Reconciliation

Reconciliation is a lengthy word that bears a bit of weight.  It is a coming back.  It is a return to a better time when people agreed with each other.  It is a gift to us by means of God's grace.  How does this work?
God is always present in our lives, whether we like it or not.  God is there looking over our shoulders as we browse a mobile "dating" app.  God is there sitting at the chair in a motel, waiting patiently for you to come back.  God is right outside the door of our proverbial closet, ready to show us God's love and God's goodness: the promise.  Indeed, God is ready to accept us as God's own creation without masks made by our own failing hands.  Jesus explains the essence of this reconciliation by grace in the gospel today: "the tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you [the Jews]."  Jesus says that the epitomes of the two worst people in society—traitors on the one hand and the most sexually immoral, damning images of Israel on the other—would enter the kingdom of heaven.  Now, that is true reconciliation.  We could go even further with the story of Paul, but we don't have to.  God is there to pick us back up when we fall and to bring us close to God when we stray away.