homily recap 1.18.09

As we noted a couple of weeks ago - we will be moving along in our homily series with the Nicene Creed as a our thematic guide. In our first of the series we took up the teaching of God as the creator of all that is. A glance back at a couple of gleanings from this truth will help us move into our topic today. Here is a snippet from that homily recap: "the foundation of the gospel is based on God's love of his creation.... I am asserting that the purpose of redemption is the fulfillment of God's love for what and who he has made. This is different from the way we sometimes think of redemption. For instance, we often think of redemption in such individualistic terms (e.g. I am a sinner; God please redeem me) that we imagine God's love for us to be contingent on a decision he made in response to our groveling. Nothing could be further than the truth. He initiates redemption with us from the same heart that created - a heart full of love for the other."

This Sunday we came specifically to the topic of redemption. In the meditation which led us to the communion table we noted that it is often the case that Christians think of their need for redemption in two separate and distinct categories. Category One: we need redemption from because the world is broken; evil pollutes to varied extents all that there is, acting upon us and effecting our lives simply because the world is a fallen place and we live in it. Category Two: We need redemption from our sin, our failures for which we have responsibility. Though this two category approach is helpful in reminding us that there are sins we commit and for which we have responsibility to repent, it is unhelpful in other ways. The situations we find ourselves in which cry out for redemption most profoundly often exist partly because of our sins and partly because of evil that is done to us. Over analysis with regard to what percentage of the blame lies with us directly and what percentage lies at the feet of cosmic evil can lead to more mischief in the long run; many times it is best for us to simply cry out for redemption and ask God to make a new way for us to live in relationship to the mess from which we need to be redeemed. Theologian David Kelsey in his book, Imagining Redemption, puts it this way: ".... people actively sin in some particular circumstances. As often as not those concrete circumstances are themselves evil situations that, having befallen them, distort and break their lives. Those circumstance are the conditions of their sinning, not the consequences. It is not necessary to claim that the circumstances in which peple sin excuse them of responsibility for that sin in orer to acknowledge that, however much their sinning requires redemption, their circumstances do also. Conversely, people who undergo the most horrendous suffering....must respond to that suffering.....If they respond in sinful ways, then once again, a situation that needs one sort of redemption has become the occasion of the need of redemption of the other sort also."

We continued in our homily to ask ourselves what we are wishing for when we hope for and ask for redemption. Knowing what God promises in redemption helps to shape our lives and refines our pursuit of God. Knowing what God promises in redemption helps us to look at, if you will permit the metaphor, the landscape of our lives in light of the in-breaking of the landscape that is the world to come. Sometimes it is helpful to recognize the uniqueness of what something is by realizing what it is not:

Redemption is not realizing more deeply the sympathy of God. It is, of course, a profound truth revealed in the gospel that Jesus sympathizes with us but this is not the most important part of what it means for God to promise redemption. Nor is redemption a putting back in place that which was lost the way it was before (God promises new creation - not a rolling back of everything to Eden). Neither is redemption simply the hope that everything will be OK after we die (Jesus had promised to make a difference in this world, even as he is the first-fruits of the world to come).

Redemption is the experience of the risen Lord Jesus Christ in such a way as we experience newness of life even in the midst of our ugly circumstances; in order for it to count as redemption it must make a redemptive difference in our circumstances, wherein we are changed and made more like Christ. The next two homilies are devoted to exploring what this free but costly grace looks like in the midst of our broken lives.

Questions for discussion:

1. Do you find Kelsey's point about needing "both kinds of redemption" in almost every situation that needs redemption to be helpful. If so, why? If not, why?
2. If you equate redemption with God's sympathy and sort of leave it at that what problems might this cause you and those with whom you have to do?
3. If you equate redemption as being mainly about what happens to me after I die what sorts of problems might this cause you and those with whom you have to do?
4. What is wrong with seeing redemption as God simply putting back together that which is broken the way that it was before?