• Reconciled to be Reconcilers, 2Cor 5:16-21; Lk 15:1-3, 11-32 (see below)   Rev. Randy Quinn                          
   

• "Annoying" Grace  Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32,
  by Rev. F. Schaefer   
   

• Two Sons, One Father, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32,
  by Rev Randy Quinn             
   

• GOING HOME? Luke 15 :1-3, 11-32b
  by Rev. Rick Thompson                   
   

• Splendid Sorrow, a sermon on the Passion of Christ, engaging
  the "Passion of Christ" by Rev. Thomas Hall              

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Reconciled to be Reconcilers
2Cor 5:16-21; Lk 15:1-3, 11-32
Rev. Randy Quinn

While my mother was having her heart surgery, I was sitting in the surgery waiting room with my father and sister. I've waited in those rooms with other people before, but not very often have I sat waiting with my own family.

Sitting there, I found myself reflecting on the wonder of modern medicine and how amazing it is that they can do what they were doing! It's hard for me to comprehend how they open up a heart, sew a few pieces of veins on to it, and close it up again. And yet they've been doing this for over 30 years!1

I vaguely remember the first heart transplant surgery. I remember the discussions about it and the almost whimsical questions of whether or not it would eventually lead to other kinds of transplants.

In one school assignment, I remember writing a paper projecting what it would be like to have a brain transplant.

I don't know if we'll ever get to that in modern medicine, but I still wonder what it would be like. Would you remember the other person's life or your own? Who would you really be? The person whose body you have or the person whose brain you have?

These are pertinent questions for us today, since Paul suggests that in Christ we become new creatures. We are no longer the person we once were. In Christ, we take on a new reason for living, a new purpose in life, a new attitude towards other people.

Let's hear what he has to say to us today:

read 2 Corinthians 5:14-21

I've long been fascinated by maps. Maps of all kinds. World maps, street maps, even ocean charts. When I was single, I had an entire wall in my apartment with nothing but maps on it. Ronda sometimes thinks I'm strange, but I still take out an atlas once in a while and 'read it.'

When I was in the Navy, this fascination brought me to study ocean charts as well. I would notice little things that many people may not have thought about.

On most ocean charts, there is no land mass for reference, just latitude and longitude lines. So, I would wonder about the 'sound­ings', the charted depths at various points. I would notice patterns and wonder about the ships that had spent numerous hours measuring the depth of the oceans at these places. While I knew the answer, I still would wonder how they knew where they were when they checked the depths.

But the most interesting charts I pondered were of the Arctic Ocean. As you know, most of the Arctic Ocean is covered by ice, by the polar ice cap. Basically only two types of ships go there: icebreakers and submarines. For the most part, the only sound­ings listed on Navy charts are along the paths that U.S. submarines have taken. But that wasn't the most remarkable part of those charts to me.

The latitude and longitude lines in the Arctic look more like a bulls' eyes than a set of squares, centered on the North Pole in the very center of the Arctic Ocean. It is extreme­ly difficult to plot positions with lines like that since they are so close together.

So the cartographers choose an imaginary "East Pole" and "West Pole" of the earth. The result is square lines on the Arctic charts so navigators can more accurately deter­mine their positions.

To use these charts, there must be a radical shift in perspectives and the way navigators think about their position and direction.

It's that kind of radical change of orientation that Paul is speaking about when Christ comes into our lives.

We still have the same bodies, but we no longer use the same standards to measure ourselves by. And we no longer see others the same way, not even Christ (2 Cor 5:16).

Several years ago, I first heard a word that describes this change of perspective. The word is paradigm and I've seen it used in a variety of places since then. It's a word that speaks about models and frameworks. Generally, I've heard it used in the sense of 'shifting paradigms', of new ways to see things, new ways to think of things. It's this concept that expresses what Paul means when he speaks of a new creation (2 Cor 5:17).  [continue]