A MESSAGE FOR THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT
(a link to a worship service including this message on the YouTube channel is found at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Awvrc7PmZY4)
Prayer of the Day:
God of compassion, you welcome the wayward, and you embrace us all with your mercy. By our baptism clothe us with garments of your grace, and feed us at the table of your love, through Jesus Christ, our Saviour and Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.
Luke 15:1-32
15 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3So he told them this parable: 4“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? 5When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. 6And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ 7Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance. 8“Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? 9When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ 10Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”
11Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ 20So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. 25“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29But he answered his father, ‘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. 30But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32But 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.’”
I will admit to you that, even after this morning's service and as I prepare to give the sermon to you, it is not a finished product. All the pieces are there. The problem is there are too many pieces. This is an amazing story, grouped with two other amazing stories. As a whole it is an amazing story. But there is too much. So, if mid-thought I veer quickly off to proceed and get on with the sermon, well, that is why.
I want to take you back, I think, for most of us, in childhood to a particular toy, a novelty really. A feature in most gift stores of any amusement park or museum or, well, anywhere that had a gift shop. It was a cardboard tube with tissue paper on the end. It was twisted and, if you held it up to the light and twisted, it had little plastic shards inside that would move around and form different mosaics. It is called, of course, a kaleidoscope. The simple gift shop ones were the cardboard tubes. They could get quite elaborate, but the principle was the same. You held it up to the light and twisted it and the pieces of plastic or glass would shift around and form different pictures.
It is astonishing looking back how really entertaining that was. It is a fairly simple idea. It strikes me as the kind of idea that a mother had one day, trying to entertain the troops, as it were, and say, “I have a paper towel tube and some tissue paper and some pieces of broken plastic. Next thing you know, the kaleidoscope! It strikes me as one of those toys where the head of the company got paid a lot and the person who actually developed it did not. Anyway, as that tube twisted, the perspective changed. The shards went into a different order and the picture looked different.
Recently on Twitter I saw a picture. I tried to find it again and I could not find out where this picture was or in what gallery or museum it was located. If you are on the far left of the picture and you are looking off to your right at the picture at an angle from the side, it looks like the picture of a young woman. As you walk across the painting the woman ages and when you get to the far right side of the picture, again looking sideways, this time toward the left, it is a picture of a of an elderly woman. It is the same woman who has aged across your walk across this painting. I do not know how the artist did it. It is astonishing.
But again, it is a question of perspective. Where you stand in front of the painting determines what painting you are looking at. These three parables and this one in particular that we are going to be looking at are a case of perspective, whether the younger son, the older son, or the father, or in some ways I suppose the
poor slave who has to deal with the elder son at the end. From each perspective the story is maybe not substantially different but speaks differently, as Levon Helm would say, it kind of dances differently.
So, I wanted to do is walk slowly but I promise not too slowly through this passage and at the end I am going to introduce something that I learned this week. I have been in ordained ministry for over 35 years and so I have preached this parable, which is only in Luke and so it comes up every three years. So, I am preaching on this maybe for the twelfth time and I have never really encountered this idea before. And that excites me. I have been at it this long and I am still learning stuff. I find that wonderful.
Jesus is speaking to Pharisees and scribes. That is important. This is an elite, educated crowd. The Pharisees were the great defenders of the faith, and the scribes were the civil servants of the day. They were also opponents. They were at this point always confronting Jesus and this was his audience, not the crowd that we often hear him speak to.
The Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” That was the premise, which was the occasion of the parable. The first two would have been outside their experience. None of them were shepherds. Shepherds were common laborers, not Pharisees and scribes. The second was a woman, a woman who had lost a piece of her dowry necklace. They would have no occasion to understand this, to identify with it. But then there was a man who had two sons. Likely they could identify with this, either as a father or as a son.
But to these Pharisees and scribes, much of this story was going to sound absurd. There were aspects of the story that they would have heard and said, “Well that would never happen.” Jesus knew that and so clearly the stuff that was odd or obscure or bizarre was there on purpose.
There was a man who had two sons the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” Well, out of the gate, this was horrible. The younger son essentially went to his father and said, “Father, you are as good as dead to me. Give me my inheritance now.” It would not have happened. No father would say, “Well sure, son.” No, that son would be criticized, would be yelled at. He would quite possibly be erased from the will.
There is another aspect of this that I never thought of. It is obscure but sometimes I love the obscure. So, I am going to introduce it to you, and we will move on. There was one scholar that I read this week that said that this might actually be a violation of Roman tax law. Now remember, when the Romans took over a culture, a country, they had two rules: do not kill anybody and pay your taxes. The Romans may have seen as a way of getting out of paying taxes. That would have been trouble. That would have been big trouble. So, the fact that the son was asking the father to do something illegal just adds to the impertinence of it. But the obvious impertinence was important enough. “You are as good as dead to me. Let me have my money.”
“So, he divided his property between them.” What? Well, this can not be. No father would do this. Again, the absurd bits are the important bits. The father does what the young son asks. Now it would not have been 50/50. In this day the elder son got more, and the younger son would have gotten less. But whatever that less was, the father apparently had the disposable income to be able to give it to him right away.
“But a few days later the young son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country.” A few days later? It seems like a minor point, but he went to his father and said, “You are as good as dead to me. Give me my money.” The father gave him his money. And he stuck around for a couple days? Wow! That is impertinent!
Then he traveled to a distant country. He was going to get as far away from home as he could. And there he squandered his property on dissolute living. Dissolute living? We are invited to imagine what that might have been. “When he had spent everything…” At this point of the story the son really had not had to manage money. Before there was the younger son, there was dad, and there was the older brother. He did not have the skills and pretty soon the money was gone.
Now we are just told “when he had spent everything”. We are not told the length of time. The length of time actually was not important. But it came to the point where he had spent everything and, in true parable fashion, just as he found himself broke there was a famine. There were no social services in this day. If you were broke, you were broke. And if there was a famine then there was even less around than there would have been. It would have been hard to get a farmworker job because there were not any crops. This was not trouble. This was big, big trouble.
“And he began to be in need.” Now, at this point, we may look at that and say, well, served him right. But we move on. “So, he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. A good Jewish boy! This was how bad things are. He was broke. There was a famine. And the only job he could get was feeding pigs. “He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.” From the lap of luxury to this.
“But when he came to himself…” It is an interesting phrase. We are going to come back to it. “But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare but here I am dying of hunger. I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him, “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.”
“When he came to himself…” What does that mean? It has often been assumed, assumed by me, that he was repentant, that he saw the error of his ways. There is some indication that maybe that is not the case. The surprise for the story that I had at the end of the story will play into my reading of this. But there is actually no guarantee here that he was repentant. In fact, I think his speech says that maybe he was not. “But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare and here I am dying of hunger.” His father's employees were better off than he was. They had better jobs, better paying jobs than he had.
“I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him father, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.” As I said, by the end I will tell you why, but I think it sounds dodgy. I think he saw the terrible circumstances he was in and the one thing he did not want to do he finally determined he had to do. He had to go home. But he had burned that bridge. But he thought, “I will be a hired hand.” He did not really want to be back as a son. He just wanted to eat. He just wanted to have some food and shelter security.
“So, he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” Now this had been a distant country. It took him a while to get home. And I like to think he practiced the speech every day to get it right. But he was interrupted. As soon as he was in sight he was espied by his father and the picture is that his father had been keeping watch for him this whole time. The same father the son had left saying he was good as dead to the son. But the father had continued to watch out for him.
Again, the Pharisees would have looked at this and said, “Come on! Hold him accountable. Be a better father than that.” But this father was very excited to see the son. “While he was still far off his father saw him and was filled with his compassion. He ran and put his arm around him and kissed him.” Now in the social mores of the day, adult men, particularly men of means, did not run anywhere. You had people for that. If something had to be dealt with quickly enough to have to run to it, you had people who ran for you. This was another thing that the Pharisees would have seen and thought that this father was not much of a man, running after the son who did all that he did to him.
But that was how the story went. He ran and hugged him and kissed him. Now, like I said, I think the son had practiced this speech for quite a while. It was a distant country, right? And his father interrupted him! “Then the son said to his father, “Father I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He was halfway there. But the father said to his slaves -- not to the son. The son was getting ready to finish his speech. The father, in the meantime, looked over to the slave and said, “Quickly, bring out a robe -- the best one -- and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and celebrate.”
I think none of that would have been on the mind of a son in this situation. He was just looking for a place in the bunk house and now he was wearing the best robe. He had a ring on his hand. He had sandals on his feet. And they were going have a feast with the fatted calf. The fatted calf! Every family who was able to had a fatted calf. The fatted calf was the thing that you served at a wedding or at a funeral or if a dignitary came to visit. It took a while to fatted a fatted calf. And so it was that calf, that reserved calf, that special feast calf, that was brought out and cooked for the feast. “For the son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found, and they began to celebrate”
Notice that “he was dead, but it is alive”. The son who considered his father dead was dead and is alive. “And they began to celebrate.” The father threw a party.
Now we meet the elder son. Okay, here is where it gets complicated and early on, I mentally rushed past this because I thought I knew what it meant. The older son was just cranky. The older son was the Pharisees who were ungrateful of the grace shown them and did not want anybody else to have it. That was kind of how it went. And the younger son was repentant and returned to his father. Again, maybe. But hang on. Listen.
“Now his elder son was in the field and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.” Now, the question I encountered this week was: Why did no one tell him? Why did no one go out to the field and say, “Oh my gosh, your brother has returned. Your dad is throwing a party. Come. Come join the party.”
No. It was as if he had been forgotten. He returned after he had finished in the fields and heard the music, heard the dancing. There was something odd going on and he had to call a slave over and find out what was happening. Now I would not want to be the slave. When he asked the slave what was happening, the slave was nervous. “I am the one who is going to have to tell him.” And tell him he did.
The slave replied: “Your brother has come up and your father has killed the fatted calf because he got him back safe and sound. Then the elder son became angry and refused to go in. His father came out to begin to plead with him. But he answered his father, “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. Then the father said to him, ‘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’.”
There is no reason to believe that the older brother’s complaints were not valid. He worked like a slave for his father and never disobeyed. It was the role of the eldest, right? The younger play and the oldest, the mature one, does everything he was asked. It would have been nice if dad said, “Wow, son, you work really hard. Take one of the goats and have a meal with your friends.” Nope. Never happened. But this younger son who had said his father was as good as dead to him, the father gave him the money. He ran off to dissolute living, which the older brother said was prostitutes. And the father welcomed him back and killed the fatted calf! He took him back! It was too much. It was just too much for the older brother. And so, we have in some ways another prodigal situation. The younger brother had left and as he approached, when his father caught sight of him, he ran out and welcomed him. The elder son for whatever reason had not been invited to the party, had not been let in on the news about the party and so was angry. And the father left the party, again, a social faux pas that the host had left the guests to go to his son and plead with him that he come to the party.
Now you notice how it ends. “But we had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours” -- you notice the phrases -- the elder brother said, “this son of yours”, not “my brother” but “this son of yours”. The father turned it and said “this brother of yours” was dead and has come to life he was lost and has been found.
What did the elder brother do? We are not told. Jesus did not finish the parable, this longest parable Jesus tells in the gospels. And so, we are invited to ask what the elder brother did. I started talking about perspective, the perspective of the father, the younger brother, the older brother, even the slave. They each have a different take on this parable. And because of that new question -- why wasn't the older son invited? -- it changed the way I look at the parable and it really cautioned me, and I would caution you against going to the casting director too quick, to say who is who.
The traditional reading is that the younger brother was the new Christians, the father was God, the older son was the Pharisees who were not welcoming the new Christians. Well, okay. Firstly, Jesus was talking so there were no new Christians. At this point there were not any Christians. Secondly, if the father was God, we have some problems. God did not invite the older son? No, that is not right.
I think in some ways the perspective of this parable is a fifth option: not the younger son, not the father, not the older son, not the slave. It is the family, this family.
- There was the younger son who was impertinent and rude and horrible to his father and may or may not be repentant
- There was the father who welcomed him back and went out to bring the older son home
- There was the older son who had a right to be angry in some ways but was so angry he refused to be reminded of the knowledge he had a brother and at one point refused to go to the party
The father tried to put the family back together. The younger son was impertinent. The older son was stubborn and rude. And the father spent the whole parable tripping over his own feet in a situation that I think many of us can identify with, that we make the best decision we can at the time. We look around and wonder what to do. He constantly tried to fix what happened.
Was the younger son repentant? I think in the form of the parable, if we read the parable that way, it does not matter. It does not matter. It just does not matter. Whether he was repentant or not, he was welcomed home and his return was celebrated.
Did the elder son go to the party? Well. Maybe. Maybe he went in angry, maybe he stomped in, made a scene, or maybe just skulked in the back and brooded or maybe he saw his brother and rejoiced.
We do not know. We are invited to speculate. How did the older brother feel? How he felt does not matter. It does not matter. It just does not matter because the father said, “Come home. Life is messy and we are too sometimes.”
All of these people. We can not easily assign persons to these characters because it is a parable. It tells a story. It tells the truth, and the truth is: What you have done, how fully you are home, how fully you are committed to repentance, ultimately does not matter. It does not matter. It just does not matter. God just wants you home and the family of God will work the rest of that later.
Can you picture this family -- and again, I know it is a parable -- but what was breakfast like the next morning? Because the younger son was not in the bunk house. He was in the house-house. As they sat at the breakfast table somebody had to talk first. I picture the father saying, “Look, it has been quite the ride. But it does not matter because here we are, together.”
It is the nature of the kingdom. Jesus is this kind of Messiah. He is this kind of Messiah that announces this kind of kingdom, a kingdom where the doors are wide open. Not a weird, gated community that we are so often asked to picture, that Saint Peter stands at the gate. What gate? It is open because it is home. “In my father's house are many dwelling places and I have gone to prepare a place for you.”
Whatever mood you are in, whatever you have done, however fully you feel back, it does not matter. It does not matter. It just does not matter. Our home is with God. God’s presence does not have a gate but an open door, maybe not even a door. God has open arms because God's compassion, God's mercy, God's love is infinite, immeasurable, encounters anything we can come against it with.
And so, however you are feeling right now, however you are feeling today, however you are measuring yourself in this Lent, in the waning days of Lent, here is the message: whatever we are looking at in terms of our discipleship, our life of faith, ultimately in terms of God's love for us, it does not matter. God loves us. End of sentence.
Be safe. Be well. God bless you all.
Pastor Greg
