I remain profoundly indebted to the insights of the late Henri Nouwen, as found in The Return of the Prodigal Son, for many of the core ideas conveyed in this sermon. I first read that book many years ago and it changed the way I have come to understand this parable. Although the work in this sermon is my own, it has emerged because of my debt to Nouwen.
I want you to notice who is in the audience as Jesus tells the familiar parable we just heard from Luke’s Gospel. There are the tax collectors and sinners, who have been coming to him to hear from him a word of healing, a word of “good news.” We can almost see in our mind’s eye, however, how their mere presence causes the scribes and the Pharisees to grumble. They practice a piety of separatism. They’ve been taught that they must not associate with sinners, that if they do it will somehow rub off on them. The way to remain “pure” is to steer clear of “this sort.”
So Jesus tells them all a little story…
Actually he tells them three stories. All of
them are what we might call “lost and found” stories. Story one is about a
shepherd who has 100 sheep: one gets lost and so the shepherd leaves the
ninety-nine to go after the lost one.
The second story is about a woman with ten
silver coins. (A little note in my Bible says each coin is worth the equivalent
of a day’s labor, so these aren’t dimes. Think of them more like $100 bills; I
bet if you lost one you’d turn the house upside down, too!) She loses one, but
after looking diligently she finally finds it, and she’s so happy that she
throws a party.
Story three is the one before us today, the story
most of us know as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I imagine him as a restless
soul, who lives for the moment. He can’t wait to leave home. But as soon as he
does, he finds trouble. Or trouble finds him. And it doesn’t take long before
he’s on a downward slide. When I reflect upon those gathered around Jesus as he
tells this story, I imagine that most of those “sinners and tax collectors”
could immediately identify with this character in the story. They encountered
in him a kindred soul. Not so much, however, the scribes and Pharisees.
But I think we misunderstand the story if we
are too literal about applying the lessons of the two previous stories about
the lost sheep and the lost coin. Human beings are always more complicated than
sheep or money. Moreover, I think that in this story there is more than one
lost brother. In his own way, the elder brother is just as lost as the
prodigal. It’s far more subtle, and perhaps less obvious both to him and to
those around him. But no less real.
The older brother is also lost, and he, too,
needs to be found. He’s an overachiever, but he’s grown to be somewhat resentful
about that. Carrying the weight of the world on his shoulders has grown
wearisome. I suspect he’s at least a little bit envious of his little brother, imagining
what it would be like to be far from home, and living the good life—but forgetting
or glossing over the fact that his brother ends up in a pig pen without any
money.
I suspect that most of those scribes and
Pharisees listening to Jesus (and perhaps a lot of us “successful”
Episcopalians in this room) are lost in the way of the older brother. Lost less
to lust than to resentments, perhaps. But still lost in ways that if left
unexamined can lead us to self-pity and self-righteousness. Traits don’t leave
much room for joy.
Full disclosure: I’m the oldest of four.
All families are complicated, and there are
lots of factors to consider. But birth order always plays some part in shaping who
we are. It is so easy for petty sibling rivalries, and jealousies to push aside
the love and force us into roles that leave less of who God means for us to
really be. If we hear too often at a young age: “he’s my shy one” it can get
harder and harder for us to come out of that shell. Or “she’s the responsible
one” – how do you throw caution to the wind and party like it’s 1999 if you are
carrying that?
You with me? Old tapes often last long past
their expiration date. “He’s the one who
can’t sit still,” or “she’s the one who is going to give me gray hair.” But being human is never about simple
stereotypes and if we forget that it can leave us feeling pretty lost. They may
convey some truth, but they cannot define who we are. And we do change as well;
all living creatures either change or they die.
I want to propose to you that in this story
we have two lost sons, not just one. But at the end of this story, the younger
brother has been found and he is celebrating. His story is like the hymn “Amazing
Grace;” he once was lost, but now he’s found; he was blind, but now he sees. He
is the recipient of an abundant outpouring of love that helps him to see the wideness
of God’s mercy. as he encounters not only a human father with open arms, but a
living God who welcomes back all the lost, all who are afraid and are ashamed.
But the jury is still out on the elder
brother as the story ends. Will he uncross his arms and join the party or not? Even
if he does, will he be able to let go of his anger and hear the words of his
father? The fatted calf awaits him, too, after all. A fatted calf can feed a
lot of people, and there is clearly enough veal piccata for everyone. No one
has excluded him from the party. He has chosen to exclude himself. In order to
enter and join in, he will need to let go of that sense that his brother is undeserving.
Like the scribes and Pharisees who listen to Jesus tell the story, he needs to
let go of the false notion that he’s “holier than thou” and risk embracing the
whole human family.
Whether or not we know how lost we are, Christ
desires to find us all. We are all beloved of the Father, and there is room at
the Table for all of us. If we are more
like the younger brother, we need to “come to ourselves” by getting up out of
the pig pen and making our way back home again. If we are more like the older
brother, then we need to “come to ourselves” by letting go of our resentments
and grievances.
The truth is though that these two have much
more in common than either realizes, not just because each is lost in his own
way, but because both are children of a compassionate father. And so are all of
us. The Eucharistic Table is set, and all are welcome. There’s room for
everyone. We are invited to come not because we’ve earned a place here, but
because we are all children of a compassionate God, whose steadfast love and
mercy abound. We are invited to sing and to dance and to live. We are invited
to experience joy.
But once fed, we are also called to get up
and then to “go and do likewise.” We are called to become more like the God who
loves us, as we love our neighbor. Or as that former Pharisee, Paul, puts it in
today’s epistle reading: we are sent out as “ambassadors for Christ.” We are
given this same ministry of reconciliation, to share with others. We who have experienced
reconciliation with God are sent out into the world as reconcilers who seek out
all who are lost, sharing with them the good news that there is room enough at
the Table for them as well. Our mission—our calling—is not to remain children,
but to become like the father and to become instruments of peace, to become
people willing to risk embrace as the defining posture of the Christian life.
Both of these brothers are in need of grace,
and of healing, and of love. We all are. But as the story ends, only one of the
two brothers has embraced this fact and received that gift. Only one has allowed
love to heal and transform him and to unleash the peace that passes all
understanding.
Now I admit that I may be overly optimistic
about this; but I like to believe that while it may have taken him a while longer,
eventually the older brother joined the party. He, too, “came to himself.” Maybe
he tentatively walked toward the party; hesitating at the door. Maybe his
younger brother sees him, and runs to embrace him, mimicking the role that the
father played for him. And maybe the tears began to flow. Maybe it didn’t
happen until the old man died and they had to both stand at his grave and
remember they were both loved beyond measure and they found a way, in their
shared grief, to reconnect.
What I do know is that this is how the world
will truly be made new. As Dr. King said, “I have also
decided to stick with love, for I know that love is ultimately the only answer
to humankind’s problems.” Holding on to grudges
forever, even when we are right, never leads to new and abundant life.
Because the story does end where it does, it
forces us to at least consider the possibility that the two never reconcile,
and that the betrayal the older brother feels causes a permanent rift with his
father. Perhaps he leaves home in disgust, never again to speak to his father
or to his brother. We must consider that ending, because all of us know that it
can happen that way, as sad as it is to admit.
Here, then, is what I believe is the main
point of this little lost and found story: we are free—all of us—to refuse love.
But at what cost? At what cost to our souls.
Of course it’s just a story. But it is a
story that leaves so many questions hanging in the air, stories those first
hearers took home with them—sinners, tax collectors, scribes and Pharisees.
What kind of lives would they live after hearing such a story?
And it’s still powerful for us who hear it
today: sinners and saints listening in together for a word of grace. The story
confronts us where we are, with our own unique ways of being lost. But make no
mistake about it – we are all lost in some way or another. And the real
question is simply this: are we willing to be found? Like so many of Jesus’
great parables, the story lingers in the air, and across the centuries, still haunting
us; still calling us.
We responsible children and we prodigal
children are all invited to join the party. There is enough fatted calf and
cake and ice cream for everyone. We who hear this story and claim that in it
there is a “Word of the Lord” for us are invited as we read, mark, learn and
inwardly digest it to continue to grow into the full stature of Christ by becoming
more and more like the compassionate father who knows that love is not a
limited commodity and there is enough to embrace both sons.
As we grow into the full stature of Christ we are invited to become no longer children but grown-ups who cannot help but to share the good news of God’s love with all whom we meet along the way, and to let them know that there is always room for one more at the party.
