Sermon 3/6/16
Luke 15:1-2, 11-32
Lent: Found
There are a
couple things that I think are important for us to remember as we study a
parable as familiar as this one, the one we know as “The Parable of the
Prodigal Son.” First, we should remind ourselves that the world “Prodigal,”
which actually doesn’t appear anywhere in the text itself, doesn’t mean “lost”
or “wandering” – although because of this parable we have sometimes come to use
the word that way. But actually, “prodigal” means “spending money or resources
freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant” or “having or giving something
on a lavish scale.” We call a child genius a “prodigy” because they have intelligence on a lavish scale. Someone
is prodigious if they produce a
lavish or excessive amount of something. So the Prodigal Son may indeed be lost
and wandering, but the focus of the title is on the fact that he’s excessive,
reckless, and wasteful.
The second
thing we have to remember is that the titles of Parables aren’t part of the
Bible. They’re something we add on later. They’re very old, for sure, but they
represent an interpretation. At some point, someone heard or read Jesus’
parable, about a father and two sons, and determined that the focus of the
story was a reckless, extravagant son. But we could have just as easily called
it “The Parable of a Father and His Sons,” or, “The Parable of the Cranky Older
Brother,” or “The Parable of the Sacrificial Fatted Calf.” The title we use
tells us to focus on a certain point of view in the story – but Jesus didn’t
tell us what to focus on in the story – not with a title anyway. It’s hard to
“unhear” the title we’ve given the parable for so long. But our best hope at
understanding deeply why Jesus shares these words involves trying, as much as
we can, to “unhear” what we think we already know.
So, we
start with the first part of this parable. The beginning of chapter 15 of Luke
tells us that tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus
and his teaching, and the Pharisees and scribes, the religious elite, are
grumbling, saying, with outrage, scandalized, “This guy welcomes sinners and
eats with them!” In response, Jesus tells a string of parables. The first one
is about a shepherd who has 100 sheep, and searches diligently for one who is
lost. The second is about a woman who has 10 coins, and searches diligently for
one of the ten that is lost. And then he turns next to this parable, beginning,
“There was a man who had two sons.”
Jesus tells
us that the younger of two sons says to his father, “Father, give me the share
of the property that will belong to me.” Basically, he’s saying to his father,
“Give me whatever I would inherit from you if you had already died.” If that
sounds rude, it’s because it is. His behavior is tacky, hurtful, disrespectful.
But the father complies. We aren’t privy to his reaction to his son’s request.
The son takes his money and gets out of town.
Immediately,
he squanders everything he’s just received through reckless living, and,
unfortunately, this coincides with a famine in the land. He’s suddenly quite
desperate. He goes to work feeding the pigs of a local farmer. And he realizes
he’s looking rather longingly at the food the pigs are getting to eat. And
suddenly, it occurs to him: People who work for his father have food and then some – but here he is, starving, and
feeding pigs. So he comes up with a plan: He’ll go back home, and to his
father: “I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be
called your son. Treat me like one of your hired hands.” And with his plan in
mind, he heads back to his father’s house. We never hear anything more about
the younger son once he’s been greeted by his father. We don’t know how he
reacts to his father’s welcome, or his brother’s anger. So what we have to
think about is this: his decision to leave home, and his decision to come back
again.
Many times,
we read of or think of this story as a story of repentance. After all, the
younger son turns back and heads home, and turning around and going back in
God’s direction is at the very core of what it means to repent. But, although
we like to read it into the text, there’s nothing in this parable that tells us
that the young man feels sorry about
what he’s done. Instead, we really only see that he has enough sense to suspect
that he’ll find some degree of mercy at his father’s home. He gets more than he
expects, undoubtedly. But out of all the places he might look for help, he’s
most confident that he will get it from his father.
So what if
the younger son doesn’t come home because he’s repentant? What if he hasn’t
turned over a new leaf? What if he’s as much of a jerk when he gets home as he
was when he left? As I was thinking about this, I was thinking about how much
emphasis we put on our ability to be good.
We strive, I hope, to be good. We admire true goodness when we encounter it in
others. But Jesus never seems to talk about people’s goodness. In fact, one time when a person refers to Jesus as good, Jesus says that no one is good but God alone. What Jesus does commend in others is their faith in
God. Again and again when Jesus offers healing, he will says, “Your faith has
made you well.” Faith, not goodness. Faith, deep confidence in the power of
God, in the love of God, in the healing work of God in the world – this Jesus
commends. In this parable, which of these two sons has faith in the love, or at least in the mercy of their father? The
“good” son? Or the “bad” son?
***
I don’t
suggest that we give up on seeking after goodness.
But I do suggest that we continue to
wrestle with – and let go of – our idea, our insistence that we can access
God’s love, or more of God’s love, or more of God’s love than that other guy at
least if we could just be good enough
to deserve it.
We’re going
to skip ahead a bit in our passage, past the father’s greeting of his returning
son, to take a look at the older son, the big brother in this text. After the
younger son has returned home and been warmly greeted by his father and taken
off to a grand party, the text shifts focus to his older brother. The older son
is in the field, walking back to the house, and he hears music and dancing. He
calls a slave over to ask what’s going on, and the slave tells the older son: “Your
brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has
got him back safe and sound.” This makes the son angry, and he refuses to go
inside. So, the father comes out, begging him to come in and join the party.
But, the son will not be comforted. He says, “Listen! For all these years I
have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your
command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might
celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has
devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” We’ll
get to the father’s response in a bit.
Now, we
don’t get much insight into what life was really like for the older son, but it
seems unlikely, from what we do see, that the father treated his older son like
a slave, or failed to celebrate him in any way, ever. But it should be clear
enough that this older son is very, very bitter, and very anger. When I think
of him, I think of another of Jesus’ parables where a group of people is upset
when someone else gets more than most think they deserve. In the Parable of the
Workers in the Field, the owner asks his workers, “Are you envious because I am
generous?”
Undoubtedly,
the brother seems to be full of envy to the point of bitterness that his father
is so generous with his younger brother. How about us? Are we envious, because
God is generous? Envy is discontent/ill-will/covetousness because of what
others have. To be envious because God is generous, we either have to feel like
1) We don’t have what the other person has. (Example: They have ice cream and I
don’t.) or 2) Someone gave the other person part of what belonged to me – it
was mine, and I want it back. (I had two scoops of ice cream and someone took
one of my scoops and gave it to them.) In the older brother’s case, his
response to his father’s welcome of his brother suggests that either he
believes his father loves his brother, and does not love him, or, his
father loves his brother, and that love detracts
from the love his father can give him.
I find the
older brother endlessly relatable. Are we envious because God is generous? Yup!
And what this means is that either we believe that other people being receiving
God’s love and unconditional forgiveness is something we don’t have for ourselves, or
something that only we should have,
without having to share it with others. And either way, we’ve got a problem.
I think
this goes back to the “being good” thing. We’ve tried to be good and others
haven’t and they still get loved! But the fact that this truth drives us crazy?
It suggests that our goodness is only for
the sake of a reward, rather than an act of love. Our striving to “be good” is
not an act of selflessness, not a gift to God, not an act of faithfulness if we’re in it for the
reward.
Maybe each
of us is a different kind of older brother. Maybe some of us really believe
that we are unlovable, and are jealous of the love God showers on the younger
brothers in our lives. And maybe some of us really believe that God’s love for
us is somehow lessened because God loves others as whole-heartedly, as prodigiously as God loves us.
But I think
that’s why we think of God’s relationship to us as akin to the love of a parent
for a child, rather than say the love of a spouse for a spouse. Our
understanding of love between spouses would indeed mean that the impact of the
love would be lessened if duplicated. If you love your spouse and your five other significant others
equally, that love doesn’t seem very strong. But no, God’s love for us is like
a parent for a child. It can’t be divided or subtracted just because all of
God’s children have it.
The older
son is a prodigal too – because he’s being recklessly wasteful with the love he
has, has always had, will always have from his father. He can’t
see and doesn’t value what he’s been surrounded with and supported by all his
life. And now he sees all that he has as diminished in value because his father
has offered it to his brother too. Maybe he’s been very good, all his life. But
he doesn’t have any faith in the love of his father, though his father has
always been faithful. What a waste!
***
Finally, we
take a look at the Prodigal Parent. The father who is reckless with love and
forgiveness and welcome. Offering it without even needing to be asked.
When he
sees his son coming home, he is “filled with compassion.” I’ve talked to you
about that word before – compassion – and how often it is used of Jesus in the
gospels. It means that your insides are literally moved and twisted up with the
level of care and concern you have. He runs to his son, hugging and kissing
him. He cuts his son off before he can even finish his prepared speech – the
father doesn’t care, doesn’t need it, isn’t interested in it. It doesn’t
matter. Instead, he plans a celebration: his best robe, a ring, new sandals, a
feast, a party. For, as he says, “For this son of mine was dead and is alive
again; he was lost and is found!” He doesn’t receive an apology. He doesn’t ask
for explanations. He doesn’t place conditions on his son’s returns or offer
expectations of future better behavior. He just demonstrates in every way he
can think of that he can think of nothing better than having his son back.
And then we
see him with his older son. The father pleads with him. He’s begging him to
understand. “Son, you are always with
me, and all that is mine is yours. But
we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has
come to life; he was lost and has been found.” He can only try to explain to
his son the impossibility of his feeling anything other than overjoyed that his
younger son has returned. Any other reaction is unthinkable. Just as anything
other than his total love of his angry older son is unthinkable too.
I can tell
you that my mom’s favorite thing in the world is when all of her kids are
together in one place and happily spending time together. And I can tell you
that the most paralyzing thing for her is when her children aren’t getting
along. We tease her, have teased her forever about which of us is her favorite
(me, obviously.) But truthfully, we all know that there’s no such thing for
her. Or rather, we are her favorites – each of us. Not split between the four
of us, but each of us, 100% her favorite. There is no choosing sides.
That’s how
much God loves us, and then some. Beyond our imaging. Beyond comprehension. God
loves us perfectly. 100%. Not divided. Never wavering. Even when we run away.
Even when we don’t deserve it, which is pretty much always. Even when we’re
envious. Even when we waste God’s love feeling angry and bitter about who else
gets invited to the celebration. Even when we’re unfaithful. Even with our
feeble attempts at goodness. Even when we think we’re better than everyone
else. Even when we’re not really sorry, and just hoping for a home-cooked meal.
Even when we call God’s love into question, or throw it back into God’s face.
Even when we hurt God and hurt each other over it.
God is the
true prodigal, after all. Reckless with forgiveness. Wasting mercy on those who
deserve none. Extravagant with love. Thanks be to God. Amen.
Comments