Fourth Sunday in Lent
First Reading (Joshua 5:9-12/CEB)
Gospel Reading (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32/NRSVUE)
Our Ways and God’s Ways — Rev. Brent Gundlah
Today’s passage from Luke’s Gospel is, of course, the parable of the Prodigal Son. It’s one of those stories, like the one about the Good Samaritan, that people know (or at least think they know) pretty well — even if they’ve never actually read it before; it’s just made its way into our hearts and minds somehow.
I know that I do this for a living but, even after having preached hundreds times, it’s daunting for me to stand up here and talk about such a familiar passage. I was recently looking over my archive of the things that I’ve written and said during my time as a pastor and I came to the realization that I’ve never addressed this story before — and maybe that’s no accident. I have, for some reason (perhaps a subconscious one), managed to avoid it every time it’s come up in the lectionary’s cycle of readings by going on vacation. And, if I’m being honest with you, when I saw that it was the gospel text for this morning, I was kind of sorry that I didn’t choose to take off this Sunday instead of next Sunday. But I didn’t; and since you’re here and I’m here and this parable is here, let’s see what we can do with it, shall we?
If you had a look at this passage in your bulletin or on the screen as I was reading it, you’d have seen that it’s broken into two parts with a whole lot of stuff missing in between. The brief verses in first part set the stage for all that follows in the rest of this chapter, which consists of three stories that Jesus tells one right after the other: the parable of the lost sheep, the parable of the lost coin and this parable of the prodigal.
All three of these parables address, in slightly different ways, the concern that’s raised in those verses at the start — namely, the Pharisees and the scribes being unhappy about the fact that this Jesus fellow is welcoming and eating with tax collectors and sinners. But, unlike the first two parables that talk about this in terms of farm animals and money, our parable for today does so exclusively using people and families (albeit fictitious ones); and when people and families are involved (yes, even fictitious ones) things can get complicated.
I say this because sheep and coins are at least one step removed from our experience — I mean, we’ve all seen a sheep and held a coin in our hands but I feel pretty confident in saying none of us has ever actually been a sheep or a coin (if I’m wrong about that, though, I encourage you to find me after worship because I’d love to hear more about it).
We are, however, people; and we live our lives alongside other people; and we have families — and people and families are laden with various degrees of baggage for us — so this parable inevitably hits a whole lot closer to home than the other two do; and, because it does, it’s really tempting to try and locate ourselves (as well as people we love, people we don’t love, and people we’re not really sure if we love) in it. To co-opt the lyrics of Carly Simon, “I bet you think this story’s about you, don’t you, don’t you, don’t you?” And while it kind of is, it also kind of isn’t.
So, where do you locate yourself and the people in your life in this parable? Is it with the younger son who squandered his inheritance (one he isn’t actually entitled to when he asks for it) and returns home with his proverbial tail between his legs? We’ve all done things we wish we hadn’t done — and hoped that we’d be forgiven for doing them.
Or is it with the older brother who, having worked his whole life doing what he’s expected to do, gets angry and jealous about the welcome home celebration his ne’er do well younger brother receives? We all know what it’s like to watch someone get more than we think they deserve, to get more than we think we deserve.
Or is it with the father who gives into his younger son’s demand for an inheritance before he’s even dead, and then welcomes home that son with open arms despite of all the bad and disrespectful things he’s done? We’ve all loved someone and had others wonder why the heck we actually love them, treating that someone with a kindness others find hard to comprehend.
But maybe part of the enduring appeal of this parable isn’t that we can easily identify ourselves and others in terms of any one of these three characters, but rather that we find ourselves and others in the space among these three characters. These characters are pretty tough to pin down because they’re fictional representations of us, and we’re pretty tough to pin down.
The younger son disrespects his father by making an unreasonable demand for money, he engages in “dissolute living” (while I’m not exactly sure what that means, I think we can safely infer that it’s not good), and he loses everything he has. But eventually, as Luke tells us, “he came to himself” and went home. Was his epiphany grounded in purely selfish and practical reasons (you know, because he had no place to live and nothing to eat) or did he sincerely repent — did he experience a real change of heart and mind — that led him to seek reconciliation with his family? It’s tough to know — and Jesus never says one way or the other. And maybe the conclusion we reach about the younger son says at least as much about us as it does about him.
The older son seems to have a point here — by society’s standards, anyway. He’s worked hard, he’s done what he’s supposed to do, he’s earned what he has. And then here comes his brother, who’s done the complete opposite of all those things, who’s dishonored their father, who’s thrown the whole family into disarray, and he’s welcomed back like nothing ever happened. That had to hurt; it simply wasn’t fair. And we can relate because we’ve all been there before.
But then his jealousy and anger get the better of him. He too disrespects his father — refusing to enter the father’s house, making his father come outside to plead with him to come in, and arguing with him in front of the party guests (all of which which would have been absolutely scandalous things for a son to do in that place and time). And, at some level, it’s tough to understand what he’s so mad about: I mean while the younger son gets more than he deserves, there’s no sense here that the older son gets any less than he deserves. As the story wraps up, we have no idea what the older son ultimately ends up doing. Does he go inside or does he walk away? Does he speak to his brother? Does he yell at his brother or does he ignore his brother altogether? What do you think he did (or should have done)? Again, the answer we give probably says at least as much about us as it does about him.
And then there’s the father. His capacity to forgive is so large as to be almost unbelievable — as are the kindness and patience he shows towards his far-from-perfect sons — and this makes him pretty likable. But by the standards of this world, he kinda comes across as a doormat, as a parent who shows favoritism, and as an enabler. Is the way he treats his older son fair? Is the way he treats his younger son either right or helpful? Is he a good steward of the resources with which he’s been entrusted? Should this really be called the Parable of the Prodigal Father and not the Prodigal Son? Yet again, the conclusion we reach about him speaks volumes about us.
This a story that defies easy answers and constantly draws us back in to consider more questions, and that can be incredibly frustrating. While this is an enduring and familiar parable, it isn’t necessarily an enjoyable one. Jesus’s parables are intriguingly (and intentionally) vexing places. As John Dominic Crossan (who co-authored the book that our Gatherings group just finished reading) describes it, these parables lay bare the “fault lines” that lie just beneath the comfortable surfaces of the worlds we create for ourselves. Indeed, there are are fault lines among these characters, there are fault lines within each of these characters, and there are the fault lines between these characters and our understanding of them.
But perhaps the greatest fault line to be found here is the one between us and God; between our anger and jealousy and fear and selfishness and pettiness and entitlement and God’s grace; between the worlds we create for ourselves and God’s vision for the world that God created. Earlier I said that this story is kind of about us and kind of about God but, to be more precise, it’s really about that place where we and God meet, where our understanding of the way ought to be collide with God’s understanding of the way things ought to be.
Remember, the situation that provides the context for this parable is the Pharisees and scribes griping about Jesus welcoming and dining with sinners (or, at least, people they see as sinners). The question they’re asking is, “Who deserves to be at God’s table?” And they believe they know the answer — namely, them and no one else. Because this is how we want things to work in the world we’ve created for ourselves. And viewed through the lens of such a world, the tax collectors and sinners don’t deserve to be at God’s table; the younger son in this parable doesn’t deserve to be at his father’s table (and maybe the older one doesn’t either).
But that’s not only the wrong answer (because not a one of us deserves to be at God’s table), it’s also the wrong question. The question is really, “Who is welcome at God’s table?” And the answer to that question is “everyone.” Because this is God’s vision for the world that God created. If we look at the father’s actions in this parable from that perspective — from God’s perspective — instead of from our own perspective, they make a lot more sense.
We might see grace as something that should be earned or deserved, but God doesn’t see it that way. Because grace isn’t a wage or a prize, it’s a gift.
We might see grace as a finite resource to be hoarded — as something to be withheld from others so we can have more for ourselves — but God doesn’t see it that way. Because grace isn’t a pizza, there’s always enough for everyone.
We might see grace as the exclusive purview of the saint, but God doesn’t see it that way. Because grace is for the saint and the sinner.
All I can say, is “Thank God for that.”