FOURTH
SUNDAY OF LENT, YEAR C March
6, 2016
2
Corinthians 5:17-21; Luke 15:11-32 Panzer Liturgical Service
Today’s parable is the third in a series of stories Jesus
told about being lost and being found. The
parable of the lost sheep and the lost coin are straight forward, at least for
most of us. Each of us has some memory of story of turning the house upside
down to look for something of value that we have misplaced. I think that one of
the benefits of being in a state of constant moving is finding things we
thought were gone forever, usually in the back of a drawer or under a piece of
furniture.
But if you ask someone to name a parable, this along
with the Good Samaritan, this is perhaps one of the
best known stories from the New Testament. People of all ages recognize it as
the parable of the Prodigal Son, probably because that’s how it is labeled in
most of our bibles. And because we know
it so well, when we hear it, we begin to identify with at least one of the
characters. One person might say,
"I am a youngest child, too, so I understand how this youngest child might
want to get out of the shadow of that older brother and go out on his
own." Or maybe someone who was an
oldest child might think, "Yea, the baby always gets the breaks. My parents were never that easy with
me." Or maybe we even identify with
the father, and really know the joy of homecoming and what it means to have
what was broken made whole again.
Reconciliation.
In the New Common Lectionary, this passage appears with epistle and Old
Testament passages that also speak of reconciliation – reconciliation between
members of the family of God, and reconciliation between us and God. And the parable contains several examples
which highlight those understandings quite well.
The younger son swallows his pride and comes home,
willing to accept the shame he feels he deserves for his irresponsible
behavior. But instead of rejection, the
son is welcomed, "with opened arms,” and we experience the father's joy
and acceptance of his young son's homecoming as evidence of and a model for the
kind of forgiveness that God and Christ call for us to model in our own
lives. We even see the father building a
bridge between the two sons, attempting to reach a level of reconciliation
between them, so that they might all be able to celebrate together. But this is
more than a nice story about reconciliation. There is a lot more that this
story has to teach us.
We call this the parable of the prodigal son. So first
we must define the word prodigal.
Webster’s Dictionary says that it spending money or
using resources freely and recklessly; wastefully extravagant. This definition encompasses all of the negative
understandings we have about the younger son and his behavior. We look at the
younger son and especially if we are oldest children, it brings back many of
the memories we have about our younger siblings and our perceptions about how
we grew up.
But the word prodigal also means, having or giving something on a lavish scale. This definition takes
away the negative feelings we have about the younger son and brings into light
the amazing gift of love that the father was sharing with both sons.
Jesus tells a story of a younger son coming home to open
arms, with the father throwing a celebration dinner in his honor. And as expected, the older son, and probably
many listening to Jesus tell the story, was really incensed. Can't you just hear them talking in the
background "This is not fair. Look at all the stupid things he’s done and the
father just welcomes him back... with open arms, and then throws a party as if
none of it ever happened. Can you believe it?"
Whether we want to admit it or not, we feel some of
those same things. When we see ourselves as the hard workers and others as
getting something for nothing, it’s hard not to get mad. It’s hard not to hold
resentment for others in our hearts and in the way we live out our faith daily.[1]
I have been studying this parable for a while and I have
starting looking at this story with new eyes. The younger son gave up the life
he had to find his own way, but through wasteful spending and living, he lost
everything of value, except the belief that his father would not send him away
if he came back. The older son stayed home and took care of business. He didn’t
understand that while the younger brother might not have a place in the family
business, he would always have a place in the father’s heart.
This is not just a story of prodigal sons who wasted family
assets and threw away family relationships. This is also a story of a prodigal
father, who loved extravagantly, welcoming home a lost son and encouraging a
faithful son to become a united family again, no matter what happened in the
past.
Philip Yancey tells a story about a young girl from
Traverse City, MI. She has an ongoing battle with her parents about the clothes
she wears and the company she keeps. She finally runs away makes it as far as
Detroit. Her second day, she meets a man who offers her a ride, buys her lunch
and promises her a safe place to stay. He gives her some pills to make her feel
better, and you can imagine the rest of the story. For a little more than a
year, her life is pretty good, except for the men who visit nightly. But when
she gets sick, the man she has come to depend on takes her away from her
comfortable surroundings and leaves her on the street with just the clothes on
her back and without penny to her name.
As winter approaches, she finds herself sleeping on the
grates outside a large department store, with one eye open to those who might
want to do her harm. One morning she wakes up and realizes that at least if she
went home, someone would feel obligated to help her out. So she leaves a
message on her parent’s voicemail that she will be arriving on the bus that
night, and if no one is there to meet her, she will just keep going to Canada.
As the bus approaches Traverse City, Cherry Capital of
the World, she is afraid. And as the bus turned the corner, she is overwhelmed
to see every relative she has - parents, sibling, grandparents, aunts, uncles
and cousins, wearing goofy party hats and holding signs proclaiming, “Welcome
Home” and “We’ve missed you!”
She starts to share with her dad all the things she has
been thinking of on the bus, but he just wraps her up in his arms and says, “No
time for that now – you don’t want to be late for your party – we can’t believe
you’re finally back home.”[2]
The God we worship is a generous, prodigal God. One who forgives our sins, who stands with us
in our joy, and holds us up in the midst of our pain. But we have to remember that God did not just
forgive my sin, or your sin, but also the sin of those who, to us, seem
unforgivable. Our God is not an
either/or God, but is a both/and God. And even beginning to understand the scope of God's love and forgiveness
helps us to know God in a new and deeper way.
And in the process, we learn a very important lesson — that however much
we may want to, we cannot draw the lines which define how God's grace is going
to operate. God will be whom God will
be.
Paul talks about this in his second letter to the
Corinthians. In Christ, we are a new
creation, and we are called to make peace with those who were previously our
enemies. Love is now the pattern for our living. God doesn’t hold our sins
against us, and that is how God is calling us to live toward others (and
ourselves). We are ambassadors for Christ. We are called to make an appeal to
others – to reconcile ourselves to them and bring them into the family of God.
John Newton was right.
God's grace is amazing, and not only saves us from our sin, but saves us
from ourselves.
Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.
Through many dangers, toils, and snares, I have already come;
‘Tis grace hath brought me safe thus far, and grace will lead me home.
Jesus doesn’t give us parables to teach us how to live.
He gave them to correct our notions about who God is and who God loves.[3]
Whomever we identify with in this story, from whatever slant we read it, in its
entirety, this parable tells us who we are as God’s children, and who God is as
Parent of us all. This is not just a
parable about reconciliation. It is also
a parable about the Kingdom of God.
A man had two sons, and one went away and made a lot of
mistakes, and one stayed home and was faithful.
And when the one who went away came home in disgrace, the father loved
him and celebrated his return. And when
the one who stayed home was upset, the father reminded him that his love is big
enough to love both of them, and that homecoming is worth all the celebration
in the world. Let us be thankful for a God who always welcome us home.
----------------
(c) Deb Luther Teagan 2016
[1] Debie Thomas,
Letters to Prodigals, Journey With Jesus (2/28/2016) http://journeywithjesus.net/essays/856-letters-to-prodigals
[2] Philip Yancey,
What’s So Amazing About Grace, 1997, pp 50-51.
[3] Ibid, p 53.
See also David Lose, The Prodigal God, ...In the Meantime (2/28/2016) http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-4-c-the-prodigal-god/
See also David Lose, The Prodigal God, ...In the Meantime (2/28/2016) http://www.davidlose.net/2016/02/lent-4-c-the-prodigal-god/
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