This morning’s scripture reading is Luke, chapter 15, verses 1-3 and 11b through 32. It can be found on page 740 in your pew Bibles.
I invite you to listen for the word of God.
Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
Then Jesus told them this parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
When he came to his senses, he said ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ So he got up and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.
The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
The other brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
This is the word of the Lord
Thanks be to God.
Sermon
This is scripture passage is a parable, a story used to explain a historical truth, that captures our attention, though it is devoid of miracles and not originally intended for us at all.
The parable is told to explain the relationship between Jesus, the sinners and tax collectors, and the scribes and Pharisees. Like the wayward or prodigal son, the sinners and tax collectors have strayed from God, have lived un-pure lives that the righteous son, or Pharisees and scribes are disgusted by. They, the Pharisees and Scribes stand in judgment of Jesus who associates with such low lives saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
This Jesus shocks the Scribes and Pharisees. Jesus listens to them, as God always hears us when we are angry, even if for the wrong reason, but he still corrects them as the God they expected would never associate with such low lives but would judge them, condemn them, and punish them for their disobedience.
Like the son who stayed home in the parable, the Scribes and Pharisees are enraged.
In the parable, Jesus describes a father who embraces a wayward son who squandered his inheritance on prostitutes. Of course, the father who embraces the wayward son is meant to represent God, especially in the person of Jesus. While the image of father is a traditional role for God, we must be careful not to box God in. Of course for our God will not be type cast, and as the story continues we must be careful that our images of God do not limit our relationship with God and each other.
For though this parable explains a historical struggle, the struggle between God’s faithful sons and daughters and God’s returning sons and daughters, the story points to a timeless truth. We just have to be careful to realize that it’s not a story about us.
Because the scribes and Pharisees thought it was about them, and who they understood God to be. They assumed that God was on their side, and that God operated according to their rules. That disobedience under the Law was not something that could just be erased and forgotten about. They assumed that this son who had squandered his inheritance on prostitutes should be forgotten. That this son who out of desperation had been hired as a servant got what he deserved, that he should pay for his recklessness, for his loose living.
And the wayward son, like his brother who stayed to till his father’s fields, was also limited in his understanding of his father. The sinners and tax collectors believed what the Scribes and Pharisees said about them. They believed that God had left them behind, that they were not good enough, that they had strayed too far and deserved to lose their place at the table, deserved to lose their inheritance, deserved to be forgotten. They were not good enough to be the father’s son any more and could only hope to be a servant.
But this is not a story about them, just as this is not a story about us.
If it were left to us, if we were the main players in this parable than God would be confined to a box, a box of our limited understanding. God would be limited by our feelings of self-righteousness or self-loathing, God would be held down just as we hold ourselves down, so thank God this is not a story about us.
This is a story about God. And in this story we hear about a God who defies explanation, a God who defies our graven images, a God who will not be confined to masculine imagery, a God who is more than a “he” in the sky, more than a father or a mother, though we should feel to call our God either, a God who cannot be pictured as a grumpy old man in a golden chair. For in the parable of the prodigal son and his brother we come to know a God who will not abide by our claims of whom God would and would not hang out with, our claims of whom God would and would not like.
Too often we see ourselves in our God, forgetting that God is not limited by our sins which so define the way we see the world.
The Bible speaks of a God who cannot be nailed down to the cross for God rose from the dead. Yes, our God cannot be confined by death, will not be held down by the fires of hell much less our own conceptions.
In this parable we see how we confine God, how we think God can’t forgive us, that God wouldn’t do that that God wouldn't love me or that God wouldn’t love him or her.
Because we constantly forget that it’s not about us, it’s not about what we think about God, because God is bigger than we are and what we think and want; God is bigger than we with a love so great and so pure, a God who waits for us offering us an invitation that we don’t deserve.
And yet, this God who is beyond us, who we can’t comprehend, is right here with us. Like the father in the parable our God is present in our lives. Our God waits for us to embrace us with open arms.
This God is present today, as we remember Jesus who gave up his life for us. Today in the bread and the wine we remember an inheritance that we threw away, that we don’t deserve, as what we deserve is punishment, but what we are given is new life.
In bread and wine we are given a gift, just as the father offered his sons an inheritance, not because they earned it, in fact it didn’t have anything to do with them at all. The son who stayed thought he had worked hard to deserve the father’s love and the son who strayed thought his sins lost him his place in the father’s house. But the parable is not a story about us. Not a story about us but the story of a God who loves us, who offers this sacrament, not because we are good, but because God is good. In the breaking of the bread and the drinking of the cup we may remember the God who refuses to give up, the God who will never give up on us.
You who are here know, I hope that you know you are welcome, that you are forgiven, and that you are loved. There are so many things that we have to earn, but here is something freely given that we could never earn. God’s love is free to you, and we are called to respond to such love in thanksgiving, sharing God’s love freely to everyone we meet.
-Amen
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