The Fourth Sunday in Lent, 03/10/2013

Sermon on Luke 15:1-3,11-32, by Hubert Beck

Now the tax collect ors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him. And the Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, "This man receives sinners, and eats with them." So he told them this parable....

"There was a man who had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me.' And he divided his property between them. Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took a journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living. And when he had spent everything, a severe famine arose in 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 into his fields to feed pigs. And he was longing to be fed with the pods that the pigs ate, and no one gave him anything.

"But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread, but I perish here with hunger. I will arise 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 as one of your hired servants." And he arose and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion and ran and embraced him and kissed him. And 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 servants, ‘Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet. And bring the fattened calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate. For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found.' And they began to celebrate.

"Now his older son was in the field, and as he came and drew near to the house, he heard music and dancing. And he called one of the servants and asked what these things meant. And he said to him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.' But he was angry and refused to go in. His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father, ‘Look, these many years I have served you, and I never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him!' And he said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive, he was lost, and is found." (New English Bible)

TWO SONS AND A FATHER:

A FAMILY AFFAIR

It is not at all uncommon to hear a story about several events involving a number of characters and then getting so caught up with secondary portions of those events or intriguingly interesting character traits of one or another of the persons playing a part in the events that one loses the major reason for the teller telling the story in the first place.

The parable of Jesus serving as our text for today is a striking example of this. One can focus so hard on one or the other of the events serving as the milieu of the larger story or one of the two sons involved in the parable that the main person and the main point gets lost in the shuffle. In many ways it is not strange that this is so, for Jesus, himself, immediately draws attention to the two sons when he tells this parable. "There was a man who had two sons." So what about them we ask. In many ways each of them exhibits character traits that give us reason to resonate with or be repelled by them. In either case we find our interest wetted right away as we wonder what may be so interesting about either or both of them that Jesus should draw our attention to them.

This is, we should note, one of a series of parables in this chapter that concerns itself with "lostness" and "foundness" - a "lost sheep found," a "lost coin recovered," and now, in this parable, "lost sons." The "foundness" in this parable, however, is uncertain on the part of the elder son because of its open-endedness, as we shall see. Yet this very open-endedness is what draws us, ourselves, up into the reason for the parable.

The Two Sons In the Spotlight

The Younger Son In the Story

The parable is commonly named after the younger of the two sons: "The Prodigal Son." Probably few people of our day know what the word "prodigal" means, for it is, by and large, obsolete in modern vocabulary. It means "given to extravagance," a synonym for "squandering." And that is exactly how the young man is described.

He is quite obviously self-centered, caring little for the father or his elder brother - or for anyone else in the family if there were such. All he can think of is what he is missing by being hemmed in by this family, having to live on an allowance that he considered, at best, meager, and seeing life as a great adventure to be explored. There is little or no concern for other members of the family, no serious self-discipline, no disturbing thought about anything or anyone outside himself. He is champing at the bit, as we say today.

So he asks his father for and receives an early share of his inheritance, quickly gathers his belongings together and heads out into the world holding so much promise before him. Our attention is focused on him, especially since we know where all this is going.

In a "far country," a most fascinating way of describing where his journey takes him, he "makes friends," if one can call it that, by lavish living. Parties, fancy clothes, providing entertainment for those around him - not to speak of paying prostitutes, if his elder brother can be believed (and one wonders just how he knew that!) - all these and other profligate activities marked his life until - until - until -

He looked around himself and found nothing as a result of all this - nothing save emptiness and lostness and a huge void in both his body and his spirit. He tried to recover a semblance of personal pride, seeking out a job to replenish his purse, but all he found was a humiliating position in the worst possible place - a pigpen, one of the most despicable, contemptible, disgraceful places in the Jewish world.

Well, one can spend a great amount of time analyzing and examining and investigating and exploring what all had gone wrong with this young man up to this point, but Jesus pressed on to that turning point in the young fellow's life when "he came to himself," realized what a fool he had made of himself, returned to the father with indescribable humility, begging for nothing more than the meanest of positions in the house from which he had come in order to have little more than decent clothing and a decent meal.

How one's heart swells when one hears the welcome he receives! With what joy not only he but also the hearer of this story sits once more in the family circle with a family heirloom on his finger, dressed once again in the clothing he had left behind and which his father had kept in hopes of his son's return, eating again at the family table. Why, it was like he had been lost and was found again! The celebration was raucous, to say the least.

The Elder Son in the Story

So raucous, in fact, that the noise of it could be heard a long way off. We suddenly hear of the elder son, the one who had remained home, who had been faithful in serving his father all the years of his life, never having disobeyed his command. In fact, he wasn't even home when the younger son returned tired and exhausted, for he had been out in the field performing the duties the father had prescribed for him- apparently quite a long way off and for a considerable period of time. He was not aware in the least of what all had taken place in his absence much less what was going on as he returned. In fact, he had to call one of the servants to ask "what these things meant." When told what was going on he was so angry that he "refused to go in," forcing his father to come out and "entreat him" to come in so that he might welcome his returned brother.

So it is tempting to take up a new analysis - this time to engage in an exploration of what this son had been harboring in his heart for years and years as he labored so hard and worked so faithfully. If the younger son had been self-centered, surely this son appeared, at least on the surface, to have been devoted to the family affairs. If the younger son was a spendthrift, this son, in every sense of the term, had been frugal and thrifty to the point of being penny-pinching. If the young son had attempted to buy friends, this one had tried and true friends in the field, of like mind with him. If the younger son was careless with his life, this son had been careful to the extreme with his life. One would surely admire him until - until - until -

He shows his true colors! Any careful scrutiny of his life must take into account the way he took the news of his brother's return. And it is not a pleasant scene that unfolds at this point. Hidden things become clear, secrets of his heart are revealed, concealed dimensions of his external life come to light.

His industry had been every bit as self-concerned and self-centered as the prodigality of his younger brother! The harder he worked, the larger the portion of the remaining inheritance would be his! The more thriftily he lived his life during the life of his father the more retirement income he would have in his later years. The friends he had made only reinforced these ideas, for they thought the same as he did.

But that was not really the bottom-line of those things hidden deeply in his psyche. He had never thought much of his younger brother to begin with! In fact, he had really looked down on him because he never measured up to that which the older brother stood for, expected, or demanded of another member of this family. The younger son had always been a black sheep in the eyes of the older brother - and it had been a relief to have him gone, to have him out of sight, to have his father all to himself without the bother of how the father would, on occasion, fawn over this worthless brother of his!

And now he had returned! How disgusting! Not to speak of the to-do that was being made over him! It was just more than the elder brother could bear, seeing all this celebration going on over his brother who had always showed himself to be a ne'er-do-well. So he turned loose all the "stuff" that had been gnawing his innards for years. "Look," he said, and he unloaded all the pent-up feelings that he had harbored ever since that other son - notice that he was not "my brother," but "your son" - had been born! Detestation, abhorrence, loathing, revulsion, disgust poured out of him!

Everything that should have been admirable in this young man was found to be turned inside out and upside down. He showed years of self-love concealed as obedience, of a burdened life as mere submission, of selflessness as selfishness, of love for the father as a detestation of his generosity and munificence. What had looked like splendidly commendable qualities showed a miserably ugly side when it was pressed on this hard.

To be honest, it was this elder son to whom Jesus had been pointing throughout the telling of this parable, for the elder son was none other than those who thought they had a privileged place in the kingdom of heaven - and who begrudged the loving care Jesus had lavished in the name of the Father on all those who were considered the unworthy, the worthless, the undeserving - even the contemptible people over whom the privileged saw themselves as having a distinctly advantaged position. "Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to hear him," Luke tells us, going on to say "The Pharisees and the scribes grumbled, saying, ‘This man receives sinners, and eats with them.'" That was the basic triggering device for telling this story. Somehow Jesus seemed to deal with the despised tax collectors and to speak of and with sinners as though they were those upon whom the Father had a special interest and concern. Instead of throwing them to the side or pushing them out of the privileged position the scribes and Pharisees considered themselves to have before God Jesus favored them in many ways.

The Pharisees and the scribes were the elder sons and the despised tax collectors and sinful people were given high priority as though they were the younger son returned to the father. This was what galled Jesus' critics, the religious authorities and the pious people among the Jews, so greatly. They knew better than Jesus who was privileged, so surely God must know better - and if Jesus had anything to do with God he should know better also!

But it is precisely here where we find that we have been badly distracted, as we noted from the first, by secondary characters in this story, for the central figure of the story is actually the Father even though the sons attract so much attention to themselves by the way they so actively press themselves into the spotlight of the story.

God In the Spotlight!

The story is essentially pointless - or at least it would amount to nothing more than an admonition to be a more responsible person like the younger son should have been or a more accepting and forgiving person like the elder son should have been - if one does not recognize the Father as being the real reason for the story when it is all said and done. The parable is not about moral attitudes and actions, but about what it means to be a member of the family of God in whom and through whom every member of the family gains a sense of who he / she is and how she / he fits into that family. And the key to understanding that and everything else in the story is the Father who heads that family!

Without the Father neither the elder nor the younger son would even have been there at all! This is a first and foremost fact of the story. But it also means that whatever happens in that family is under the jurisdiction of the Father from whom the brothers came and whose will is for the basic welfare of all in that family.

It is the relationship they had with the Father that forms the heart of this parable. Or, still more properly speaking, it is the character of the Father himself that is at the heart of this parable.

Remove the patience of the Father from the parable and one could not find him who, with all the pain in his heart over a missing son, still stands at the door searching the horizon for an appearance of his son returning home. One would only have a resentful father lamenting the thankless insistence of the younger son on having his own way if he were not so patient - even with a prodigal son. Even upon the return of the young son, an impatient Father would only grudgingly accept the abject apology of the son and take him at his word, no longer considering him his son but relegating him to the position of one of the hired servants. The Father's patience, even in the time of miserable sadness over a reprobate son, lies at the heart of the parable.

It is so with the elder son also! Surely the Father could not have missed all the signs of unwilling and unenthusiastic obedience that the elder son thought he could conceal from the Father. Surely the Father could understand why the elder son was so adamant about not joining in the celebration over the return of the younger son, but still one detects no tone of scolding in his voice as he says, with sadness salting his patience, "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother (note that it is his Father who speaks of the returned son as "your brother"!) was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found." It was a call to recognize the brother as the Father's son no less than he, himself, was the Father's son. If he would only recognize that, he would rejoice and celebrate with everyone else. With what patient lovingkindness he speaks to the elder son pouting outside the festive hall in which everyone else is celebrating the return of the son so long gone but now returned, so long lost but now found again!

It is the love of the Father, then, that underlies his patience, his persistence in caring for both sons - each in his own way. Take that away from the story and there is nothing left other than a nice warm story about people who recognize they have gone astray from all that is right and good and have returned to a decently moral path. The story is about much more than that, though! It has to do with God's grace and mercy. Although the younger son returns home we have no idea of how he related to the family after this. And the very open-endedness of the Father's cautionary reproach to the elder son leaves one wondering whether he ever came around to accepting his young brother thereafter - or whether he ever came around to loving his father as his father loved him. We are left to wonder about things like that. Which is why, in finding God in the story, we also find

Ourselves In the Story

We are all, in one way or another, both sons at the same time!

All of us, too, are here because of the Father. We are not self-made creatures whose best interests are served by taking our inheritance into a "far country," removed from the Father's loving care, as was the younger son. Our best interests are served in the Father's homeland, not as children sullenly obedient to a supposedly despotic Father, as the elder son thought his father to be, but as glad and willing children obedient to a loving Father as the younger son learned to be. Helmut Thielicke, writing a series of two sermons on this parable, aptly titled them The Waiting Father. And that is exactly what the story is about. He is waiting for us to turn to him in full recognition that it is in him alone that we have our hope and the fullness of life that is available only to those who give themselves entirely over into his care.

It is at this point, though - and in light of this - that we dare to turn this parable inside out and upside down by suggesting that the Son whom the Father loved so passionately was the same one who told this story, the Son who was given over entirely and totally to the will of the Father. None like that were to be found among the children of Adam in whom and through whom all service had become forced and all love had become sullied by self-love from time immemorial.

We are they who have wandered into the "far country" of our own self-will, self-love, self-assertiveness, self-interest - and it is only when we are confronted by the new and second son of Adam, Jesus Christ - that we become home-sick, that we "come to our senses," wanting to be a brother to him who is our true and ultimate brother, Upon seeing him we long to live with him in the room that he has prepared for us in the Father's house. He promised such a room to those who were closest to him as they gathered in the upper chamber where they observed Passover together on the night before his death according to the Gospel of St. John. There, in that room, our Brother who would be crucified less than twenty-four hours after that, assured them - and us with them - that "because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you. Whoever has my commandments and keeps them, he it is who loves me, and he who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him." (John 14:19c-21) His "far country" was to be the cross on which he bore the sin of the world - and his outstretched arms were opened out to encompass everyone else in the "far country," urging them to die with him so that he who would be raised again, could raise them also from the death of sin into a newness of life.

Whoever loves this one who told this story, knowing that he was the true Son of the Father, will, in turn, become a child of the Father, returned from the far country to the open arms of the God who, with great and loving patience, stands at the door with words of glad welcome. Even the elder sons among us, those of us who find it hard to trust a God who loves a prodigal young son like this one with such great love, who remain standing outside sulking for the moment, uncertain about whether to enter the hall of divine celebration, still hear the Father saying through the Son whom he sent and whom he has received back into the everlasting mansion, "It is fitting to celebrate and be glad," adding, "Come on in. Don't stand out here in the cold!"

Here in this place where the Father has opened his arms in the waters of our baptism, uniting us to the Son who is found to be our brother in those waters, we open our arms, in turn, to those who have wandered and gone astray, welcoming them as our brothers and sisters. Here in this place where bread and wine today are foretastes of the fatted calf that will be the celebrative food of eternal life we kneel or stand shoulder to shoulder with one another as those whose home is with the Father. For it is he who has made this his home. He it is whose forgiveness is our invitation to enter his home. He it is who bids us celebrate with all who call God their Father through him who has come to the far country in order to bring us back home for a royal celebration! It is, after all, a family affair!

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.

Retired Lutheran Pastor Hubert Beck
Austin, TX
E-Mail: hbeck@austin.rr.com

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