O God, we thank you for being a God who seeks
and finds the lost ✠ in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Throughout Lent the Sunday readings there is a common theme – we are dead and God brings us into new and abundant life in Jesus Christ. Today, that theme is about as clear as it gets. In many ways, we experience death – sometimes it’s the death of a dream or idea, sometimes the end of a relationship, sometimes physical or mental decline, and sometimes it is the physical death of a loved one or friend. A lot of these life-draining realities are the result of human sin – war, partisanship, greed, jealousy. Whatever the cause, the result is that we are often left wandering in the valley of the shadow of death. But there’s a wideness in God’s mercy like the wideness of the sea; God seeks out and finds the lost and brings us back into the grace of his love.
Perhaps
the best example of this saving grace is found in the parable we heard Jesus
tell this morning in Luke. This parable has been called “the greatest story
ever told” and it very well might be. This parable is a limitless well – I
could preach on this text every week for the rest of the year and still have
plenty left to say. For today though, I want to walk through this parable and
notice those places of death where God brings us into new life.
Jesus
opens with “There was a man who had two sons.” We might not hear it, but this
is a hyperlink back to several stories in the Old Testament. Cain and Abel, Isaac
and Ishmael, Jacob and Esau were all two sons. The trope was that the younger
son would supplant the birth order and become the favored one. So Jesus’
audience would have identified immediately with the younger son from this
opening line.
Now,
in Jesus’ time, I don’t think many people were wearing pearls when this parable
was told; but if they had been, they would be clutching them. Throughout this
parable, we are to be shocked and even disgusted at times. The younger son, the
one we’re all thinking “Oh, this is us” goes to his father and says “Give me
the share of the property that belongs to me.” You’re supposed to gasp at that
part. None of the property belongs to the younger son because the father is
still alive. Inheritances then had the same basic concept they do today even if
the legal mechanisms have changed a bit. You get an inheritance after someone
has died, not before. This is the first time we encounter death in this
parable.
And
it’s even clearer if we read what happened in the Greek of Luke’s recording.
When our translation says “the father divided his property” it really says “he
divided his life.” In that culture, your life could not be separated from your property.
Your net assets were your land. Today, we buy and sell land often – but land
there was ancestral, it was a part of your identity. And so to make good on this
son’s request, the father would have to sell some of this land, sell a part of himself,
which is why the word “life” is so fitting; not to mention the pain of having a
son leave. And this would have been public. People would have said, “Why is he
selling his land?” “Oh, didn’t you hear? That youngest son of his asked him for
his share of the inheritance.” Not only has the son essentially said, “I want
your stuff, not you; so make it like you’re dead to me” but he’s also brought
shame to the family.
Well,
the youngest son heads off. What he thought he was going to do, we can’t say
and Jesus doesn’t tell us what his plans were. But he ended up in what is referred
to as “dissolute living.” I’m not going to speculate on what exactly he spent
the money on because we all have different vices and what seems reckless to one
might seem like a decent investment to another. But whatever he was spending
the money on, it was all about pleasure.
Now
did the father know that this is what would happen? Again, we can’t say for
sure. But a parent knows their child and the father likely had some intuition,
or fear, about what his son would do with this money. But does the father stop
him from giving the money? No. Does he lecture him on how to use money wisely?
Not that we know of. God will let us make mistakes and just because we are
doing something, it doesn’t mean that it’s what God would have us to be doing. Imagine
this son, arriving in some new land with all this money – he was the big man on
campus. I bet he felt like a million bucks. Just because we are at the top of
our game, the top of our field, seemingly rich with resources it doesn’t mean
that we are close to God – in fact, the son was as far from the father as he
ever had been at this point. But from the outside perspective, this son looked
pretty good. It’s a cautionary tale of equating worldly success with faith.
As
the Beatles taught us, “money can’t buy me love” nor can money protect us from
calamity. There was a famine in that land beyond this son’s control. Maybe he didn’t
blow through all the money on vices, maybe he did. But something bigger than
him happened and the inheritance ran out. So he got a job. Not just any job
though, he was feeding pigs. Again, you’re supposed to clutch your pearls. Pigs
are the most unclean animal there was for Jews of that time. Not only are they
dirty in the normal way, but they are unclean in a religious way. To even be
associated with these sorts of animals was an absolute disgrace. But then the situation
is so bad that he starts to think that the food he’s feeding them looks pretty
good. No one gave him anything though – the farmer says “No, that food isn’t
for you, it’s for the pigs.”
Again,
death creeps into the parable. This son is as good as dead – starving, reducing
to the most demeaning and disgusting job imaginable, and out of options. And so
he starts to think, “You know, the servants back at daddy’s estate have it
better than I do. What do I have to lose?” It’s telling that Luke doesn’t use
the word “repent,” “regret,” or “feels sorry” to describe what’s going on in
the son’s thinking. As one scholar has put it, the son thinks “I’ll go back to
daddy and sound religious.” So he comes up with a speech about how he has sinned
against heaven and his father and that’s he’s no longer worthy to be called a
son, but can he at least be as a servant? And he begins the journey home.
The
father never forgot about this son, as Luke tells us that when he was still far
off he saw him. Meaning that he was keeping an eye out for him. How long this
went on, we don’t know. But the father never stopped scanning the horizon,
never abandoned hope. Later in the parable, the father says “my son was dead.”
And yet, as we all know, love does not stop at the grave. His son might have
been as good as dead, but he was never dead in the father’s heart. There is
nothing that we can ever do, ever think, ever neglect to do that could make God
stop loving us. Maybe we haven’t touched a Bible in a decade, been to church
since before the pandemic, given a dime to the church, or prayed in so long
that we don’t even remember the Lord’s Prayer – our faith might not have a pulse
and yet God never ceases to love us and to welcome us home into the arms of
grace.
The
son begins his prepared speech “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before
you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He says that he’s not worthy
to be called his son and yet he calls him his father. We might not deserve to
be called God’s children as much as we mess things up, but God is always our
father and anytime we call on the name of God we will be welcomed by the love
that created us, mercy that saves us, and the peace that belongs to us. No
matter how low you are, no matter the shame you have caused, no matter the pigs
that you’ve been hanging out with, you can always call on the name of God and
find grace to help in the time of need.
As
the son is going through his speech, the father cuts him off. “Quickly, get him
the best robe, and a ring for his finger, and shoes for his feet, and slaughter
the fatted calf. Let’s have a party they’ll be talking about for years to come,
for my son was lost and now is found.” The father has no need for apologies, no
use for speeches, no prerequisites for reconciliation. This is a parable of
grace, through and through. Don’t wait for the apology that may never come. Don’t
wait until you can forgive, because you may never be able to muster it. Don’t
fret over past wrongs, because the past can’t be changed. Instead, when there’s
a party, go. Don’t worthy about whether or not you’re dressed for it, whether
or not you deserve it; just enjoy it. Take advantage of the Resurrection life
that we have been given. That’s what we’re doing every Sunday – we gather to
receive the mercy of God and be fed from the grandest banquet there is: the
Eucharist. Maybe you haven’t been to church since February 2020, or February
2010 for that matter. We don’t care, we’re not keeping score and neither is
God. But there’s a fantastic party going on and it would be so much better with
you here. I know I’m preaching to the choir, so I need you all to go out and invite
others to the party.
If
the parable ended here, it would be lovely, wouldn’t it? Have you ever felt
like God owed you something? You come to church, you pray, you volunteer, you
give, you’re a generally nice person, and yet you still have struggles, you
still know people with cancer, you still don’t seem to have it as good as
people who aren’t as good as you. Well, if we can call those feelings to mind,
we’re ready for the next part of the parable. This man had two sons, remember?
Well, the older son smells the filet mignon and hears the laughter and music
coming from inside the house and asks one of the servants, “What’s going on?” “Didn’t
you hear, your brother came back and there’s a party.” At this point the pearls
are being clutched so hard they’re about to turn into diamonds.
“You
mean to tell me that this no-good son of yours gets a party?” he says to his
father. Remember, the younger son got his cut of the inheritance, so everything
that remains will ultimately belong to the older son – meaning that, in some
sense, it is his fatted calf being eaten, it is his money paying for the
musicians. And to top it all off, no one even bothered to come and tell him
about the party. We’ve all been left out before – it’s no fun. If you’re not
offended then you’re not hearing the parable. And here is death again – it’s
now the oldest son who is lost, who is as good as dead in his anger.
What
the older son misses is that the party was never for the younger son, it was
for the father. What we are celebrating is not that the younger son came home,
but rather that the father’s family has been restored. Maybe we don’t like that
“they,” whoever “they” are, receive God’s grace. Maybe we don’t like it that
those sorts of people are a part of God’s beloved community. But let us not let
our hatred and pettiness keep us from God’s party.
One
of the deaths that this parable shows us is the very much-needed death of who
we think God is. While God very much is concerned with justice, God has little
interest in fairness because God is a God of grace and mercy. None of us get
what we deserve, and that is very good news. The father in this parable
shatters the identity of both sons along with the sense of what both deserved.
The younger son thought he didn’t deserve to be a son and would have settled to
be a servant; the older son felt like a servant and missed out on the fact that
he was a son – that everything that belonged to the father already belonged to
him. But the father isn’t interested in duty or accountability, but rather in
mercy and joy.
It’s not a parable of deserving, it’s a parable of rejoicing with a God who will go to any length, suffer any shame, and pay any price to have all his beloved children at the banquet of his love. As all parables of grace do, it’s a parable that prepares us for the grace, love, and mercy of the Cross. Ultimately this is not a parable about us – it’s not about deciding if we are more like the younger or the older sibling; we are both. Instead, this is a parable about the love of the Father who seeks out the lost, welcomes all, invites us to join in his joy. At every moment of our lives, the table is set, the music is playing, and the Father is telling us to celebrate; therefore, let us keep the feast.
