Last week, as some were making judgments regarding who they thought was being justly punished
by God, Jesus issued that solemn warning: "Unless you repent you will also perish." And today we find
this very familiar story but sometimes fail to hear that it was told in response to the non-judgmental actions
of Jesus who not only "welcomed sinners, but ate with them."
Barbara Brown Taylor describes it this way: Imagine, Jesus sitting down to eat at the local watering hole with
"an abortion doctor, a child molester, an arms dealer, a garbage collector, a young man with AIDS, a Laotian
chicken plucker, a teenage crack addict, and an unmarried woman on welfare with five children by three different
fathers." Then the local clergy association comes in for lunch and can hardly eat for how offended they are
by Jesus and his company. "Doesn't he know what kind of message he is sending? Who is going to believe he
speaks for God if he does not keep better company than that?"
What are we to do with someone that radical? If there is a question for us this week after confronting "Who
are you?", "Whose are you?", and "Who needs to repent?"…it is most likely: "Who's
lost and what does it look like to be found?"
Luke devotes this chapter to three parables on the theme of the lost and the found, telling the stories of the
lost sheep, the lost coin, and finally this beautiful tale of a lost son. Although the father clearly refers to
the younger boy "who was lost and who has now been found," because the story ends the way it does we
can't be sure about the fate of the older son, who never went away but who in fact may never be found.
This story has long been called the story of the prodigal and over the course of time it is most often referred
to as the story of the prodigal son. It's a shame really that it has come down to that, for to be prodigal is to
be given to extreme excess, not necessarily to extreme waste, and in that case the father was far more the prodigal
than either of his sons.
The story of a child who rejects the family and wastes the family fortune is hardly news. Neither is the story
of an elder child or a younger one who makes a living out of their resentment of what they feel was their unfair
treatment throughout life. However, a parent who is willing to risk everything-and I mean absolutely everything---to
love without conditions and to always be ready to start over, not only without repercussions and a trial period,
but with complete restitution and a celebration---this is news!
And it's very good news if this is a story about the nature of God.
Let's face it, who doesn't like a good story about a family reunited? It's a universal phenomenon, and books and
movies have been produced with derivations on this very theme for as long as civilization has existed! The mother
hen, the cozy nest---the warm, secure safety of being loved. These are all elements of the human condition at its
best.
Unfortunately, so is the tendency to wander. Waywardness and wandering form the backdrop for all of our other readings
today, and for so much of our life experience.
At long last, the Israelites have a change of diet; forty years of manna are finally replaced by the produce of
the promised land. Yet, the images of unleavened cakes and parched grain are still seen today as necessary Passover
reminders of a previously itinerant, nomadic, and undoubtedly tiring existence caused by rebellion and sin.
Conscious of creating a sense of alienation from God through a refusal to honestly confront the truth about his
own character, our psalmist writes:
While I kept silence, my body wasted away through my groaning all day long. For day and night your hand was heavy
upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.
And Paul, writes to the Corinthians about a world so out of control that God was forced to send Christ to reconcile
it in order to bring us back.
For equally as powerful as the backdrop of wandering is the image of welcome. "Welcome home!" we say
to those who have been apart from us for whatever reason and who are now back on familiar soil where we truly want
them to feel that they belong.
It is very easy, perhaps even natural to wander off, but it is a great gift, and a practiced art to truly welcome
people home.
Perhaps that is why Jesus told this story about a son who discovers his father's love only when he walks away from
it. That unmerited favor was his first experience with grace. But the father's grace was also a crisis for the
older brother, who thought that it was because of his obedience that he had earned a place in his father's home,
a terrible untruth.
This story tells us that all are welcome. No matter who they are, no matter where they have been, no matter what
they may have done or not done. We are welcomed not because we deserve to be welcomed…but solely because it is
the nature of our host to love and celebrate our return.
What is The Church's role in welcoming the stranger, or in welcoming back those who just drift in and out from
time to time, or who have left its fold for whatever reason---and who have found a reason to return?
It's hard not to hear Jesus saying "Whoever welcomes one of these little ones in my name, welcomes me,"
and harder still to ignore this image of a rejoicing father who comes running and gift laden, because "this
son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and now is found!" It's almost embarrassing…and it is
supposed to be.
For those of us for whom the Lenten journey has revealed a lapse, a place perhaps where we have wandered off and
discovered a need for renewal and change this is the first of the hope-filled and promise laden messages of the
season. It comes on Laetare Sunday, also known as "Mothering Sunday" - the fourth, or middle Sunday of
Lent. It comes as a compassionate break amidst that hard lessons of this season much like the pink candle on the
third Sunday in Advent. It speaks of hope and a cause for coming joy.
So, "Laetare Jerusalem" -"Rejoice, O Jerusalem" -or as the psalmist says "rejoice, O righteous,
and shout for joy, all you upright in heart" it is your right to be called the sons and daughters of God and
recognizing that is what God has waited for all this time!
Paul reminds us, "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation." Everything old-everything past is
done and gone. "Everything has become new!"
Things are always changing before we recognize it. We accept that so easily when it comes to what we determine
to be bad - the roof is giving out, the body is breaking down, the glow is off the relationship---Why can't we
just as easily believe that the good is also beginning long before we recognize it?
The secret treasure of this parable is that both sons have been completely forgiven, loved just for themselves
before they ever knew who they really were---despite the fact that neither one has really repented at all. They
both only did what they perceived was best for them at the time.
The younger son came home because he had exhausted all his other options and it looked better than where he was.
The older son stayed home because he didn't want to lose what he had.
They were both still laboring under the illusion that it's all about survival on any level,---getting in order
to gain, and not about losing in order to find.
Both brothers had false expectations - the younger thought everything was going to be better on the outside and
the older reasoned that if I stay here and toe the line someday its all going to be mine. The father was the only
one who hoped for something really good and expected that it would happen.
Hence---the fatted calf…a very important image, for such animals were also treated kindly to excess, given huge
amounts of rich food all their lives for just such a moment. You see even in the midst of knowing that neither
son appreciated him for who he really was, and that it might turn out that he would end up abandoned by both--this
father was still preparing for a celebration.
And lest you doubt that both sons created their own hells do not lose sight of the final picture. There's a big
party, and with the music playing and all the excitement going on the older son stands outside, arms crossed and
flushed with anger wanting nothing to do with either of them. His brother has become "This son of yours"…not
this brother of mine. He has put them both outside the circle of his affection and concern.
The father who leaves the party to go and plead with that son is the Christ figure descending into hell-even those
of our own making, to try to win back the lost.
We all need to be reconciled, and Paul reminds us that God is the one who does it. We just have to agree to come
home and join the party.
Therefore who among us has the right to say "You are welcome…but you are not?" Who has the right to say
"You can receive the sacrament…but you cannot?" Or "You can be married in the church…but you cannot?"
Who has the right to say "You deserve God's grace…but you do not?"
Perhaps instead of saying so easily and so self-righteously "I don't know…I'm not sure about you"…maybe
we should be learning to say with our whole heart…"Welcome my brother and my sister..welcome home in the name
of Christ!"
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