Homecoming

 This week's verses are 2 Corinthians 2:5-8:

But if anyone has caused sadness, he has not saddened me alone, but to some extent (not to exaggerate) he has saddened all of you as well. This punishment on such an individual by the majority is enough for him, so that now instead you should rather forgive and comfort him. This will keep him from being overwhelmed by excessive grief to the point of despair. Therefore I urge you to reaffirm your love for him.

These verses concern a situation where Paul had urged the Corinthian church to eject someone who was deep in unrepentant sin, so that it wouldn't damage the spiritual health of the other members of their church community. In the interval between 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians, this person had repented of his sin, but perhaps people were still keeping him out. Paul's message to the Corinthians urges grace, not in a frivolous, new-agey, "all paths are equally valid" sense, but in the sense that punishment and holy separation exist for valid reasons, and once those reasons are fulfilled, they are no longer medicine but poison.

How many of you have ever made mistakes earlier in your life that people won't let you move on from? Maybe it's a relative who loves to bring up things you did as a child as a way of dismissing who you are now. Maybe it's a coworker who won't let you live down a mistake you made when you were a new employee. Maybe you have a criminal record, or had a reputation for immorality in college that still has traces on social media. Even after you've matured and rejected your old behavior, people still have you in the cage they built for you when you were smaller.

We know (hopefully) that repentance is heaven's tool for making sure we are not eternally condemned. We know (hopefully) that Jesus forgives our sins when we repent, that he's not a liar, or inconsistent in his grace towards us. But why do our fellow human beings still hold us guilty when God has declared us innocent? Why do they keep higher standards than God himself?

As a church, we are tempted to act according to the standards of our modern age. We don't forgive or forget. We have class hierarchies. Even when someone washes, we can remember what they looked like dirty, and that's the image we keep fresh in our mind. But as Christians, we're supposed to model the standards of God's kingdom, not those of the world. And in God's kingdom, genuine repentance unlocks forgiveness and a new beginning.

Paul knew this more than anyone. He used to be a genocidal thug, like the Jewish version of an ISIS terrorist. When he had repented, Jesus restored his sight, and he was welcomed by the very people he was previously trying to torment and kill. If there was no room for someone who had previously been a flagrantly unrepentant sinner, there would have been no room for him either. He had experienced this church homecoming firsthand, and knew what life would have been if he had not been allowed to start over.

That's not to say that we should accept people back who have not shown genuine signs of repentance, or that we should put ourselves in physical danger. Someone who has abused children should not be reinstated on the nursery team, nor should someone convicted of embezzlement necessarily expect to be asked back to manage the accounts of the church. But they should still be accepted back as brothers and sisters in our community if they express genuine regret for the actions that caused them to be excommunicated in the first place. There may remain functional boundaries, but they should no longer be treated as outsiders.

There was a reason why exile was a punishment almost as serious as the death penalty in the ancient world. We have a need for physical community. We have a need to be loved and validated and included. Being deprived of family and tribe for long periods can open people up to depression and imbalance which can lead them into further depravity and exclusion.

There are even psychological studies that show this effect, from neglected children to veterans who are forced to leave the military community to prisoners who are not able to reintegrate because of their past. They become, as Paul says, "overwhelmed by excessive grief to the point of despair." They become twisted, empty versions of themselves.

So what Paul is saying is that we should not let these people remain on the outside once the exile and punishment has served its purpose.We should not shun them, or marginalize them, or look down on them, but embrace them with the same love and acceptance we had for them before they went astray so badly. If the love of Christ is in us, we should not be able to tolerate being separated from them, and to see them suffer for being cut off any longer than they had to be.

Jesus' parable of the prodigal son shows this dynamic in action. The prodigal son makes terrible decisions that make a mockery of the blessing he was given, but eventually he turns back and is reintegrated into the family with joy by the man he hurt the most. Do we embody this radical grace that Jesus offers us, and describes in that parable? Paul's point is that we must, if we are going to live the way that Jesus has asked us to live.

At some point, when his foolish journey has come to an end, the prodigal son should be allowed to come home to our welcoming arms.