bum
rap in the New Testament. They get a bum rap because they were the
over/against people. They were the critics of Jesus. They were the established
religious authorities who were being threatened by what Jesus was proclaiming,
but they were good people. They were the best people in town. I don’t put much
stock by their fasting, but I certainly do like the fact that they tithed! Christ
Community could use a few Pharisees in its midst! I would put up with your
supercilious righteousness if I could get your money! (laughter) They were good
people. The things that the Pharisee recited about himself were true things, and
he was a good man, and the last thing in the world that I would want you to do
would be to go out of here and say, “Thank God, I am not like that Pharisee.”
On the other hand there was a Publican. A tax collector. Not such a good person.
Religiously, he was unclean because he had dealings with the Gentile Roman
authorities. Therefore, he was ceremonially judged unclean. He was despised by
his own people because he was a collaborator with the enemy. He sold his soul for
a buck. In that cruel and corrupt tax system, he collected the money for the
Roman oppressor, oppressing his own flesh and blood. He was not a good person.
But the point of the parable, as Jesus juxtaposes the Pharisee and the Publican, is
not to say that there are good people and bad people – really, good people and
people not quite so good – the point is not to distinguish two kinds of people. The
point of the parable is to distinguish two kinds of spirit, two kinds of attitude, two
© Grand Valley State University
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kinds of approach to God. As far as Jesus was concerned, this was not an issue of
whether the Pharisee was pretty good and the Publican not so good, but the fact
that the Pharisee, in all of his virtue, was running on his own record and finally
trusting himself. The performance principle was his game. And the Publican,
despairing of himself, cast himself on the mercy of God. Jesus says the Pharisee
went out still garbed in his own virtue, and the Publican went out garbed in grace.
Now we could well spend some time on these two people, but that’s not the
purpose of the messages in this series. Rather, I am treating the stories obliquely
because I want to ask the question now: What is the image of God in that story of
Jesus? It is probably not as obvious as in some of the stories that Jesus told, but I
think that you would agree with me that behind this story was Jesus
understanding of God, the God Jesus knew, the God that Jesus proclaimed.
Would you agree that the image of God in the story of Jesus is an image of God
who likes people? Or, if that’s too bland, a God who loves people as human
beings? A God who accepts us in our humanness and affirms that humanness? It
seems to me that’s the image of God behind this story told by Jesus. Jesus is not
saying there are good people and bad people, and God loves good people and
doesn’t like bad people. Jesus was saying, God loves human beings. God loves
people. God loves people in all of the contradictoriness of their human existence.
And the only thing that God is looking for is an openness to God’s mercy, that
resting in God rather than oneself.
A preacher had a class of children before him, Ernie Kurtz says in his recent book.
He said to the children, “If all bad people were red and all good people were
green, what color would you be?” Little Linda Jean thought mightily for a
moment and then her face broke into a great smile. She said, “I know! I would be
streaky.” An answer far beyond the question. The wisdom of a child who knew
that, if she were forced to put herself in the camp of the good or the bad, she
couldn’t fit in either place because she was a combination of both. And is that not
precisely our human condition? Are we not beast and angel? Are we not light and
shadow? Are we not full of turbulence longing for serenity? Torn apart looking
for wholeness? In your bulletin there is a paragraph from Carlyle Marney, who
describes the human condition vividly and poignantly. It pictures the propensity
to evil that rests in us all.
I was reminded of this last week when I heard the zookeeper of the Miami Zoo
interviewed. They said to him, “We hear there are dangerous animals on the loose
in the wake of the hurricane.” And he answered, “Well, they are not dangerous,
unless they get cornered or become afraid. Then they are dangerous.” And isn’t
that true of us as well? Aren’t we for the most part civil and decent folks? Aren’t
we for the most part people who could identify with those wonderful deeds of
compassion and kindness that come to expression in a crisis like Hurricane
Andrew, where neighbors become neighborly? Is there not the milk of human
kindness in us all? But are we not at our best when we are responding to that?
Are we not capable of glory and gore? Scare us, get us in a corner, elicit our
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defensiveness, put us under threat, accuse us, condemn us - the hair bristles on
the back of our neck and, if necessary, we will kill. Are we evil? I don’t think so.
But we are capable of every evil deed the world has ever known. Are we not a
common lot of those who go through life fractured - fragile – afraid? Most of us at
our worst are simply scared to death. We are not evil, but we do evil things. We
are not destroyers, but we live with self-destructiveness. At heart we are lovers,
but we can become lions in the den.
Ernie Kurtz, who I mentioned a moment ago, wrote a book whose title is worth
the price of the book. It is entitled The Spirituality of Imperfection. The
Spirituality of Imperfection. Ernie Kurtz was here last year and will be back here
in October. He has written a definitive study of the history of AA and its
philosophical and theological roots. And he has done a lot of research into the
history of the wisdom literature of the peoples of the world, and has wonderful
stories that he has gathered together in this book The Spirituality of
Imperfection. The Spirituality of Imperfection is the lesson that the AA
community has to teach the Church, just as the Church at one time taught the AA
community. In the last few decades with the membership of the church going
down, the membership of AA has gone up and that is not because there are so
many more people recovering from alcoholism or substance abuse. It is because
there are so many more broken human beings out there who have found in that
fellowship what they have not found in the church – an acceptance of the fact that
they are human.
Are you human? You smile, you blush, you say, “Oh, yes, I’m human - all too
human.” All too human? No. Just human. To be candid, that’s all we are! And I
would suggest to you that’s what God intends us to be. I love Psalm 103. “As a
father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him.” God remembers
our frame. God knows our frame; God remembers that we are dust. God knows
us. God knows what we are. And God has mercy upon us. In the wisdom of the
Creator we were not created robots on a string. We were not created machines
that could be turned with a crank and just go on our way perfectly. We are people
full of contradictoriness. Torn apart. You want another good word like murmur?
Think of the German word zerissenheit. William James, the philosopher,
translated that word as torn-to-pieceshood.
Can you identify with that? Have you ever felt torn in a dozen directions? Have
you ever felt fractured? Have you ever felt that your whole being was coming
apart? Have you ever looked up in despair - to the heavens and said, “I simply
don’t have it all together.”
Well, join the human race. God made you that way. “But,” you say, “isn’t that a bit
too simple?” Well is it really? God loves us as human beings. Struggling. Persons
in process. And in our freedom and responsibility we are capable of grandeur and
groveling. That’s who we are. And the reason people are finding healing in the AA
community is because there they are finding an honest admission,
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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acknowledgement, ownership of the human condition. And that admission
means that one needs God, along with all the mercy that God has to give. In his
book, Kurtz makes a claim that seems to be my own experience as well that, in
response to the modern age of the 19th and 20th centuries, the Church has
moved toward perfectionism. Not an acceptance of the contradictions of our
being, but a push always to perfection.
I was schooled in WORM theology. That is, “such a worm as I.” And I think,
probably, to denigrate the human person in that way is as wrong as to exalt the
human person as did the Pharisee. My preaching is skewed because I’m screwed
up, and so you have to filter everything through that recognition. A person only
talks about what they need to talk about for their own survival. That’s why I
always talk about Grace and Mercy. I could sum up my impression in the center
of my being about what I am about and what God calls me to be in the little poem
that was written by my fourth grade teacher in the book of autographs at the end
of the school year: “Good, better, best. Never let it rest. Until the good is better
and the better is best.” Never enough! We drive ourselves with a compulsion we
don’t understand and feel we always come up short because in the Church we’ve
not been honest with the ambiguity of the human situation, which is simply the
way we are. Created in the image God. Part of the earth and part of God.
Well, modern culture in reaction doesn’t help. Some years ago Tom Harris wrote
a book, a best seller, I’m O.K. You’re O.K. Remember it? Over against the
denigration of the human person on the one hand, that did help to bring some
people back to a self-worth and self-esteem, but that’s not true either. I’m not
O.K. And you’re not O.K. Forgive me for saying so. I’m not O.K. You’re not O.K.,
but that’s O.K. God can handle that. If only we can come to the point of
acknowledging that. An analyst quoted by Kurtz, named Marian Woodman, says,
“Addiction keeps a person in touch with God.” At the very point of vulnerability is
where the surrender takes place. That is where God enters. God comes through
the wound. The Pharisee was regaled in an armor that mercy could not penetrate
- he was going it alone. The Publican had no armor, and the point of vulnerability
- his wound - was the crack through which grace could enter. “Out of the depths I
cry to thee, Oh Lord. Oh Lord, hear my cry. If thou, Lord, shouldst mark iniquity,
I haven’t got a leg to stand on. But with thee there is forgiveness. God, be merciful
to me a sinner.” And God is, thank God.
One of the great Christian leaders of this century, a theologian and preacher,
Carlyle Marney, wrote the following in his book, The Human Condition:
“Man is the most dangerous and savage of the beasts: His bite is
poisonous; his hand is a club; his foot is a weapon; knives, clubs, spears
are projectiles to bear his hostility. Nothing in nature is so well equipped
for hating or hurting. Confuse him and he may lash out at everything.
Crowd him and he kills, robs, destroys, for his crime rate increases in
proportion to his crowding. Deprive him and he retaliates. Impoverish him
© Grand Valley State University
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Richard A. Rhem
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and he burns villas in the night. Enslave him and he revolts. Pamper him
and he may poison you. Hire him and he may hate both you and the work.
Love him too possessively and he is never weaned. Deny him too early and
he never learns to love. Put him in cities and all his animal nature comes
out with perversions of every good thing. For greed, acquisitiveness, and
violence were so long his tools for jungle survival, that it is only by the
hardest [effort] that these can be laid aside as weapons of his continued
survival.”
Reference:
Ernest Kurtz, Katherine Ketcham. The Spirituality of Imperfection: Storytelling
and the Search for Meaning. Bantam, reprint edition, 1993.
© Grand Valley State University
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Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
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Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Pentecost XII
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Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
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Psalm 130:3-4, Luke 18:13-14
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
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Ernest Kurtz, The Spirituality of Imperfection, 1993.
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God's Mercy for the Asking
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Richard A. Rhem
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
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A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 30, 1992 entitled "God's Mercy for the Asking", as part of the series "Images of God in the Stories of Jesus", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 130:3-4, Luke 18:13-14.
Forgiveness
Human Nature
Mercy
Nature of God
Parable
Sin
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PDF Text
Text
Nothing to Pay
From the series: Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Text: Luke 7:42
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost XI, July 23, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
When they could not pay, he canceled the debts for both of them. Luke 7:42
How does one speak of God? I suggested last week that when Jesus spoke of God,
Jesus did not leave us a catechism, but he told us stories - parables. Parables are
extended figures of speech. Figures of speech enable us to deal with that which is
beyond our experience in terms that are familiar to us. Metaphor comes from two
Greek words, meta which means to carry over or beyond or across and pherein to
carry, to bear. A metaphor carries us across the gulf of our knowing and enables
us to have some sense of that Mystery that is beyond us. We deal with the
unknown in terms of that which is familiar.
Jesus told us stories. He didn’t leave us a catechism or give us a lecture on the
nature of God. Thank God. But that reminded me that in our tradition we have
certainly done a good deal of that. I pulled down a copy of the Westminster
Confession, one of the great faith documents of our tradition, and the fourth
question is “What is God?” Simple little question. The answer: “God is a spirit,
infinite, eternal and unchangeable in His being, power, wisdom, holiness, justice,
goodness and truth.” What is God? God is a spirit, infinite, eternal and
unchangeable in His being, power, wisdom, holiness, justice, goodness and truth.
Turn you on? Move you?
Well, we could talk about all those terms I suppose, but it is interesting in all of
the attributes that I referred to there is one glaring omission. Did you catch it?
There is no mention of God’s love. Not the simple definition that we have in the
first Epistle of John, where John writes simply, “God is love.” I don’t mean to put
the catechism down. It is a faithful document coming out of its own historical
context that has been used in a significant way.
As I was thinking about the current series, “The Images of God in the Stories of
Jesus,” and the contrast from the way that Jesus revealed God and the way that
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�Nothing to Pay
Richard A. Rhem
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we have subsequently dealt with the nature of God or theological matters. In
general, we have tended to write catechisms. We have tended to try to define in
an intellectual fashion. We have used reasonable discourse in order to probe the
mysteries that are beyond us. And, as a matter of fact, you cannot probe a
mystery rationally. You can only deal with a mystery through a metaphor. That’s
why Jesus told stories. And we pick up the image of God. We get the sense of who
God was for Jesus in the way he behaved, in the manner of life, and in the stories
that he told. He conveyed the depths of God’s being through the images that
come through in his teaching and his ministry.
I want to suggest an image from God through Jesus that comes out of the
morning lesson. There is a parable within a story. That story itself is very
revealing and the story is the necessary context for understanding the parable.
And the story itself was told by Jesus as an illustration. I should say the story was
recorded in this context by Luke as an illustration of that which he was dealing.
It’s the same thing we had last week in the parable of the Prodigal Son. There
were those who were grumbling because Jesus opened himself up to tax
collectors and sinners. Jesus ran with ordinary people. Jesus had a kind of
inclusiveness about him, about his relationships, which ran counter to the
exclusivity of the religious leaders of the day--the Pharisees and the scribes.
As I said last week, the poor Pharisees were the best people in town and they get
poor press in the New Testament. But this is because they are always set over
against. They are always in that adversarial position, and in the case of Jesus they
took offense because of his openness to all people and his refusal to discriminate
against any, to draw lines and draw people out, and so they grumbled about this.
He told the story of the Prodigal Son in order to deal with that. In this context,
the discussion had been John the Baptist and Jesus, and in the 7th chapter in
verses 29 and 30, Luke puts in a parenthesis and he says that the common
people, all of the people including the tax collectors, had received John’s baptism,
and to have received John’s baptism was to acknowledge that God was present in
the life and ministry of John the Baptist. Just as to hear Jesus, Luke is saying, is
to acknowledge that God was present in the life and ministry of Jesus. In the 30th
verse of this 7th chapter of Luke, Luke tells us, by refusing to be baptized by him,
that is John, the Pharisees and lawyers rejected God’s purpose for themselves.
And Luke is saying similarly that, to refuse Jesus, to reject his message and
manner of life was to refuse the purpose of God and then, as though to give an
instance of this division between people – the ordinary folk who heard Jesus
gladly and the religious elite who rejected him – Luke tells us the story of Simon
the Pharisee who invited Jesus to dinner. And Luke doesn’t tell us that there was
anything sinister here, but obviously Simon, one of the religious leaders, was
interested to find out for himself who this person was and what he was about, and
whether the rumor was true that this one seemed to be a prophet of God.
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�Nothing to Pay
Richard A. Rhem
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And so Jesus came to dinner and as he was reclining at the table, as was the
custom of the day, in a house that was open, which was also the custom of the day
so that people off the street might wander in and wander out, while they were at
dinner, a woman who was a sinner (The word probably indicates that she was a
prostitute, a street-walker, a woman of the city.) came in and began to weep. Her
tears wet the feet of Jesus. She wiped his feet with her hair and she had brought a
flask of ointment and she anointed his feet in a display of emotion, which was
quite out of line for proper decorum in such a setting. But something within her
simply burst forth. This obviously was not the first time she had met Jesus. There
had to be a prior occasion when he had looked at her, a prostitute, and
communicated to her one way or another - through perhaps a word or a touch, or
simply the gentle affirmation of his eyes, that she, a woman of the street, was a
child of God, a person of worth to whom Jesus accorded a sense of human
dignity.
It was too much for her. She experienced full forgiveness, newness, self-worth
because she was valued by this one who was a prophet of God, and seeing him
again and having intentionally entered in order to be near him, she lost it. Simon
obviously was a bit uncomfortable with this rather erotically tinged display of
emotion, but at least he seemed satisfied that the purpose of a dinner party was
satisfied, for he says to himself, “If this man were a prophet he would know what
manner of woman this is, and obviously would not have embraced her and
allowed this display of emotion.”
So then Jesus, on the basis of Simon’s own criteria of what a prophet is,
demonstrates that indeed he is a prophet. He reads his mind; he discerns the
thoughts of Simon; he is aware of that turning of the wheels in Simon’s mind and
so he says, “Simon, I have something to say to you,” and Simon says, “Speak on,
teacher.”
And he tells them the parable: Two debtors, one owing a huge sum, another
owing a lesser sum, but alike in this: neither had anything to pay. And they were
alike in this too: their creditor freely forgave them both. In that parable we have
an image of God. In the King James Version, the version of which I memorized
the Bible, the phrase, which is the title of the message, will be found. They had
“Nothing to Pay.” They had “Nothing to Pay.”
And before we get to the image of God, perhaps we should say that there is also
an image of humankind. In the presence of God we have “Nothing to Pay.” Some
of us have incurred a huge debt. Some of us need only a little bit of credit. We are
not all the same. As Mark Twain said, “He was a good man in the worst sense of
the word.” God save us from too many people who are too good. They are not fun
to be with. But there are good people. And then - there are the rest of us.
There is a whole spectrum of righteousness, or morality, or goodness. Jesus is not
lumping the whole race in one pit of guilt and sin, but he is saying this, “The
human condition is such that we are universally in debt and universally we have
© Grand Valley State University
�Nothing to Pay
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
“Nothing to Pay.” We don’t bring our record to God. George Bush is going to run
on his record. But if you try that with God, that’s the very reason you are in
trouble. It is a record. We have “Nothing to Pay.”
But the parable for our purposes this morning is also an image of God and that is
where I want us to put the focus. The one who owed a great deal and the one who
owed very little both had “Nothing to Pay,” but the creditor freely forgave them
both. The word for cancel the debt or forgive the debt is carisomi. You are
familiar with that Greek verb I am sure. I only display my erudition because, if
you will listen carefully: carisomi, caris. The root of that verb is caris, and as you
well know in this congregation the Greek word caris is grace. There is only one
word really, isn’t there? Grace.
When neither had anything to pay, the creditor graciously, freely canceled the
debt. Now that’s an image of God. The image of God that comes through in that
story is very similar, it is exactly the same, as the image of God in the story of the
Prodigal Son, which is not a story of a prodigal son but of Prodigal Love. As I said
last week, in that simple story that Jesus told there is an image of God who
simply waits to receive the child that will return - freely embracing, loving
unconditionally.
And so I want to take the phrase that refers to the debtors, “Nothing to Pay,” and
play with that. Let’s turn it around. Let’s now make it the requirement of God. If
we have “Nothing to Pay,” let me suggest that, as far as God is concerned, there is
“Nothing to Pay.” Oh, that sets the Gospel on its head in terms of the way you’ve
always heard it. Hear me now. This is pure, undiluted heresy in terms of the way
you’ve generally heard the Gospel preached, because you’ve generally heard the
Gospel preached through the focus of Paul. And we have always used Paul to
dampen Jesus. The radicality of these messages is that I am suggesting to you we
ought to simply listen to Jesus once, without dragging Paul in, with all his
metaphors with Roman law and the Roman court system and the transactions.
Now, if I am going to try to make this point in a sermon, I’ll tell you I have to go
through the hymn book and really be careful about the hymns I pick because
almost every hymn, almost every prayer, almost all the liturgy, the whole
tradition of the Christian church conveys the idea that Jesus paid it all! Now,
what if there is “Nothing to Pay?”
A friend of mine, Ernie Campbell, who used to be the pastor of the Riverside
Church in New York, edits a little quarterly newsletter for preachers in order to
help us out when we get in a tight spot on Saturday and don’t have an idea. Ernie
writes this:
A couple of times in the last two months I have heard grace defined as
“God’s riches at the expense of Christ.” I have not been able to track this
definition to its source. Perhaps one of our readers could help in this
regard.
© Grand Valley State University
�Nothing to Pay
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
“God’s riches at the expense of Christ.” I find this description of grace deeply
troubling. What are we to make of the phrase “at the expense of Christ?” Are we
to assume that God would be indifferent to us but for the intervention of Christ?
And why the need to reach for a “transaction” metaphor: this for that, as though
God were trapped by the accountant’s logic and could credit us only if he could
debit Jesus. And are we saying that, because we have received grace through
Christ, grace is not available to others under different auspices? Must grace be
mediated? Is God not free to directly lavish grace on any or all out of the fullness
of the Divine Nature? If grace is to be understood as exclusively Christ-related,
how do we explain the lovingkindness of the Lord toward Israel?
The definition that most of us learned years ago is still valid. Grace is “the
unmerited favor of God.” The unmerited favor of God. Period. Christ did not have
to win it or earn it on our behalf. It was always there. Christ did not come to make
grace possible but to make grace visible. Richard Niebuhr was right: “Most of our
miseries come upon us because we cannot believe that God is as good as Jesus
said He is.”
“Nothing to Pay.” We have “Nothing to Pay.” And God says there is “Nothing to
Pay.” Just open your life to my love that is always there; be valued, given worth.
Let your heart be broken by my unconditional love that requires nothing but
simple access.
Simon had an image of God and lived out his image of God – because we do live
out our image of God. Our image of God is probably the most shaping factor in
our attitudes and our manner of life. Simon had an image of God and his image of
God is revealed when he sees Jesus allowing this woman of the street to have this
display of emotion, and receives her and accepts her. Simon’s image of God is
this: God withdraws from the likes of that. If this man were a prophet of God he
would act as God would act. He would put down a barrier; he would erect a wall;
he would separate himself from this ordinary sinful human being.
Jesus lived out his image of God, and that was that God never erects a barrier,
never builds a wall, never turns the back, but is always simply waiting - longing to
do just one thing: to love us, to give us value. God’s love is groundless and
infinite. God does not seek value. God’s love creates value. The son in the far
country came into a pinch and began to strategize how he might go back and start
as a servant and prove himself, prove himself, prove himself. He wasn’t
transformed in the far country. He simply had started on the way back home. It
was the salty tears of the father, the embrace of the father that changed the boy
and got him out of that servant - servile mentality, enabling him again to be a
son. The woman in the parable, too, was transformed by an unconditional love.
What image of God do we as a community convey? Let me suggest to you that, by
and large, the Christian Church in its attitude, spirit, body language and
decorations conveys an image of God much closer to Simon’s than to Jesus’.
© Grand Valley State University
�Nothing to Pay
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Is there not a certain level of morality that is necessary in order to be a part of
this community? Is there not a certain expectation, a certain living-up-to, a kind
of standard? Is there not some kind of qualification to be considered a people of
God? Do we not have barriers and walls, subtly suggested criteria communicated
nonverbally by our very body language? And how about you - are you still doing
your darnedest to show yourself worthy? Have you ever let down your guard as
the woman let down her hair and wept in the face of a love that will never quit
and only waits to be experienced?
The image of God in this story of Jesus is a God who says to the likes of us, who
so love to pay our own way, “There’s nothing to pay.”
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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English
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Sound
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
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Event
Pentecost XI
Series
Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Scripture Text
Luke 7:42
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19920823
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1992-08-23
Title
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Nothing to Pay
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Richard A. Rhem
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
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eng
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 23, 1992 entitled "Nothing to Pay", as part of the series "Images of God in the Stories of Jesus", on the occasion of Pentecost XI, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 7:42.
Forgiveness
Inclusive
Nature of God
Parable
Transforming Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/3956bbade0484bff0099c8c106fe3f23.mp3
3a81f3e74afc2f97995a4635344e45e7
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/e4010e64105211275e9974398b85a62e.pdf
ddb217edffee798b7473eecc87c30e09
PDF Text
Text
Prodigal Love
From the series: Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Text: Luke 15:20
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost X, August 16, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, and he
ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Luke 15:20
It is very important to name things correctly because names give us a
preconception of the reality of something. The parable that we just read has been
popularly known as the “Parable of the Prodigal Son,” but, actually, that is a
misnomer. That is an incorrect naming.
To call it the Parable of the Prodigal Son is to put the focus on the son. Now there
were two sons. But to name it the Parable of the Prodigal Son is to put the focus
on the more exciting son, the one that would put a little raciness into the
narrative. But it is not a story about the rascal or the rogue. It is a story about the
father. And the father represents God. It is very important for us in this series of
messages, in which we will be looking at the Images of God in the Stories of
Jesus, to get the title straight.
In titling today’s sermon, I’ve saved the word prodigal because I looked it up in
the dictionary and found that it can have a positive as well as a negative meaning.
Prodigal, in the sense of the prodigal son, means wastefulness, spendthrift, a
rascal, using one’s substance on that which is not necessary or important, etc. But
if you keep reading you will find that prodigal can also mean abundance, lavish,
superabundance, profuse. So, in order to name the parable, I’ll save the word
prodigal, but we’ll call it prodigal love. It is important to get that straight because
images of God in the stories Jesus told are metaphors. And it is important to get
the proper focus of the story in order to be sure we catch the metaphor.
A metaphor, you will remember we said last week, is a figure of speech. The word
comes from two Greek words - meta, which means behind or over or across, and
pherein, which means to carry, to bear. And so a metaphor carries us across the
gulf of unknowing in order that we might have some sense of that Mystery that is
beyond us. In order that, in terms of things that are familiar to us, we might have
© Grand Valley State University
�Prodigal Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
some sense of the Mystery that is always beyond our comprehension. We can
only talk of God in metaphors. We can only understand God and the deepest
spiritual Mysteries in terms of poetic expression, and so, in this metaphor, this
parable, we have an image of God as Prodigal Love.
Jesus didn’t lecture those who were complaining to him and about him. He didn’t
write a catechism. He didn’t try to get into a rational argument. He told a story.
Jesus always told stories because Jesus knew that was the only way to
communicate the depth of the Mystery to which he was pointing. You can only
speak of God poetically. You can only get the feel and the sense of the reality of
God in an analogy, in a figure of speech, a story, a parable. He told this parable in
order to image God as Prodigal Love, because God is Prodigal Love.
Isn’t that good news? Isn’t that wonderful? Isn’t that the news that has set our
tongues singing and our feet dancing? “Why, of course,” you say. “Why certainly,”
you agree. But wait a minute. Wait a minute. Are you sure? Do you really buy
that? Does that really make you feel good, comfortable? Are you at ease with
that? God as Prodigal Love.
I want to tell you, it will never make it in Houston this week. The Republican
Platform Committee would never come out with a platform that had at its heart
the theme that God is Prodigal Love. I’ll tell you, neither Bill Clinton nor George
Bush could capture the White House this fall, campaigning on a plank of God’s
Prodigal Love as the answer to our economic ills. I’ll tell you something more;
there’s not a national church assembly meeting this year that would ever have at
the center of its mission statement, God’s Prodigal Love. I’ll tell you something
more; even in Christ Community we might not rest totally at ease with God’s
Prodigal Love.
I suppose making a provocative statement like that I ought to support it. I could
see you were nodding your head “yes” all too soon and all too easily when I said
it’s good news that God is Prodigal Love. Sure. But why did Jesus tell the story?
Because the scribes and Pharisees were murmuring about the fact that the tax
collectors and the sinners were coming to hear Jesus, and they were put off by the
fact that Jesus was receiving them and inviting them to eat with him, which was
the sign of hospitality and the acceptance of such a person.
Luke sets the story of God’s Prodigal Love in the context of the murmuring of the
scribes and Pharisees. And who were the scribes and the Pharisees? Well, they
don’t get very good press in the Gospel because they are always set over against
Jesus. They are always in the adversarial position, but, as a matter of fact, in all
honesty, they were the best people in town. They were the serious people. They
were the religious people. They were the pillars of society. They were decent.
They were honest. They were hard working. With dogged determination and
dedication they kept life going and institutions intact. They were faithful. They
were devout. They were seriously good people. They were like the people who are
© Grand Valley State University
�Prodigal Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
going to fill Convention Hall in Houston this week. I mean, that describes
Republicans, doesn’t it?
They murmured, “Who does he think he is? Look with whom he is associating.”
Murmur. Does anybody murmur better than good religious people? We the
upright and the uptight, don’t we murmur? Aren’t we always grumbling in our
beard about how bad the world is and how everything is going to pot, and about
our irresponsible neighbor?
Folks, the scribes and the Pharisees were the kind of people who come to worship
at 10:00 on Sunday morning. Good people. But they murmured. They were
offended at Jesus living and acting out what he believed to be true and that is that
God is Prodigal Love. Jesus acted out what he believed God to be. Jesus was
transparent. He was a picture. He was a metaphor of God. Seeing into the face of
Jesus, we see into the heart of God. And what the good folk saw… They. Did. Not.
Like.
You want another piece of evidence? This is still in Luke’s Gospel. If you go to the
fourth chapter where Jesus begins his ministry, he came to his hometown crowd,
his local congregation where you would have thought they would have given him
a break. Remember? He preached from the Prophet Isaiah. He proclaimed a
message of liberation - sight to the blind, and hearing to the deaf, the lame to
walk, the prisoners freed. And his own people were so angry they wanted to throw
him over the cliff. They wanted to kill him. And it was his consistent living out of
that inaugural text that earned him the wrath of the best people in town.
You want one more piece of evidence? How does the story of the Prodigal end?
The story ends, not with the salty tears of the father over the son who came home,
but with the faithful, obedient, hard working, dedicated, committed son who was
always every day out in the back 40 plowing and hoeing and weeding. He comes
home one night; he’s tired; he is satisfied, feeling that he has worked hard and
put in another good day’s work. But, of course, his satisfaction is really riddled
with resentment, because nobody really likes to be that good and that faithful all
of the time. I mean if you are that good and that faithful all of the time, then you
in all probability have a bit of resentment suppressed somewhere. It will
inevitably pop up now and again. He said, “What’s going on?” The servant says,
“Your brother’s home.” Dark clouds. The father comes out and says, “Your
brother’s home, let’s have a party.”
“No way! That no good joust-about, who’s wasted all your living?” he says to his
father. Then he colored the story a little bit. He didn’t know for sure what the
younger son had been doing, but he knew what he would have done, if he were
out there; that’s part of his resentment. He said, “He was wasting your living on
harlots and all that other kind of stuff, and you kill a fatted calf for him? I have
slaved for you all these years and you never gave me a party.” Jesus is
brandishing a vivid point to those to whom he told the story in the first place, to
the murmurers.
© Grand Valley State University
�Prodigal Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Now to come back to the question I started with. Does it really sit easy with you
that God is a God of Prodigal Love? Just think about the story for a minute. The
younger son gets what he can get and scrams. Breaks his father’s heart. Breaks all
codes of decency and honor. Enters into a self-destructive pattern of life. Finds
himself in a real pinch, scratches his head and realizes the servants in his father’s
house are better off than he. He devises a plan. “I will arise and go to my father.”
He rehearses this speech: “Father, I am not worthy to be your son. I have sinned
against heaven and against you.” I think he meant it. I think he had attained a
certain amount of proper humility. But I don’t think he was changed yet. This is
still just a strategy. He was going to come home. He was going to give his
prepared speech. He was going to try to be one of the hired servants because he
still is operating under the old principle. He thinks, “You know if the old man will
give me a second chance, and I work hard enough, and I am dedicated long
enough, if I follow my elder brother around long enough, maybe I can prove that
there is really some good stuff in me after all. Maybe if he’ll give me a second
chance I can still prove myself.”
So he comes home and the old man is on the rooftop. He’s been up there every
day since the kid left. He’s been straining his eyes looking down the road, hardly
seeing because he is blinded by the tears he’s been shedding. And then he sees his
son and almost leaps off the roof of his house. He gathers his garments around
him in a way that would be considered shameful in that culture and in that day,
and he begins to run down the street as no male over 30 years of age would run.
He throws off proper decorum and proper behavior and doesn’t care who is
watching, who is witnessing this kind of shocking display of emotion. He races,
the text says, he races to his son and his son gets the first line of his prepared
speech out, only to be smothered by the arms of the father, whose salty tears flow
over the son as he kisses him effusively in a prodigal manner and restores him to
sonship.
That is a moving story isn’t it? It is a wonderful story. The trouble is we haven’t
dared preach it that way in church, we haven’t let the story just be. We haven’t
dared to just tell that story and say, “God is like that.” We’ve always hedged a bit.
I am going to quote from a sermon given by a preacher, recognized as
outstanding in our tradition. It is from a sermon on this parable:
“These parables teach and depict in a pictorial form the basic message of
the Bible that God is a God of grace.” (Good so far.) “God forgives sinners
by grace. That is, he forgives sins freely and not by merit on the part of the
person who has sinned. The word grace means unmerited favor. This, of
course, does not mean that God overlooks sin or that he winks at it, or that
he excuses it. God forbid. He is able (listen to me now) to forgive us freely
because full atonement has been made for our sin in the death of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God, on the Cross of Calvary. (I’ll repeat that.) He is able
to forgive us freely because full atonement has been made for our sin in
© Grand Valley State University
�Prodigal Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
the death of Jesus Christ, the Son of God, on the Cross of Calvary.” [Words
in parenthesis spoken by Richard A. Rhem.]
This is the way you’ve had the Gospel preached to you almost all your life. The
cross of Calvary, the death of the Son of God, the Atonement. Did you really find
that in the story? Where did that come from?
Now this is a very fine preacher, and this very fine preacher knows full well that
when one preaches one is supposed to preach the text. But he dragged the word
about Calvary into this story didn’t he? It’s not in there. Jesus told a story about a
son who went bad and came home and got loved by his father. He didn’t say
anything about parole, or probation, or recrimination, or condemnation, or
somebody else taking the rap for all of the grief the father had experienced.
Where did it come from?
It came from Paul, of course: Paul’s reflection, after the fact, a reflection back on
the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. All of Paul is theological reflection.
The problem in the Church is that we have never let the images of God in the
stories of Jesus be heard in all of their potency, in all of their power. We have not
trusted these stories. We have wanted to warn folks like you that what Jesus said
in a case like this is not all that there is to say. This preacher was following a
principle of interpretation that is taught in our seminaries, and that is that every
text of scripture has to be interpreted in light of every other text of scripture. So
you preached the text, but always in the context of the whole.
Yesterday Nancy was doing some baking. Here she was up to her elbows in flour had the rolling pin out. She starts from scratch, that girl! I mean she’s good! She’s
rolling out this crust until it is beautiful and smooth. There’s not a foreign particle
anywhere, nor any kind of little lump. It is absolutely flat, uniform,
homogeneous. You could take a hunk of that crust any place and you would have
the real ticket. That’s what we have done with the Bible in all of its rich diversity,
in all of the thousands of years over which it came to expression, and all of the
different contexts into which it is spoken. We have taken a rolling pin and we’ve
rolled it and rolled it.
It reminds me of a soup I used to like when I was trying to lose weight. (I’ve, of
course, gotten that weight down now where it is just right!) This was a soup that
had all kinds of vegetables and when it was all done you couldn’t identify
anything in that bland mush. You threw them into the blender and blended that
thing until - well, there were carrots and onions, and celery and tomatoes, and
potatoes and all of that. Sometimes I like to take a big bite out of a carrot and
taste a carrot, or an onion, or a tomato or a potato. But if you get it all blended
together, you can dish it out and it’s got a little bit of everything in it and it
doesn’t taste like anything distinctive! And it doesn’t have any pungency or any
punch.
© Grand Valley State University
�Prodigal Love
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
And so in the Church we have hedged on the stories of Jesus just so you folks
didn’t get the wrong impression. We are afraid you might think, as the preacher
said, “God might wink at sin.” Or that God could just forgive us if God willed to
forgive us. So we have, thank God, Paul who puts the damper on Jesus.
But now just think with me for a minute. You are parents, grandparents, aunts or
uncles. Is there a child you love? Can you imagine a child you love with all your
heart and soul, that child breaking your heart? A son or daughter going wrong?
Can you imagine every time the telephone rang your heart skipping a beat
because you hoped it was he or she? Can you imagine going to the mailbox every
day just in case there might be some communication from that son or daughter?
Can you imagine a son or daughter whom you loved, seeing, clear as a bell, that
they were on the road to destruction and not being able to do a thing about that?
Loving them. Caring. Longing. Yearning. Weeping. And one day there is a rap on
the door and there they are. What would you do? What would you do?
Jesus said, “If you, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how
much more your heavenly father.” I think Jesus would say, “Don’t drag Paul into
this story. I am trying to image for you God, who in Prodigal Love simply forgives
freely.” It is an image of God who has to let the kid go because he will only love,
and has no other plan. God who stands helpless even in the face of his “steadyEddie” elder son who complains, saying to that elder son, “All I have is yours. You
are home. Come in to the party,” but can’t drag him by the hair. Jesus images God
as Prodigal Love who loves and loves until one finally gets close enough to him to
be embraced and to experience and to be lost in the abyss of that love.
Jesus paid it all - I feel a little more comfortable - that’s the kind of world I can
operate in. Then, Dad, take me back and let me prove myself. That feels better.
But it’s not the Gospel, and it’s not the way God does it. The old Dutch painter,
Rembrandt, captured the story and the poignancy of the parable in a painting
that Peter owns, that he has shown me. It is the parable of the Prodigal Son,
which we have renamed now the Prodigal Lover. Peter and I are going to show
you the painting. I’ll be God. [laughter heard] Well I’ve got this beard. [Peter
responds, “I get the party!”] [Dick embraces Peter and says:] This is the painting.
Do you see the salty tears on the father’s cheeks? All God ever wants to do is
embrace his children and have them home.
You get the picture. Listen to the voice of God. “You are loved. You are home.”
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Pentecost X
Series
Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Scripture Text
Luke 15:20
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19920816
Date
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1992-08-16
Title
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Prodigal Love
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
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Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 16, 1992 entitled "Prodigal Love", as part of the series "Images of God in the Stories of Jesus", on the occasion of Pentecost X, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 15:20.
Nature of God
Parable
Transforming Grace
Unconditional Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/44f39fc8aebeb20ab20308008e57c0e8.pdf
117fffe01d8ffe2c4dcccbbedfcaa401
PDF Text
Text
Abba
From the series: Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Text: Mark 1:35
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
Pentecost IX, August 9, 1992
Transcription of the spoken sermon
Images fill and shape the landscape of our lives. More than theoretical or abstract
philosophical principles or statements of truth, we are shaped by stories, by
pictures, by images, by metaphor. Metaphor is something with which we all live.
We make metaphors constantly. Metaphor--the word itself comes from two
Greek words. Meta is a preposition, which means across or behind or over. And
pherein is a Greek verb, which means to carry or to bear. Thus a metaphor carries
one across or over the gulf of unknowing. That which is not accessible to us in our
ordinary understanding is made accessible to us through metaphors, which are
created out of familiar experiences in terms of which we speak of the mystery
beyond us.
God is the great Mystery beyond us. The Mystery that confronts us, that embraces
us, toward Whom we grope and yearn and long. We speak of familiar things,
thereby to relate to the God beyond our experience. We experience God through
the knowledge of those common things, analogies that help us to know something
of the Mystery of God.
Jesus spoke in stories and pictures, images, metaphors. In fact we might say that
Jesus was God’s living metaphor, enfleshed. “The word became flesh and dwelt
among us,” so that our hands handle him; our ears hear him; our eyes look upon
him--the Word of Life. Jesus said, “If you have seen me you have seen the
Father.” Paul said, “We have seen the light of the revelation of the glory of God in
the face of Jesus Christ.” God has drawn close to us and drawn away the veil for
us in the metaphor that is Jesus. It is the only way we can have true knowledge or
experience of God: through an image or a metaphor. And so, in these next weeks,
I want us to look at the images of God in the stories of Jesus.
But I am not going to begin this morning with a story that Jesus told. I am going
to begin with a portrait of Jesus that Mark paints for us - of Jesus before the
break of day, in a lonely place--praying to God. As we see Jesus there, we see him
embodying for us his knowledge and understanding of his relationship with God,
of who he was for him.
© Grand Valley State University
�Abba: Images of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
Have you been to Palestine? Imagine the hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee,
Jesus slipping away quietly before dawn. Mark tells us that the previous day had
been filled with ministry. In the old King James translation of the Bible, the
Gospel of Mark has that word straightway . Straightway he did this and
straightway he did that, and straightway he did another thing. In the RSV the
word is immediately. Immediately, immediately, immediately. And if you follow
long enough in the Gospel of Mark you are almost out of breath, because he takes
you on such a torrid pace. And such had been the pace of Jesus that previous day.
I’ve had those kinds of days. But after they are over and I am drained, I try to
sleep in the next morning! Not Jesus. A great while before dawn he’s off. By
himself in a lonely place, he prays to gather his thoughts and let the serenity of
the place wash over him. Becoming centered, he opens his life in the presence of
the Mystery that is God. He begins his communing with God very simply: “Abba.”
It was, in Jesus day an affectionate address for a parent. Daddy. Papa. It was as a
child’s word, and in Jesus’ day it was rather common parlance, an affectionate
term for a father. What was unique was that Jesus used that simple unaffected
word of address to address God. That was not common. It may in fact have been
non-existent except for Jesus’ usage.
The rabbinical devotion of Jesus’ day gives little indication that anyone in Jewish
piety would have thought to address God simply as Papa. But the NT scholar,
Edward Schilebeek, says that the whole essence of Jesus’ life and ministry is
summed up in that word of address. That simple straight-forward, intimate,
unaffected word of address, Abba. And although Abba is transliterated in our
New Testament in only three places, (in the Gospels, the Gospel of Mark, and in
the Garden of Gethsemanae: “Abba, Father, now is my soul troubled.”);
nonetheless, wherever “Father” appears in the Gospel as an address to God, in
the words of Jesus or the prayer life of Jesus, the word behind it was Abba. It so
impressed the New Testament community that Paul, for example, says in
Romans 8 that “the Spirit testifies with us that we are the children of God and we
pray, Abba , Father,” and again “in the fullness of time God sent forth his son who
has given us his Spirit whereby we cry Abba, Father.” The early church was
indelibly marked by that simple, unaffected, straight-forward, intimate, personal
address of Jesus to God. The word for Jesus bespoke a conception of God as the
solid undergirding of life, the one who secures and guides and counsels, the one
who nurtures and provides and sustains.
Jesus in using Abba revealed the conviction that was the whole center of his life-that God was like a parent, a good parent who could be trusted. Abba. “Abba in
heaven, hallowed be thy name.” “ Abba, now is my soul troubled.” “ Abba. Why
have you forsaken me?” “Abba, forgive them, they don’t know what they are
doing.” “Abba. Into your hand I commend my Spirit.” Jesus’ understanding and
relationship to God can be summed up in that simple word of address. His was a
confident resting in the goodness, the compassion, the grace of God, related to as
a loving, faithful, trustworthy parent.
© Grand Valley State University
�Abba: Images of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
In his day Jesus was unique in using Abba, but he could point to a long,
Scriptural tradition when he prayed thus, prayed intimately to God in that
personal manner.
Psalm 103 is one of the most beautiful expressions of such intimate relationship
in the Old Testament. In verses 13 and 14 we read, “as a father pities his children,
so the Lord pities those who fear him, for he knows our frame, he remembers that
we are dust.” God doesn’t expect us to be more than we are. God knows what we
are. To be human is enough. God loves us. The compassion of God is ours as a
father has compassion on his children. The word compassion in the Hebrew is
rechem and that word has a root that means “womb.” The description of God as a
compassionate father is really a maternal image that comes from the idea of
womb – the womb, that place that is warm and secure and life-sustaining. God’s
compassion, God’s mercy is compared to the warmth and nurture of the womb.
The 8th verse speaks of God as being merciful and gracious, the word gracious is
also in the Hebrew a maternal word.
Samuel Terrien, an Old Testament scholar, speaks of being in those biblical lands
and talking to a sheik who was herding camels. He heard the yearning cries of
camels off in the distance and he asked, “What is that cry?” The sheik answered
that those particular camels had recently borne young and the young had forcibly
been removed in order to wean them. The cries of those mother camels conveyed
their yearning for their young.
The word “gracious” used of God in Psalm 103, verse 8, is the same word as that
used for the maternal longing for young that have been forcibly separated. The
womb. The maternal longing. This is the imagery of the compassionate father
who has mercy on his children.
The Old Testament is really saturated with the intimate and personal images of
fatherhood and motherhood--beautiful images. In Isaiah 49:15, for example, Zion
has said, “The Lord has forsaken me. My Lord has forgotten me.” To which the
response is, “Can a woman forget her nursing child or show no compassion for
the child of her womb? Even these may forget, yet I will not forget you.” A mother
nursing a child whom she has borne, how could she forget? But, if she could
forget, yet I will never forget. And in Isaiah 66, “As a mother comforts her child,
so I will comfort you. You shall be comforted in Jerusalem.” Images of a good
trustworthy parent. Mother love. Father love. The nurturing, sustaining, life
sustaining, guiding, counseling love and grace of a good parent is used as a
metaphor to help us understand the nature of God.
So in that quiet place, alone with God, Jesus says, “Abba.” Although taking
privileges no pious Jew dare take, Jesus trusts the more ancient sense, and
reflects in that word, the deep, rich Hebrew tradition of faith in the God of
steadfast love -trustworthy, covenant keeping, full of grace.
© Grand Valley State University
�Abba: Images of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
Another image, perhaps the most beautiful and familiar image is the image of the
Good Shepherd. It is interesting to note that that image has transcended its locale
of origin. How many of you have seen a shepherd? Well maybe you have; perhaps
you have been to Palestine, and seen a shepherd out on the hills with a flock of
sheep, guiding them to pasture, protecting, keeping. David, purportedly the
author of the 23rd Psalm, records his powerful metaphorical insight, “The Lord is
my shepherd.” He was using that which was most familiar to him out of his daily
experience, and therein conjured up this beautiful image that still today moves us
and will move future generations as well, thanks to Colette’s Worship Center, the
fundamental image of which is the Good Shepherd. Rather interesting though,
isn’t it? In a scientific day, technological society, a day of computers, computer
chips, and space travel we can be moved by “The Lord is my shepherd.” A
hundred years ago when I was in Sunday School they used to pass out Sunday
School papers, and I remember the picture of the Good Shepherd, Jesus, with the
lamb in the crook of his arm. I wonder if that is what causes me to feel warm
when I think about the Good Shepherd? Whatever it is, that image, that
metaphor has been able to transcend its time and its place of origin, and it
continues to speak to us. To that extent it is a valuable metaphor, still a
meaningful image. God isn’t a shepherd, of course, God isn’t a father, God isn’t a
mother. But the imagery conveys God to us, in terms of the familiar that we
know, communicates to us the Mystery beyond our ability fully to comprehend.
We need to continue to find those metaphors and images that will move us. We
could take all the metaphors and images of the Bible and scrap them--shepherd-father--mother--king--prince--refiner’s fire. We could scrap them all and we
wouldn’t dishonor God. We wouldn’t detract one bit from God. We wouldn’t
touch God. Because God is not the metaphor; the metaphor is only a figure of
speech to help us to reach after and hopefully get in touch with God. But we could
by rewriting the metaphors. And probably we should be about that--calling on
new metaphors, out of our own experience, our own world. I wonder . . . I wonder
if the masses have left the church because there’s a musty sound and smell, the
language of Zion, all of it from another world, and another time.
There is a minister in the United Reformed Church of Great Britain, Brian Wren,
who believes the church can be transformed by poetry. God knows it can’t be
transformed by theological debate. All we do is choose up sides and then shoot
one another. You can’t argue rationally the truth of God. But images, stories they can change us. That is why Brian Wren says poetry can transform the
church. And he’s done his best. We have printed a couple of his poems in the
bulletin. We are going to sing one in a moment, and we have sung another one on
occasion. On the cover of the bulletin you will find, “Are You the Friendly God?” I
love it. Look at the second line, the image there: “Spirit of brooding …” At the
baptismal font I spoke of the spirit that brooded over the waters of creation, and
Brian Wren picks up that biblical image. But he brings it into our own experience.
“Hovering wings,” again a beautiful, ancient biblical image, yet with a freshness
that speaks to us.
© Grand Valley State University
�Abba: Images of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
And the second line, “Are you the gambler-God…?” Now that should shock you!
“… spinning the wheel of creation.” Can’t you see it? Wheel of Fortune! God
spinning the wheel of creation. Giving it randomness. Do you recognize that word
randomness? Do you read any of the esoteric physics, the cosmology of our day,
the physicists who are probing the basic stuff of the universe? They speak about
randomness, the randomness of atoms and electrons. Our cosmos is not a
machine grinding on its way. There is a certain randomness to life, the physicists
tell us. And don’t we know it? Don’t we know it in our own experience? Life isn’t
all neat and cut and dried, predetermined. What will happen tomorrow? What
decisions will you make? Do you have some freedom to go this way or that? You
surely do! Randomness. The image immediately turns me on. This is someone
who is talking about the God that is more like my present experience than even
the shepherd to be honest with you. God willing to be surprised! “… taking a
million chances …”
But then the third stanza comes back again and reminds us of our deep covenant
faith in a faithful God, a God of steadfast love. And how about line two of that
stanza, “... quilting our histories.” Come to the Geneva Room on Tuesdays and
watch the quilters making their beautiful patterns and see that metaphor
enfleshed. “…patching our sins with grace.” Don’t you love that? And the final
line, “… all of our ends are wrapped in love’s beginning.” The creator will be the
consummator. All of the promises of God will come to fruition.
On the next page, “Name Unnamed.” We’ve sung that one and you know I love it!
The second stanza was last week’s sermon, “Spinner of Chaos, pulling and
twisting, freeing the fibers of pattern and form . . .” Can’t you see God, as weaver?
Don’t you see the tapestry under way? “Nudging Discomforter”--just when we
thought we had all the answers, God raises another question. “Straight-Talking
lover . . .” “Midwife of Changes . . .” “Dare-devil Gambler . . .” “giving us freedom
to shatter your dreams . . .” Has God given us power to shatter God’s dreams?
God knows we are able! “Life-giving Loser . . .” In a world that only worships
winners, Jesus was willing to come and to be true to God--to lose his life.
“…wounded and weeping . . . But not staying there . . . dancing and leaping . . .” in
Resurrection’s power; “. . . sharing and caring that heals and redeems.” Ah, there
are some images right out of today and this world.
I suppose that one of the images that has been instrumental in transforming
more lives in the last century than any other is an image that isn’t really very
warm and vivid, but nonetheless it works - the Higher Power. And in the Twelve
Step community, AA in its wisdom has refused to put flesh and blood on the
Higher Power. It leaves it for people to flesh out individually--people--people like
us all, although not all of us know it, but people who have said in all honesty, “my
life is out of control.” We then speak of the Higher Power in concrete tangible
form--metaphor--speak of the ways it has come to us. Perhaps through the
gentle, open acceptance of a child, or in the sound of lapping waves, which seem
to connect us with the heartbeat of One larger than ourselves. A metaphor of a
© Grand Valley State University
�Abba: Images of God
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
Higher Power as friend, or captain of our Earth Ship, or director of our pluralistic
choir. A Higher Power. The point is not the metaphor, it is the power of God, the
experience of God. It is God touching our lives. That’s what we need. Never argue
for a metaphor. Metaphors come and go. They are negotiable. They are transient.
They are only good as long as they move us. I don’t think we are ever going to be
able to reach back and rejuvenate, retrieve Abba. When we prayed it together, at
the beginning of the Lord’s Prayer, as Jesus would have, it (Abba) doesn’t do it
for us, does it? It did it for Jesus. But it doesn’t really do it for us in the same way.
What will do it for you? What do you need God to be? God is --and a whole lot
more.
Find that image, that metaphor of God, in which you can rest and taste grace.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost IX
Series
Images of God in the Stories of Jesus
Scripture Text
Psalm 103:1-22, Gal. 4:6, Mark 1:35
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19920809
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1992-08-09
Title
A name given to the resource
Abba
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Text
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 9, 1992 entitled "Abba", as part of the series "Images of God in the Stories of Jesus", on the occasion of Pentecost IX, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Psalm 103:1-22, Gal. 4:6, Mark 1:35.
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
application/pdf
Compassion
Mystery
Nature of God
Parable
Trust
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/6eaabb5f6c3838d1b287c3064ee37d23.mp3
1502e0b2905a94807a8d94111a19d5b7
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/296334c1430357a5c0559c36e2e9080b.pdf
56237fec0160a8ded5b49259cefdabb0
PDF Text
Text
I Can’t Believe the Love I’ve Found
From the sermon series: God’s Prodigal Love
Text: Luke 15: 20-24
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 17, 1986
Transcription of the spoken sermon
…while he was still a long way off his father saw him, and his heart went
out to him. He ran to meet him, flung his arms round him, and kissed
him….The father said to his servants, “Quick! Fetch a robe, my best one,
…a ring…and shoes….Bring the fatted calf. …let us have a feast to
celebrate the day…and the festivities began. Luke 15: 20-24
The next time I select this parable as the basis of the message, I will entitle it,
"When Heaven Throws a Party." That says it well, better perhaps than our title
today. But the title of this message is consistent with the perspective from which
we have walked through the story; we've been looking at it primarily through the
eyes of the younger son. An Old Scottish preacher treated it that way, too, but in
one message he divided the story into three movements, "Sick of home,
homesick, and home." That says it well, too. We've stayed with the story for four
weeks and I think we, too, have gotten the feel of the movement:
I want to do it on my own!
Is that all there is?
I wish I could start over!
Now, finally, I can't believe the love I've found! I like that statement. It expresses
the amazed joy of discovery the younger son experienced at his reception by the
father and it points, as well, to the heart of the story, what the story is really all
about – the love of the father, which is a parable of the love of God.
We have rehearsed the story often enough; it is the most familiar parable Jesus
told. But the climactic scene never fails to move us.
But while he was still a long way off his father saw him, and his heart
went out to him. He ran to meet him, flung his arms around him, and
kissed him.
© Grand Valley State University
�I Can’t Believe the Love I’ve Found
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
What a vivid picture of love, forgiveness, reconciliation. What deep emotion is
thus expressed and what deep chords the scene touches in our own hearts.
Let us stick with the text for a moment.
The son managed to get the first part of his rehearsed speech out:
Father, I have sinned, against God and against you; I am no longer fit to
be called your son.
No more could be spoken; no more need be spoken. Love took over; love simply
overwhelmed the penitent. There would be no more discussion, only rapid-fire
instructions by which the son would be restored fully to the position of son and
heir and the party would be prepared. The father's rationale was simple:
The dead one was alive; the lost one was found.
Let the party begin!
There you have Jesus' understanding of the nature of God's love and the way love
acts. He was defending his own action, his openness to all kinds of persons –
winners and losers, rich and poor, prestigious and peasant. He claimed to be in
his behavior, spirit and attitude a mirror of the heart of God. The portrait of the
father running down the road, embracing and kissing the son and restoring him
fully is simply a picture of God waiting, watching and finally welcoming His
children home.
Let us reflect on the nature of God's love as it comes to expression in Jesus'
story. It is obviously the love of God and quite foreign to all human conception or
expression. I am reminded of a statement from the Old Testament prophet
Hosea. He is preeminently the prophet of divine love in the Old Testament. The
passage is not strange to us; we have focused on it often; but the nature of the
love is strange to us precisely because, as God says in the prophet's words, "I am
God and not man." Hosea's prophecy opens with a personal narrative of his love
for a woman who proves unfaithful, a woman whom God calls him to forgive and
embrace again. That personal experience was Hosea's parable of God's love for
Israel. In the 11th chapter, Hosea records how God created and cared for Israel tenderly, lovingly, only to be rejected by her. He then speaks of judgment to fall
on them for their rebellion and revolt. But then the mood changes. God says,
How can I give you up Ephraim, how surrender you…? My heart is
changed within me…I will not let loose my fury, I will not turn round and
destroy Ephraim; for I am God and not man. Hosea 11: 8, 9
I am always struck by that statement. So often we explain our behavior, our
responses, our relationships with a shrug of the shoulders – "Well, I'm only
© Grand Valley State University
�I Can’t Believe the Love I’ve Found
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
human." And it is true, only human - and so, I lose patience, my love has limits.
You can push me over the line; my love comes to an end.
I think there are some rights I do not have to give up. I take offense at some point
of provocation and feel justified in doing so. In the family I set limits, I demand
respect. I will not tolerate some things. I think the children need it and they do,
but it is also true that I refuse to be used, abused. It makes me wonder if one
could raise a family on the kind of love God displays.
I know it won't work in the world of practical affairs, in business and government.
Certainly not in international affairs. That kind of love ends up crucified. It is not
practical.
What are we saying about God?
What are we saying about ourselves?
Let's not try to qualify God's love as Jesus portrayed it. Let's not try to make it
something else by all sorts of conditional clauses. Just think about it as Jesus
portrayed it.
It is like Hosea expressed,
My love is what it is because I'm God and not man.
What will we say? Too good for this world? Too impractical? Too idealistic? Some
love, though! Some love.
The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, said, "Great men never run in public." Research
into the ways of Palestinian community life confirms that no father would pull up
his garment and run down the road. It was a disgrace. God's love, Jesus says,
loses proper decorum, loses dignity, has no self-regard – just races to embrace a
child coming home. Some love!
What are we saying? Are we wiser than God? Do we know better how to run the
world? Is love really soft, ineffective?
Let me suggest that love is really the only truly transforming power.
Love changes us from the inside. Only an inside change is transforming.
Fear can hold us in line. Behavior patterns can be changed by threat. A heavy
smoker has a coronary, and the doctor says, "No more," and the habit is broken.
Law can hold us in line. I really resist the seat belt law. It is foolish of me, but I
resist being told I have to buckle up. One day this week I reached over and
buckled up as I was approaching Bobbins Road on U.S. 31. At the light I stopped
© Grand Valley State University
�I Can’t Believe the Love I’ve Found
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
and next to me the Sheriff's car stopped. Nancy said, "I wondered why you
buckled up."
But behavioral response to fear or law or threat of any kind - while it may control
my behavior and keep me in line - which may be for my good and for the good of
society - does not have the power to transform me so that I become a new person
- my new behavior being the outward sign of my new being.
Love is powerful. Love is transforming.
Maybe our trouble is that we just do not trust love to do its work. We grow
anxious; we want to exercise control; we want to secure the proper outcome. We
are often well-intentioned. We really do want the best for our children, our
nation, our world. But we don't trust love to effect it; we feel constrained to force
the best solution in any situation. So we make demands and we threaten penalty.
God loves.
Jesus came into the midst of human history and he loved, and people felt its
power and all kinds of people came to him. He made no distinctions; he simply
loved people. And they were changed. Transformed. And Jesus was simply God's
love in flesh and in action.
Unconditional love - that is the love of God. Love that can be spurned, love that
can be abused, taken advantage of, love that will not coerce, but that alone can
transform.
The Father did not play it cool; he did not remain aloof; he did not keep the boy
hanging, put him on probation, lecture him on responsibility or vent the anger of
his wounded pride. He just hugged him and kissed him and said, "My boy is alive;
he's home again!"
The son had gained insight. He had faced himself, come to his senses,
acknowledged his foolishness and attained a proper humility. He was prepared to
make a reasonable request of his father. He had come a long way, but he was still
a stranger to grace until he felt the arms of his father, the hot, salty tears of the
father falling on his shoulder.
It was the love of the father that turned him inside out. It was the love that
transformed him. How could he take it in? As he thought about it, he must have
said,
"I can't believe the love I've found."
Maybe we are not wiser than God; maybe God is wiser. Maybe He knows that
threat and condemnation do not transform even though they may coerce one to
© Grand Valley State University
�I Can’t Believe the Love I’ve Found
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
conform. Maybe He trusts the power of love and so He deals with us with the
patience of love.
I wonder why we have missed that point in the Church. Sometime, taste some
radio sermons or TV evangelists. Reflect on your experience in church over the
years. Read sermon titles or the church page in the newspaper – it sounds like a
horror story rather than a love story. What is the overwhelming impression
created? Why do we use the phrase, "Don't preach to me!"?
What is preaching in common usage? Is it not full of oughtness - full of threat,
full of warning, and laced with condemnation? Why do we adopt a method that
turns away when we have the message of an unbelievable love to share?
Is it because we are insecure about the truth we bring? Do we want to force
everyone into our mold? Are we unsure of love's transforming power? Do we rush
in to force while God patiently waits?
God loves. God waits. And then God races to embrace the one who finally comes
to his senses.
That is why the story ends with a marvelous party. The fatted calf. Music and
dancing. Celebration. That is what worship ought to be – a great party.
Once again, how we have mutilated the whole matter.
There is a discipline of worship. I heartily commend it. Unless you arise on
Sunday morning knowing it is the Lord's Day and you will worship without even
stopping to make a decision, you will probably not worship with a disciplined
regularity.
But, why? Do we do God a favor? Do we honor God? Well ... perhaps. But what is
this coming together? Is it not a party, a celebration for a grace amazing and a
love beyond compare?
I know there are spiritual disciplines, which I really need to keep in tune, in
touch. But I do not do them for God's sake, to win His approval or curry His
favor. I do them to keep in view this amazing love, the inspiring, uplifting
experience of a love that keeps on throwing arms around me, believing in me
when I give up on myself; a love that will never let me go.
So I keep coming here to hear it again. I come here to say, "Thanks be to Thee, O
God!"
I really need to keep coming back; I forget so soon. I get down on myself. I see the
ambiguity of my life, the equivocation of my commitment. I would give up on me;
wouldn't God, Who knows the twists and warps of my soul better than I do?
© Grand Valley State University
�I Can’t Believe the Love I’ve Found
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
The answer is simply, "No," He will never give up on me.
Remember again this story is about God's love, His attitude toward His children.
We've missed the point and ruined the story by making a big deal about the far
country and loose living, but that is to distort the story and turn it into a
moralism. It is not about how one lives, but about how God loves.
If there is one great underlying, foundational, fundamental truth woven through
the one story of the Bible, it comes to beautiful expression in this parable Jesus
told and it is simply this - God loves us with an everlasting love.
Personalize that; put your own name in the sentence: God loves….
Now, to make that felt, we should really take a moment and put our arms around
each other.
When you need space, go ahead - run, run like mad for as long as you need to
run. Get it out of your system - that feverish cry, "I want to do it on my own!"
One day you may wake up with a real headache and a heartache, as well, and ask,
"Is that all there is?"
When you get hold of yourself and feel that yearning inside and find yourself
saying, "I wish I could start over," then remember this story Jesus told and
simply come home - You won't believe the love you'll find.
In the meantime, God waits, God searches for the slightest sign of homesickness,
God loves and longs to have you feel it, in His embrace. Open yourself to the love
and to God.
Come to the party!
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
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Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
Identifier
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
Format
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XIII
Series
God's Prodigal Love
Scripture Text
Luke 15:20-24
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
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KII-01_RA-0-19860817
Date
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1986-08-17
Title
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I Can't Believe the Love I've Found
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 17, 1986 entitled "I Can't Believe the Love I've Found", as part of the series "God's Prodigal Love", on the occasion of Pentecost XIII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 15:20-24.
Nature of God's Love
Parable
Prodigal Son
Transforming Love
Unconditional Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/a503d8a764d33009dd85e998c8a1de86.mp3
84ba667e9bf10ed011418446f9212014
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/c7384105eae71b92553d5e333e550549.pdf
9424f83120501bf498932b261fa66021
PDF Text
Text
I Wish I Could Start Over
From the sermon series: God’s Prodigal Love
Text: Luke 15: 17
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
August 10, 1986
Transcription of the spoken sermon
The parable of "The Prodigal Son" is probably the most familiar and best loved of
Jesus' parables. Strange, then, that it should have become known as a story about
a son when, in reality, it is a story told to portray the nature of God in His
relationship to us. There is prodigality in the story, but it is the prodigality of
God's love. "Prodigal" is defined as "given to extravagant expenditure,"
"recklessly wasteful," "lavish." That sounds like God's love, which comes to
expression so powerfully in this compelling story.
The story was told to "The Pharisees and the doctors of the Law." They had been
grumbling at Jesus' behaviour; he extended fellowship to "sinners." He opened
himself up to and embraced persons with whom the religious elite of his day
would have nothing to do. "Sinners" covered a broad spectrum of persons. Of
course, we do know that he was available to all, the prostitute of Luke 7, the hated
tax collectors such as Matthew and Zaccheus, the Samaritan woman of John 4,
Mary Magdalene whose past was colorful. But the category "sinner" referred not
only to the obviously tainted, but all non-Jews and all Jews who failed to keep the
ritualistic demands of the current interpretation of the Law.
Jesus told the story to defend his openness to all persons, his offer of grace and
forgiveness to all who came with a longing to be made new. He told the story of
the father with two sons, each son representing different attitudes and situations
of persons. The sons are necessary to the story, but the story is really told to
reveal the heart of the father. The amazing truth we learn is that the father has a
consistent, steady, boundless love for the rebel who leaves home, and for the
uptight, upright son who stays home.
The one is a rebellious youth who wants his own life, his independence, feeling he
cannot be his own person in the presence of the father. The other is a meticulous,
humorless, obedient son whose virtue through performance is offered in place of
the one thing the father desired - a warm, spontaneous, loving relationship.
© Grand Valley State University
�I Wish I Could Start Over
Richard A. Rhem
Page 2
The latter described those to whom the parable was addressed. The former
described the persons about whom the grumbling occurred: the "sinners" Jesus
received.
The Truth of the parable is that God is limitless love, open to all, yearning for all
His children, wanting their wellbeing, wanting them to be themselves fully, at
home, in the Father's house.
The focus of the first message was the younger son, the rebel who requested his
inheritance and left home. He is a mirror of the person who says, "I want to do it
on my own!"
The second message pointed to the emptiness that is the end of a life of
autonomy, a life which seeks to be a law unto itself, a life lived selfishly, selfindulgently with no meaning or purpose beyond the pleasure of the moment, a
life out of relationship of love and trust. Such a life sooner or later raises the
question, "Is that all there is?"
That sense of emptiness or meaninglessness can come over one gradually or as a
jolting revelation. Sometimes it comes after a period of treadmill existence with
life going nowhere. Sometimes it comes about in a crisis. Whatever the concrete
situation, we are caused to reflect on our lives, on the choices we have made, the
priorities we have set and we may be led to sigh, "I wish I could start over."
That is the place the younger son came to in the story Jesus told. In the midst of
the disaster that befell him, he "came to his senses." (NEB)
The Revised Standard Version renders it,
When he came to himself.
Reality hit. Sober reflection on his situation revealed the folly of his ways. He
remembered his father and home. He decided to return; he wanted to start over.
Wanting a new beginning is a very common human desire. There are so many
areas of our lives that we would like to do over - choices we have made, decisions
that directed our life in one course rather than another - to marry or not to marry,
to marry this person rather than another, to get an education or not, to pursue
one career rather than another, to have a family or not, to make a major move, to
start a business. There is no end of the decisions one makes, and every decision
becomes a thread in the weaving of the tapestry of our lives. The complexity of
decisions forms a web and within that web our lives are caught.
The sigh, "I wish I could start over," is thus not uncommon. Most of us, at one
time or another, have known the feeling, the longing for a second chance. But
there is no going back.
© Grand Valley State University
�I Wish I Could Start Over
Richard A. Rhem
Page 3
The very nature of our historical existence is such that we are writing a story in
time that is moving from a point of beginning to an end point. Time can be
recollected in memory; time can be anticipated in imagination; thus we can
transcend the present moment but we cannot unravel time; we cannot undo it.
Nor can we freeze it in the present moment. Relentlessly we must move on in the
stream of time and to move on is to continue to make decisions. Such is the
nature of our human existence.
What might be included in the moment Jesus describes in the story as "coming to
himself?" I suppose, first of all, there was an honest facing up to his life, to his
story. Coming to one’s senses or coming to one’s self is a moment of Truth. Such
moments are rare and precious. So much of our lives never come under honest
scrutiny; many persons never come to a moment of Truth at all.
Most of us live with denial; we may consciously suppress the truth of our lives
and expend great energy keeping the truth under, or we may be unconscious of
the denial and live with a vague restlessness and anxiety. Who am I really? What
is the Truth about me? It takes courage to ask that question. Some of us never
allow the question to surface.
I doubt that the Elder Brother ever faced the question. Had he honestly engaged
himself in dialogue, he might have come to self-awareness of the anger and
resentment that were seething beneath the surface of his righteous exterior. He
was not a free person, spontaneous, happy. He was without humor. He worked
diligently but it was drudgery and life was a drag. When he came upon the joy
and celebration of the prodigal's return, it all erupted; the dam burst, the volcano
within exploded. He had never really come to know himself.
The younger son paid a price for the choices he made. We must not glamorize his
wild fling. He suffered. He came to the edge of despair and we must assume that
he carried with him throughout his life some scars from his scrape with
desolation. But all of that was as nothing compared to the experience of the
moment of Truth. When he finally got the courage to do some serious
introspection and to take inventory of his life, he came to himself; he came to the
moment of Truth.
Such a moment does not issue in a running away from oneself or a denying of
one’s life. Indeed, that is precisely what had been the case. He had done his best
as long as he could to convince himself that he was glad to be away from the
father, on his own, actualizing his own person. As the emptiness became more
and more evident, the denial of the mess he had made of things was increasingly
difficult to sustain. Finally he could do it no more. Now he owned his life, he
owned his story. He had made his choices and this is where it led.
There was no wallowing in self-pity. There was no blaming of his Elder Brother or
his father. He faced his life; he took responsibility for it. He decided on a course
of action that would enable him to start over, to begin again.
© Grand Valley State University
�I Wish I Could Start Over
Richard A. Rhem
Page 4
In traditional Christian terminology - biblical terminology - the younger son
repented; he changed his mind, changed his thinking. That is the literal meaning
of the Greek word Metanoia. His thinking was turned around.
The speech he prepared for his father indicates that he was aware of his own
responsibility. He says bluntly, "I have sinned against heaven and against you."
The parable shows us what Jesus understands by sin. It is going out from the
father's house, i.e., godlessness and remoteness from God working itself out in a
life in the world with all its desires and its filth. The word "sin" used in this
instance means literally "missing the mark." That puts it well. That was what the
younger son came to see, acknowledge, and confess. He said, "I've missed the
mark." Today one might say, "I really blew it!"
And then he acted on his new knowledge. He arose and went to his father. He
came home. This, too, is a vital step and of critical importance. It is one thing to
come to oneself. It is one thing finally to be engaged by the moment of Truth. It is
another to act on that insight when it means turning around and facing up to
wrong choices and deeds in the presence of family and friends.
This phase of the story we might call conversion - the actual about-face. It
involves the honest recognition and acknowledgment that one has been in the
wrong and is responsible for "missing the mark" and for appropriate action in
light of that acknowledgment - in the case of this story, the actual return to the
father.
All of this is included in coming to oneself. It is a crisis. It is devastating. It takes
great courage and it is wonderfully liberating.
Our young friend still knows nothing of grace, but he is now ready to face his
father and bargain for a chance to start over on the father's terms.
"Let me be as one of your hired servants;
I know I can no longer expect to be considered your son.
Thus he brings to expression the longing to start over. Let's reflect on that for a
moment. Starting over is not a denial of the past. We write our story. What we are
is the compilation of all we have been. Starting over does not rip us out of our
past; rather it creates the opportunity for new beginning with the past no more a
weight shackling us with guilt and remorse that would hobble our spirit and limit
our future.
We own our past. We assume responsibility for it. We are the wiser for it; we live
with the consequence of it.
© Grand Valley State University
�I Wish I Could Start Over
Richard A. Rhem
Page 5
Sometimes that past is something we would not want ever to experience again,
but even in its tragic dimension, having gone through it, we would not trade the
lessons learned, the experience gained.
One must come to accept and take responsibility for one's own story. Beginning
again does not involve amnesia. There is no whitewashing, brainwashing or some
other psychological trick that we play on ourselves. We put it behind us and we
move on, but the past remains our past. It is our story.
The younger son did not really realize the newness that grace creates. His
intention was to return and earn at least servant status. What he was to
encounter in the father's loving forgiveness and total acceptance was beyond his
wildest dreams.
Move, now, to the attitude and posture of the father. He did not use his authority
to hold the young son. He used no coercion, manipulation or guilt trip. He let him
go. From the reception he gave the boy on his return, we know this was not
because of a lack of love and concern. We will focus on that love in the final
message. Why, then, did he simply let the boy go?
The answer is that he knew he would not have his boy home, even if he forced
him to live under his roof, until the boy came to himself, until he came to his
senses.
That is the only way God's intention can be realized. What he desires is a
gracious, personal relationship.
Our relationship with him is not reciprocal in the sense of being "fifty-fifty." He
initiates. He offers grace. He sustains us in relationship. But we are not passive
blocks of wood. His initiation must call for the response which is a genuine
turning toward him. Trust speaks of response. And for response to be the inward
movement of the person, it must be elicited but cannot be demanded or forced.
Remember again why Jesus told the story. He was claiming that his very presence
was a sign of God's initiating grace, a sign of salvation present and freely offered.
To respond to him was to respond to God - to come home to grace.
When the son said, "I want to do it on my own!" the father recognized the always
possible option of seeking autonomy rather than relationship. Only when he
came subsequently to say, "Is that all there is?" had he made his own discovery
that he was on a dead-end street. That was the moment of truth. He came to his
senses. He said, "I wish I could start over."
He had not yet encountered grace; he did not yet have the faintest idea of grace.
But one thing he remembered: the sadness in his father's eyes when he left. The
absence of anger, of threat. The sense that he might cut off his father, but his
© Grand Valley State University
�I Wish I Could Start Over
Richard A. Rhem
Page 6
father had not responded in kind, cutting him off. The posture of the father built
no barriers for return.
In our broken human relationship we often cut off the possibility of return
because we respond in kind, anger for anger, wound for wound. Jesus portrays a
father whose spirit and action communicate that the door is always open. There
he was pleading with the religious leaders saying precisely that - come home, just
as he pictured the younger son arising and going to the father.
The good news of the message is that the way is open; the barriers do not exist
beyond our own minds. The Father awaits us.
We can start over. We can begin again.
The longing for home is the first sign of grace. The honest owning of one's life, its
light and shadow, its goodness and guilt is the dawning of something more
wonderful than words can describe. There is much more to tell. We will come to
that. But hear this good news, all who are weary, bored, empty, guilty, afraid —
Come home.
You can begin again.
© Grand Valley State University
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
A related resource from which the described resource is derived
<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
Contributor
An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource
Kaufman Interfaith Institute
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Language
A language of the resource
English
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01
Coverage
The spatial or temporal topic of the resource, the spatial applicability of the resource, or the jurisdiction under which the resource is relevant
1981-2014
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
A resource primarily intended to be heard. Examples include a music playback file format, an audio compact disc, and recorded speech or sounds.
Event
Pentecost XII
Series
God's Prodigal Love
Scripture Text
II Corinthians 15:17
Location
The location of the interview
Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
KII-01_RA-0-19860810
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1986-08-10
Title
A name given to the resource
I Wish I Could Start Over
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
Information about rights held in and over the resource
<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
A related resource
Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
A language of the resource
eng
Type
The nature or genre of the resource
Sound
Text
Format
The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource
audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on August 10, 1986 entitled "I Wish I Could Start Over", as part of the series "God's Prodigal Love", on the occasion of Pentecost XII, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: II Corinthians 15:17.
Forgiveness
Nature of God
Parable
Prodigal Son
Sin
Unconditional Love
-
https://digitalcollections.library.gvsu.edu/files/original/48371bb25c8da3b293474fa6f916921f.mp3
2e87951fa710a8b9d0bd75660a3cac22
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I Want to Make It On My Own
From the sermon series: God’s Prodigal Love
Text: Luke 15: 13
Richard A. Rhem
Christ Community Church
Spring Lake, Michigan
July 27, 1986
Transcription of the spoken sermon
…The younger son turned the whole of his share into cash and left home
for a distant country… Luke 15: 13
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is misnamed. It is really a parable, not about a
prodigal son, but about the prodigal love of God. If there is anything prodigal in
the story, it is the love of God, the love of the Father, the love of God as reflected
in the behaviour of the father in the story. We call it the Parable of the Prodigal
Son, and one would be fighting a losing battle to try to rename it, I suppose, but I
think the series title that we embark on this morning does reflect more accurately
the nature of the parable. It really is a parable about God's love, about the nature
of God, about the manner in which God relates to us - far more important than
the action of the son.
The parable was told by Jesus in the first place in order to defend his own
behaviour as a reflection of the behaviour of God, or the attitude and spirit of
God. In reading those first verses of Luke 15, one finds that the story was
addressed to the scribes and the Pharisees, the uptight, upright who were
condemning Jesus for his associations. In the Gospels we don't really get a fair
picture of the Pharisees, and that is because we get this overagainstness, this
adversarial relationship between Jesus and the Pharisees. But we do see the
contrast, even if it is only given in that one-sided fashion in the Gospels.
Nevertheless, the Pharisees, who were the strict, separated ones, believed it
necessary to disassociate themselves from people who were considered ritually
unclean. They called everybody that was not one of their own sect a sinner. NonJewish people were sinners; Jewish people who were engaged in some kind of
employment whereby they could not maintain their ritual purity were sinners.
And so, they very quickly wrote off everybody that was other than they were as
sinners. Publicans, tax collectors, sinners, prostitutes - whatever the designation
may be, there was a kind of general categorization of all of those who were other
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Richard A. Rhem
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than the Pharisees. And the Pharisee would have nothing to do with the likes of
sinners. And so they were condemning Jesus who was open to all, available to all,
accessible to everyone, and, as a sign of his accessibility, would have table
fellowship with such people. The Dutch New Testament scholar, Edward
Schillebeekx, says that the most fundamental characteristic of Jesus in the
Gospels is his table fellowship. That which speaks most loudly about who Jesus
was are the narratives about his table fellowship. In that context, to break bread
with someone was not only to extend friendship, but was to embrace that person.
It was the most intimate sign of acceptance and the offering of fellowship to
another.
Now, it is still, to a certain extent, true for us as well. To have a meal together is a
sign of friendship and is a method by which we share intimacy. But it was
especially true then. And so, Jesus, being open to all and accessible to all and
breaking bread with any, no matter where they were coming from, no matter
what their history, no matter what their present circumstance, no matter what
their status in society – that openness got him criticism and got him written off in
the minds of the Pharisees. And to defend his action and to say that his action
was such because God is that way was the purpose of this parable. And so, he told
the story of the father who had two sons. One was a rebel who wanted his
inheritance and who took off into the far country, only finally to come to himself
and to come back. The other was uptight, upright, a model of the Pharisees to
whom the parable was spoken, who did everything right, dotted every i, crossed
every t, followed every command and lived in total subservience. But the
interesting thing about both brothers was that both of them failed to be the one
thing the father wanted them to be, and that was to be in relationship of love and
trust. It is possible to go into the far country and to kick over the traces and to be
a total rebel and live out of relationship with the father. And it is possible, as well,
to stay in the father's' house and to dot every i and cross every t, follow every
prescription, and use all of that righteousness and all of that rightness as an
insulation also against the father, against the relationship of love and trust.
What Jesus lived out was a relationship of spontaneity and a freedom that was
characterized by love and trust. When he opened himself up to people, he was a
reflection of the Father Who opened Himself up to all people, Who did not ask
about one's history or where one was coming from, did not ask about the state of
one's morality or the degree of one's righteousness, but simply said, "Come on,
and let me embrace you. Let me love you. Let my grace make you new." The
Father's heart was reflected in the action of Jesus who was open to all kinds of
people. He spoke to the Pharisees who were mirrored in the elder brother, who in
the father's house was as far from the father as the younger son who went into the
far country.
This morning I want to focus on the younger son. I have said already that the
parable is about the father's prodigal love, but I have to admit that the
perspective from which we are going to be looking at that is through the eyes of
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Richard A. Rhem
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the younger son, particularly. And so, this morning we are going to look at that
young rebel as he looks at the father and he says in the depths of his being, as well
as expressly to the father's face, "I want to do it on my own. I want to do it on my
own."
The younger son was a rebel. No, better, the younger son was simply human, and
in this story Jesus painted that which lives in the heart of every human being.
There is that in all of us that says, "I want to do it on my own." In fact, I want to
suggest to you that probably within the skin of all of us live both the rebel and the
elder brother. Probably there are not only two kinds of people, but most of us live
with a kind of civil war going on most of the time. Most of us have within us both
the rebel that wants to break out of bounds and the self-righteous Pharisee that
condemns with a cold kind of legalism. And those two sides within ourselves live
there with some kind of cold war going on and sometimes an act of rebellion
against each other. We can find both of those sons within ourselves, and we can
find people who reflect more the one or the other. But what Jesus was talking
about was something that is intrinsic to our human nature, and this morning let
us simply recognize that there is something within all of us that says, "I want to
do it on my own."
The thing that the youngest son failed to understand was that what he was
seeking was not freedom, but autonomy. Now, God wants us to be free. Freedom
is God's gift, and His intention for His people. But what we want, thinking that it
is freedom, is really autonomy, and autonomy is to live as a law onto one's self. It
comes from two Greek words which mean a self-law, and there is something in
every human breast, I believe, that would desire to be a law onto oneself, to be
autonomous, which is something other than freedom. Freedom is life in
community, lived in responsible trust and love. Freedom is that ability to become
fully actualized with the potential which God has created in us, but always in the
parameters that have been set for us in the creative intention of God. Freedom is
the ability to come to full expression by becoming what God intended us to be.
Autonomy is that drive within us that says, "Don't let anybody tell me anything"
(God, parents, husband, wife, child, government, whatever). "I'll take on the
whole world. I will finally do it on my own." I think that until we come to
recognize that some of that lives within us, we'll not fully own up to who we are. If
it is true that within us live these two persons, the self-righteous Pharisee and the
wild rebel, then, until we come to accept that about ourselves, we'll not really be
truly healthy or spiritually whole.
If we read a little bit in the field of psychology, we are told that we have to learn to
accept our shadow side. That is, there is a dark streak in all of us we need to
accept because it is a part of us. You see, the Pharisee gave to the world an
exterior of total righteousness. But he lived behind a mask, because that external
obedience to an external code, which could only be pulled off with a tremendous
expenditure of energy, was not the real person. And if the Pharisee who lived with
that total righteous mask, always on guard, always putting up a front, always
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Richard A. Rhem
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putting the best foot forward, didn't recognize that that was a facade and not the
person, that within the person there was also the rebel, there was also this other
person who was living quite differently according to his own compulsions and
that which compelled him and drove him on – if the Pharisee didn't realize that,
then he never came fully to be conscious of his total humanity.
The rebel lives in us all, and if we have been so conditioned, so bound, if we have
been so programmed that the rebel has never come to our consciousness and
found expression in our life, then there's a whole part of us that we've never
owned or reckoned with that someday could explode with great consequences.
Within us all is that drive for autonomy that says, "Get off my back." (God,
government, husband, wife, parents.) "Get off my back; I'll do it on my own!" And
the best way to find it come to expression is to just push and probe a little bit and
to see that welling up within, because there is that within us with which we have
been created that wants to actualize itself.
Now, in the story, the father doesn't fight that at all. The father simply goes to the
safe and gets out the money, gives the boy the wallet and sends him on his way.
And Jesus was saying something about God and about human nature. We
understand what he was saying, because we have all lived through it ourselves.
He purposely uses a father and two sons as a reflection of God and His children
because he knows that that is exactly where we all live. And we've all been
children. We've all moved through those dangerous, perilous years of
adolescence. We've all felt the urge to break out and the constraint to hold it in.
And if we are parents, we know that our families are so structured that we can
hold the children in. And when the crisis comes, and you come to me and tell me
about your son or your daughter, I can be quite objective. You can be at your wit's
end, and I can smile in quite a relaxed fashion and say, "Look, she's only human.
Look, give him a break. Look, you've baptized the kid. Trust God and give him a
little room. Let them experiment a bit. Let them feel who they are." But, don't
suggest that to me when it's my son or daughter, because then I get very worried,
because they might be like I was, and I do want room for myself, but I don't want
room for those I love because I know how deeply they can be hurt.
I mean, this story ends rather nicely - the boy comes home. But what if the boy
had been knifed in a brothel? Or what if he used his possessions in order to
somehow or other engineer some plot to explode the world? We say, "Nice going,
Father, you let the boy go and he came back." But what if he hadn't come back?
And they don't always come back. Then we would say, "What a silly father! Why
did you do it? Why did you let him go?" The father would say, "I had to let him
go, because what I’m after, finally, is not an automaton, not a kind of puppet that
responds to the pull of a string. I am for creating a child who loves spontaneously
and trusts and lives in relationship."
And that's the problem, isn't it? Even God has limited His power in order to
exercise that kind of love, extending that kind of freedom in the cause of allowing
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Richard A. Rhem
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us to develop into fully human beings. It's a risky business, and God took the risk.
In families, we do what we can to build a hedgerow to keep them going down the
center of the road, somehow, not deviating too far to the right or to the left. If we
do that in the family, we do that in the Church, too. The Church is an institution
which is dedicated to the binding of human freedom. Why do many of the best
people leave the Church? The most courageous spirits take off. Because, what do
we do in the Church? We develop a ritual. We say we've got to worship this way.
We develop a theology, and we say, "This is your dogma." And we develop rules of
conduct and we say, "You're in or you're out, depending on whether you toe the
line, dot the i, cross the t." The Church is institutionalized and becomes a great
conservative force in society. There are people that don't believe in anything, but
believe there ought to be a church because that keeps people in line. It is an
anchor against the rebel in us all. And, of course, in government and society as a
whole, we're always trying to program in order to hold that human rebel in check.
And God delivers us to our freedom, stands lovingly in fear and trembling,
looking to see if we'll come home.
"I want to do it on my own. I want to do it on my own. Get off my back! Give me
space; give me room. Let me breathe! Let me live! Let me be!"
We say this until we find that that kind of autonomy leads to terrible anxiety and
a bondage which we could never dream of. And then, thank God, there are those
who come to themselves and come home, only to find that the real freedom they
were seeking has been there all the time extended to them in the embrace of the
Father, who just says, "Oh, good! You're home at last!"
Jesus went about touching human beings, associating with them, eating with
them, breaking bread, fellowshipping with them, hugging them, loving them,
encouraging them, picking them up - the kind of people that the pure and the
righteous really have little time for and no regard for and no hope for. And Jesus
said, "You've got it all wrong. God is up there just waiting until you get it out of
your system. And then when you're ready, He'll put His arms around you and say,
'Come home and find the freedom that you always thought you could find out of
my presence.'"
"I want to do it on my own."
I suppose that there is a kind of once-for-all coming to God through Jesus Christ.
There is a kind of once-for-all yielding up our arms, laying down our weapons,
coming to the Father through Jesus, the Son. But I suspect that it is probably
something we have to keep doing again and again, as well, because we can get
way off in the far country, fall back into that old temptation to autonomy and
doing it our own way, and all of a sudden wake up and say, "Gosh, I'm a long
ways from home." And whether it's that once-for-all commitment, or just coming
back again, the beautiful invitation is the Father standing there with open arms
saying, "Who are you fighting? What are you running from? Why don't you just
come home and let me love you?"
© Grand Valley State University
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Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Richard A. Rhem Collection
Description
An account of the resource
Text and sound recordings of the sermons, prayers, services, and articles of Richard Rhem, pastor emeritus of Christ Community Church in Spring Lake, Michigan, where he served for 37 years. Starting in the mid 1980's, Rhem began to question some of the traditional Christian dogma that he had been espousing from the pulpit. That questioning was a first step in a long and interesting spiritual journey, one that he openly shared with his congregation. His journey is important, in part because it is reflective of the questioning, the yearnings, and the gradual revision of beliefs that many persons in this part of the century have experienced and continue to experience. It is important also because of the affirming and inclusive way his questioning was done and his thinking evolved. His sermons and other written and spoken materials together document the steps in his journey as it took a turn in 1985, yet continued to revolve around the framework and liturgies of the Christian calendar.
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Religion
Interfaith worship
Sermons
Sound Recordings
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Rhem, Richard A.
Source
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<a href="https://gvsu.lyrasistechnology.org/repositories/2/resources/514">Richard A. Rhem papers (KII-01)</a>
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives.
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Kaufman Interfaith Institute
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
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English
Type
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Sound
Text
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KII-01
Coverage
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1981-2014
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audio/mp3
text/pdf
Sound
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Event
Pentecost X
Series
God's Prodigal Love
Scripture Text
Luke 15: 13
Location
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Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Identifier
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KII-01_RA-0-19860727
Date
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1986-07-27
Title
A name given to the resource
I Want to Make it On My Own
Creator
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Richard A. Rhem
Publisher
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Grand Valley State University. University Libraries. Special Collections & University Archives
Rights
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<a href="http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC/1.0/?language=en">In Copyright</a>
Subject
The topic of the resource
Clergy--Michigan
Reformed Church in America
Christ Community Church (Spring Lake, Mich.)
Sermons
Relation
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Richard A. Rhem - An Archive of Sermons, Prayers, Talks and Stories: http://richardrhem.org/
Language
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eng
Type
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Sound
Text
Format
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audio/mp3
application/pdf
Description
An account of the resource
A sermon given by Richard A. Rhem (Dick) on July 27, 1986 entitled "I Want to Make it On My Own", as part of the series "God's Prodigal Love", on the occasion of Pentecost X, at Christ Community Church, Spring Lake, MI. Scripture references: Luke 15: 13.
Freedom
Inclusive Grace
Nature of God
Parable
Prodigal Son