Scripture:
Luke 15:1-2, 11-32
Now all the tax-collectors and
sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes
were grumbling and saying, `This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.'
[Then Jesus
told one of the most powerful stories of all time. See if you can find yourself in this story.]
Jesus said, `There was a man who had
two sons. The younger of them said to his father, "Father, give me the
share of the property that will belong to me." So he divided his property
between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled
to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that
country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of
the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He
would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and
no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, "How many
of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying
of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, `Father, I
have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called
your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.' " So he set off and went
to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was
filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then
the son said to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son." But the father said to his slaves,
"Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on
his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and
let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he
was lost and is found!" And they began to celebrate.
Now his elder son was in the field;
and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He
called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, "Your
brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has
got him back safe and sound." Then he became angry and refused to go in.
His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father,
"Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and
I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young
goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came
back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted
calf for him!" Then the father said to him, "Son, you are always with
me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because
this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been
found." '
Sermon:
So,
did you find yourself anywhere in that story?
Maybe you saw yourself in the first scene, where the younger son wants
his share of the property so he can strike out on his own. I thought of a number of adjectives I could
have used to describe this guy--brash, cocky, impudent, self-centered. But then
I realized, what’s happening here isn’t as much about his character as it is
about his stage in life. Haven’t we all been there–Dad and Mom can’t tell us
anything, the walls of home sweet home seem like a prison cell, and our spirit
demands that we strike out on our own, take charge of our own life, get a taste
of the world that’s waiting for us out there, and see what we can do? This isn’t wrong. It’s a rite of passage into adulthood, isn’t
it?
So
at this point in the story this younger son is any of us at that stage in our
life when we began experiencing ourself as a free, individual person. The young man in the story tried to jump
right into that stage in one big leap. He threw off the shackles of parental
control and went where even the neighbors wouldn’t know what he was up to. If you were a parent, would some yellow flags
be going up for you here? So why did his
father allow his son to take the money and run off to a place where he could
get into trouble?
If
you’re a parent, we can see ourselves in the father’s dilemma--when our
children want to play outside by themselves or decide what to spend their
allowance on, or have unrestricted computer access, or go out on a date,or
borrow our car, or marry their first love.
These can all be tough decisions, can’t they? We don’t want our child to get hurt. And we also want them to grow up independent
and become their own person.
Maybe
the father in Jesus’ story errs on the side of freedom. But here’s the kicker for us parents. God always errs on the side of
freedom. Think of the worst thing you
ever did. God didn’t step in to stop you, nor did God punish you
afterwards, besides your experiencing the consequences of your behavior.
Some
people don’t believe in God, because why wouldn’t a loving God prevent innocent
people from being killed by drunk drivers or even by wars and genocides? Why would a loving parent even let their
child play outside at all, or learn to drive, or get married to a real live,
imperfect person? Why would a bird push
it’s young out of the nest? Isn’t it our
freedom to experience all of life, to learn from our experience, to struggle
against this world’s limitations, to overcome loss and transcend our fears,
that make our souls deeper and wiser?
But
there’s always the risk of getting hurt, isn’t there? That takes us to the next scene in the
story. The younger son has decided to
take the longer path to maturity, and experience what happens when you
just go for immediate gratification.
When you exercise your freedom that way, you don’t find
yourself. You just find yourself getting
lost.
Now
if wine, women and song aren’t your thing, there are other more respectable
ways of getting lost. A couple weeks
ago, the Doonesbury Sunday comic showed the career path of a successful
banker. When he’s a student in college,
he says, “I hope I do something of value well.”
As he graduates, he says, “I hope to do something of value well and be
fairly paid.” When he’s working in his
first job, he says, “I’d like to be paid for doing something of value fairly
well.” When he’s been working for
awhile, he says, “I want to be valued and paid fairly well for doing
something.” When he’s reached the level
of an executive, he says, “I deserve to be paid well for doing something of no
value!” When he’s the CFO of a financial
institution, he says to his board, “I demand to be paid obscenely well for
destroying value!” In the last frame,
he’s speaking at a college graduation and saying, “Always hold on to your
values!”
Wouldn’t you say this banker got just as lost
on his way to success as the younger brother did on his way to the pigsty? What does it meant to get lost? It might mean to trade the reason you’re here
in this world for cheap substitutes--a fat paycheck and all the goodies it can
buy, the feeling of being loved or admired no matter what you have to do get
it, artificial escapes from pain and self doubt that lead to more pain and self
doubt to escape from. When we get lost
in these things, we lose touch with our soul, our unique gifts, our higher
purpose. We feel empty, flat and
directionless, because we’ve lost our connection to God.
When
we get lost like that, it usually takes a hard jolt to wake us up. The young man in Jesus’ story fell pretty far
before he “came to himself.” The part of
himself that he came to is the part of us that can step back and look at our
life, and that can help us get back on
track. That part of us is our soul. The
young man’s soul woke up and turned him onto the path toward home–a little
wiser, lot humbler, and willing to take responsibility for his own behavior.
So as he walks down the road, he knows he
doesn’t deserve anything but rebuke and punishment. But his father sees him coming, barefoot and
in rags, and is filled with compassion and with joy. He runs down the road, takes his son in his
arms, and holds him in a tear-soaked embrace.
This
touching scene was captured by Sister Kristen Malone (see the copy at the end
of this sermon). Here is a picture of
complete, unconditional love. A love
this big and this pure knows no judgment, no barriers, no conditions. Just look at that picture and feel the
healing power of that love.
I
wonder if you can find yourself in this part of the story. Have you ever been loved unconditionally like
that? Have you ever loved unconditionally
like that? No matter what your answer,
there is something at your core that both longs to receive love like that and
that is most fulfilled when you give love like that. Do you feel where that part of you is? That’s your soul, created by God with the
capacity to love and be loved without constraints or conditions.
And
here’s the wonder and mystery of it. No
matter how lost we’ve gotten, we can always come
home to that divine love. It’s always there waiting for us. We can find it whenever we are humble enough
to realize that we need it, and when we take responsibility for our lostness
and open to God’s purpose for us-- which is always our highest purpose.
But
the story doesn’t end here. Big brother
comes in all sweaty from the field wondering what all the music and dancing are
about. When he learns that his kid
brother who blew his dad’s money is enjoying the fatted calf, he’s incensed. His no-good brother deserves to be punished,
not rewarded!
How
many of us find ourselves in this part of the story–quick to judge who’s
deserving and who’s not? If we do, it’s
not an accident, because Jesus told this part of the story for us respectable,
religious types. They were the ones who were upset because Jesus was welcoming
sinners and sitting down and eating with them.
Jesus was blatantly blurring the line between the righteous and the
sinners, the deserving and the undeserving.
How can you run a religion or a society if you treat everyone with the
same respect?
How
can you indeed? You would have to look
deeper than people’s appearance, deeper than their behavior, deeper than how
far they have gotten on their path toward maturity. You would have to recognize that each person,
no matter who they were or where they’d been on life’s journey, was a
God-created soul struggling through life’s challenges and temptations to find
their way, just as they are.
And the fact that the older brother
couldn’t recognize that soul in his brother showed that he too was lost. When you’re connected to your soul, you are
humble, not arrogant; you are understanding, not judgmental; you are aware that
love isn’t a reward to be parsed out, it’s a gift to be shared. Even though the older brother had stayed at
home and dutifully obeyed his father, he had separated himself off from his
father’s unconditional love by trying to earn it. He would rather feel the pride of deserving
his father’s love than the humility of receiving a gift he could never deserve.
His father could entreat his son to come on in to the party, but we’re left
wondering if the son was able to release his pride and judgment and enter into
the celebration.
If
you’re like me, you have found yourself in all the scenes of this story. Maybe this is a good time to “come to
ourselves” and be aware of how we have lost touch with our soul. Let’s take just a moment to be aware of that.
. . .
The
good news Jesus wanted everyone to hear is that no matter how we
have gotten lost, home is always there waiting for us. All we have to do is turn to God in humility,
in responsibility for ourselves, and in a desire to open our lives to God’s
loving will for us, and we will find ourselves at home in the embrace of God.