Ps. 32; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
4th Sunday in Lent 2013
Well-known
Presbyterian pastor and widely-read author Frederick Buechner wrote many
wonderfully wise and inspiring words in his 1996 book titled The Longing for
Home. I find one particular
paragraph worth quoting as we give some fresh consideration to this morning’s
popular parable about the Prodigal Son. Speaking
about the grace of God that enables him to to be like Christ for other people, Buechner
writes --
“I believe that it is
when that power is alive in me and through me that I come closest to being
truly home, come closest to finding or being found by that holiness that I may
have glimpsed in the charity and justice and order and peace of other homes I
have known, but that in its fullness was always missing. I cannot claim that I have found the home I
long for every day of my life, not by a long shot, but I believe that in my
heart I have found, and have maybe always known, the way that leads to it. I believe that home is Christ’s kingdom,
which exists both within us and among us as we wend our prodigal ways through
the world in search of it.”
Buechner bears a
beautiful witness. It’s a witness to the
natural human longing to be at home with the God who wonderfully created us, freely
forgives us, and lovingly sustains us. Throughout all of our life experiences,
we know that the closer we are to this home, the better off we are. This
inner-pull to holy homecoming is our hearts true hope, security and joy.
We profess there will
be a day when we faithful will fully cross that blessed threshold, when our sin
will be no longer cause us to sadly, stubbornly stand outside the door of the
great household of God. Until then, we
can hope as Buechner hopes – that as we “wend our prodigal ways in search of it,”
we will trust and look for signs of Christ inhabiting us.
The need to return to
our true home is certainly the central theme to what is perhaps Jesus’ most
famous parable. And yet, every time I speak about it, you hear
me declare that the biggest prodigal in the story is the Father. Today is no different!
The word “prodigal”
does on one level mean to be “wastefully extravagant,” which is why it labels
the young, inheritance squandering son so well. But the stronger pulse of this adjective is
its definition of to “give profusely, with lavish abundance.” The father was wastefully extravagant in
this sense – not regarding how money was foolishly spent, but regarding how he profusely
offered his unconditional love.
A fresh realization
from my study this week of this timeless teaching tale’s two different but
interrelated interpretations of the word prodigal, is that it’s also very much
about God’s take on free will, mercy and
inclusivity.
We all have the power
of free will. We absolutely cherish
this freedom to make independent choices.
We don’t even want to try and
imagine what life would be like if we didn’t have it, if we had no say about or
way to influence what happens in this world.
And the lack of voluntary choice would tragically impact the power of real,
mutual love.
This free will is part
of our spiritual inheritance. God gifted
humankind with it. In our original good
and holy harmonious estate, God did so desiring that we would freely choose to enjoy
and take care of one another and all Creation. But of course God knew the inherent risk of
this gift. And of course we all know terribly
well that the first of our kind and every generation since has been bitten by
that risk. We’ve chosen to turn away
from the good and holy home of God’s design and turned instead toward going our
own way. We’ve chosen to squander God’s
abundantly given, gracious, loving gifts.
We are extravagantly wasteful sons and daughters of God the Father.
According to Jesus,
what is God’s response to this spiritually inherited abuse of free will? Mercy!
This is what we find in the 20th verse of Luke 15, which I consider
the epicenter of the parable. The
youngest son wasted the father’s extremely lavish gift of his inheritance. So we tend to first focus on this son’s
“coming to himself” and his preparing a speech about how he’d get back in his
father’s good graces and his father’s good home by repenting of his sinful
ways. Every one of can relate to doing stupid,
sinful stuff in our lives and to eventually embracing the wisdom of realizing
what we’ve wasted. We all have had
various prepared speeches and plans for returning home.
But the father we find
in verse 20 does not consider coming to self a condition for the
homecoming. For sure, it’s important to
hold oneself accountable for sin, to repent.
But it is not a free choice that persuades God to forgive us. Like the wayward child’s father, God sees us
turning toward true home and is filled with compassion even while we are still far off. This is not about God feeling sorry for
us, it’s about the faithful fact that God feels mercy for us. God understands us, accepts us, loves us
even when we abuse free will, and so God mercifully embraces us even before
we’ve made it home.
So don’t fail to
notice how the father doesn’t need to hear the well-rehearsed speech, the
intentions of which may have been truly repentant or just plain
manipulative. There is no official
pardon given, just a really big party.
God’s lavishly given, “prodigal” joy and unconditional welcome is Jesus’
point.
At this big party, of
course, there was an injured party. The
older brother felt anything but welcome at home. Renowned preacher Barbara Brown Taylor
captures the bent out of shape brother in this way –
“No one asked him how
he felt about spending what was left of his inheritance taking care of three
people instead of two, or being known as the prodigal’s brother, or wearing the
second best robe, since the best one was already taken. The elder son is the good son, darn it. He has done everything right and he isn’t
about to sit down at the same table with the self-centered, pig-loving,
sin-sick brother who has cost his family so much grief.”[i]
So what was the father
to do? Let his firstborn isolate and
stew in the rot of resentment? Allow
him to stomp off and refuse to participate in the homecoming party? Bless these actions though they brought
about dishonor and division? What would
you have done?
There is very good
reason why Jesus included this older brother in the parable. This needs to be mentioned in order to
understand the prodigal father’s response.
Recall who Luke tells
us Jesus spoke this holy teaching to -- the tax collectors and sinners as well
as the Pharisees and the Scribes. Of
these two groups, who do you believe the oldest son symbolizes? The Pharisee and Scribes! The ones who self-righteously believed they’d
done everything by the book, according to God’s law, and who stood in protest
of the prodigal dinner company Jesus was keeping.
Through the parable,
Jesus let these older, authoritative sons know that they were fully welcome to
participate in his call of homecoming to all God’s children. This, despite their protest about the new,
radically inclusive ways of the holy kingdom he had been demonstrating and had
come to fully inaugurate. This
invitation also let them know that God the Father was not okay with division in
the faith family.
Jesus did not conclude
the parable by having the older son say, “Yeah, dad, you’re right, I need to
accept that we’re all better off at home with you.” Things don’t resolve that neatly in this story,
nor would things resolve so neatly between the Son, Jesus, and the old-guard
Jewish authorities. Jesus simply has
the prodigal father make a very telling point – the firstborn always belongs
and always has a share, but the more important matter to rejoice in is the son
coming back from the dead. Indeed, this
famous story must be seen through the faithful lens of Easter.
As we continue our
Lenten journey, take time to acknowledge how you naturally long to be at home
with the God who wonderfully created you, freely forgives you, and lovingly
sustains you. Reflect on how well you
know that in this world the closer you are to this home, the better off you
are. You and I, well, we’ll continue to “wend our
prodigal ways.” But may we rejoice in
knowing that we do so while the inner-pull of holy homecoming continues through
God’s extravagant, prodigal grace in Jesus Christ. Amen.
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