Joshua 5:
9-12
NPMC
Psalm
32
4 Lent
2 Corinthians 5:
16-21 March
14, 2010
Luke 15: 1-3,
11b-32
Anita Retzlaff
Waking up dead: the story of the Prodigal Son
Grace and peace to you from God the Father of our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ. In our moment of silent meditation this morning we remember those who have strayed far from the love of family and community. We also take an accounting of where we have turned away from love offered to us. Let us pray.
Lord God of hosts, you love us in the breach, when we do not recognize our need and when we spurn your invitation. Show us a heart of joy so that we might welcome all encounters with your grace. AMEN
“By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently. The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, “He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends.” Their grumbling triggered this story. (Luke 15: 1-3)
I am reading from Eugene Petersen’s creative paraphrase The Message and will continue with verses 4 -11 that lead up to the story of the Prodigal Son.
Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn’t you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it? When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing, and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors saying, ‘Celebrate with me! I’ve found my lost sheep!’ Count on it—there’s more joy in heaven over one sinner’s rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
“Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won’t she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it? And when she finds it you can be sure she’ll call her friends and neighbors: ‘Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!’ Count on it—that’s the kind of party God’s angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God.” (Luke 15: 4-11a)
The Pharisees are crabby; they are offended and likely more to the point they are downright embarrassed by Jesus’ choice of activities. When one is a pastor or a board chair or some other representative of the church one’s behavior is scrutinized. Not just anything goes. It matters what you wear and what kind of vehicle you drive – nothing too junky on one hand and nothing too ostentatious on the other. It is of public record also with whom you associate: hang out with. Respectability is assumed and a good public image is desired. That’s us! We care about what people might think and want to be viewed as successful! So too the church leaders watching Jesus: they were not impressed.
Knowing that his own people find his ministry a source of embarrassment and disgust Jesus tells three stories in quick succession. The delight of lost things found - restoration to a full flock of sheep, a tenth coin in hand once again and a child back home - these stories of grace are a counter proposal to the squeamishness that the Pharisees experience when they see Jesus hanging out with abusers and poor people. The parables of the lost sheep, coin and son are search and rescue missions that lie at the very centre of God’s good news. The Pharisees aren’t comfortable with all who merit rescue and neither are we.
When the grace of God is discovered, like a lost sheep or coin found, the resulting levity is amazing. Enthusiasm is totally out of proportion in the light of what is rescued: a sheep, a coin, a thoughtless, self-centered, stupid, disappointing son. And yet in all three examples of grace the finder gathers family and friends together to mark the event with a party. What ridiculous excess! So thought the Pharisees as they grumbled and watched Jesus waste his religious sensibilities and his friendship on gutter trash.
Let us pay attention to these parables of loss and joy, death and resurrection as we walk the path that leads to the big resurrection party of Easter Sunday. Death and resurrection happen every day to ordinary people, to us. The well known parable of the Prodigal Son is a stunning and stirring illustration of the death-like forces that can creep into our lives too. The part of this story that has power to change the script of our lives is the absolutely unconditional welcome and joy of the father. And there is one other key piece to this parable: the son’s recognition that he has hit the end of the road in his torrid trek of entitlement. The fun and entertainment component of what he thinks his father – or the world - owes him has come to an end and the life and vigor that he demanded prematurely from his father has been all used up.
As Robert Capon puts it, “the prodigal finally wakes up dead.” (The Parables of Grace, p. 138) What a powerful metaphor: the prodigal finally wakes up dead! Does this not also capture the truth about us, about the bind that we experience when one day we find ourselves on a path of our own choosing that leads to nowhere, to a dead end, to a place of deep distress or horrible compromise? Most of us have experienced such a moment as this, maybe not with the high drama of the lost son story but there are no doubt shades of familiarity for all.
At the very moment when the selfish, entitled and lost son comes to himself, he is conscious that he is dead: that he has not made choices that lead to life; that his self-indulgence has been a choice for death. He has literally taken the life that his father has given him, the father’s very own work and legacy and used it all up. The young man wakes up dead. Taking stock of his life he realizes that he can no longer move along the path he has been travelling. That avenue is closed.
I imagine the terror of this young man as he realizes in that instant, not only has he done terrible damage to his father’s life and estate, but he has no way EVER of paying back or attempting to balance the books of his escapade of entitlement. The havoc he has wreaked is so extensive that there is no socially acceptable way back into his father’s presence.
Yet ever the brash young hopeful he decides to try the side door in. He could become a servant in what is now his brother’s portion of the father’s household. My first thought about that possibility would line up pretty much with the older brother’s anger at the indignity of it all. My, what an effective way to rub salt into the wound! This young man thinks he can just come home and rejoin the team even if it is at the very bottom of the heap. “Trust me Dad and brother,” says the returning spendthrift, “I will work for you; you can count on me.” Right! That would be like allowing Bernie Madoff to be my financial advisor. Bernie Madoff is the man who spent millions of investors’ dollars on himself and is now behind bars. It is scandalous to even hope for a shred of mercy in light of the dishonor, grief, disgrace that has been played out in such a public way.
Do you see the irony in all of this? While we consider it to be terribly presumptuous of the inheritance-frittering son to think that his father will take him back as a hired hand neither we nor the son really know the father. We haven’t been paying attention! The son obviously has little clue about the true heart of his father. That is hardly surprising in light of his self-absorbed lifestyle. But where are we in this? Right alongside both sons actually! It is almost impossible for us to accept the father’s open-armed return of the spend thrift and it is just about as impossible for us to disagree with the tight-lipped fury of the older son.
We are all stunned at the notion of a party! We risk missing out on it from both sides. First of all, like the younger son, we desire forgiveness but there is a part of us that feels unacceptable. We prefer to remain a servant on the sidelines and nurse our humiliation. A celebration on God’s part is embarrassingly more than we deserve or find acceptable. On the other side, like the older brother, we desire justice, an accounting that includes punishment. A celebration on God’s part is unfair, undeserved and unacceptable. Divine mercy is not responsible or respectable. We will have no part of it.
We miss the grace of God on both counts. But the good news is that the dead are God’s chosen! When we wake up dead to our own power and control, when we recognize that we cannot make life turn out right, when we wake up dead, the mercy of God has a chance of penetrating our frenetic lives and our controlling ways. We may only grasp the true value of life when we have stared death in the face. Up until that point we take most things for granted. It is the brush with death that gives us a passion for the life that God gives. That is a very sobering comment and you may not all agree with this. I invite further conversation with you on this topic. I remember being shocked in an early church history class when the professor stated that as pastors we must bide our time to talk to people about the good news of the gospel. He believed that few are ready to talk about sin, salvation and grace until they have experienced a significant loss in their lives. I was somewhat put off by that comment and chalked it up to the fact that he was into church history and not systematic theology or pastoral counseling. But I have sometimes wondered - especially when I look at myself, the notions of autonomy and control that I thought I had and the fact that life taught me differently.
Acknowledging the close proximity of death effects profound reorientation. A brush with death and deadness is an invitation into renewed life in God’s heart for God waits for us to recognize that we are always being sought in our lostness. No coin, no sheep, no wasteful child falls out of the scope of God’s love. The invitation to closer relationship is always there. And the celebration that follows is real. When we wake up dead, Jesus is there to eat with us and to talk to us. We are worthy of feasting and celebration. Together then we eat bread and drink wine so that we never forget the love that is the center of Jesus’ life and ministry. We celebrate new life and second chances as we participate in the celebration of bread and wine. We celebrate at baptisms, child dedications, weddings, holy days and funerals. Jesus’ love transforms what was dead into abundant life. As we reflect on the mystery of God’s grace in this time of Lent may we celebrate the delight of life and the promise of a hope that overcomes the power of death. The grace, the mercy and the peace of God be ours this day and always. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN