Sermon - January 3, 2010
The Problem with
Prodigals: On My Own
Psalm 107:17-22,
Ephesians 2:8-13, Luke 15:11-16
Jesus had attracted a diverse following of
unsavory folk. The Pharisees, the morally above reproach elite of the community,
muttered criticism about the company Jesus kept: This man welcomes sinners
and eats with them. Jesus began to tell his hearers, sinners and Pharisees
alike, three stories about the lost: the lost sheep, the lost coin, and this
story about the lost son. As this story which most of us know as the parable of
the Prodigal son is so familiar to us, I would like to paraphrase it as does
Pastor Brian Bill in his sermon “The Scope of Grace.” This is the Prodigal Son
in the Key of F.
“Feeling footloose and frisky, a feather-brained fellow forced his father to
fork over his farthings. Fast he flew to foreign fields and frittered his
family's fortune. Fleeced by his fellows in folly, facing famine, and feeling
faintly fuzzy, he found himself a feeding flinger in a filthy foreign farmyard.
Feeling frail and fairly famished, he filled his frame with foraged food from
the fodder fragments.”
Jesus had the attention of His listeners not
because he tongue tied the tale, but because the content was so outrageous.
Back in the day, a man's estate was not divided among his heirs until his
death bed accompanied by his blessing, or shortly after. More than an insult, an
an outrage for the younger son to demand what was his: about 1/3 of his
father's holdings. It is as if the son
said, “I don't care about you, old man, just give me what's coming to me.” All
the years the father loved, cared and provided for this son, came crashing down
to a cash deposit. As Jesus began this story, you could hear a pin drop, and as
He continued, their jaws drop. “So he –
the father – divided his property” between his two sons. The father simply gave
it to the boy. No questions, no arguments, no resistance. Dad went to all the
trouble to liquidate his assets and give the young man his share, without a
quarrel, or even raising his voice. In Jesus' day and culture, this was
unthinkable. So what's with Dad? Is he such a wimp that he cannot stand up to
his own son and demand that the upstart, straighten up, fly right, and get to
work. No. This father is no wimp. He loves his son so much, that he will
forebear the boy rather than force his son to stay against his will. The father
cares more about his son's love, than his own reputation.
Let's bring it forward – O, say about two
thousand years. Young people today expect, not only that parents give them what
they want, but that they support them in their leap from home. We have four
children, each one as they left the nest were blinded by the glamour of being on
their own, and blindsided by the realities of a world that wasn't quite like the
comforts of home. Late adolescence is mesmerized by the luring enticements of
“On my own”. “I want my own place. I want to do what I want, when I want, the
way I want. I want my freedom.” Jesus tells us,“Not long after that, the
younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country.
Like many youth today, the youngest son in
Jesus' parable had dreamed of getting everything he wanted; to get away from his
father's control, to have everything he's longed to get, to be in charge of his
life, to live where there are no rules, no regulations, to party all the time,
and to have, what he thought, was complete freedom. When he left, I don't
imagine he lingered along the path, pausing to look back lovingly at good ole'
home sweet home. I imagine he ran down the road, his sack of belongings flagging
behind him: like a youth today, putting the pedal to the metal, gunning the
engine, and flying down the road, stereo roaring. I'm free! Wahoo - I'm free at
last! I'm on my own, this is going to be great!
And it was great...for a while.
And there he squandered his wealth in
wild living. Actually it was his father's wealth. For years Dad had worked
very hard to earn that money his son was squandering. Can any one here relate
to that? Anyone ever feel like saying to a vagrant son or daughter, “after all
I've done for you, all I've worked for you, and this is what you do?” I've been
there. A son or daughter's liberation is tough on a parent. You have invested so
much of yourself, your hopes and dreams for your offspring, and then one day,
they spring off.
For all of dad's trouble, this son had a
very different life than back on the farm. He had new friends; the best money
could buy. He had a new social life, plenty of girls, and lots of reasons never
to go home until the unexpected hit: the unforeseen that set his life careening
to disaster: a famine. A famine so hard that no one had anything to give
anybody. His friends fell away. After all, they were merely friends because of
what he gave them, essentially a paid business transaction, not a true
relationship. And he began to be in need. Desperate he hired himself out for
less than minimum wage to feed pigs. In his former life, he would have had
nothing whatsoever to do with pigs, but now, there he is, in the mud, with the
stench, hungry, famished, longing for scraps from pig fodder. But no one gave
him anything.
The
youth went from a high roller to a nameless, homeless bum. He's a foreigner in a
strange land. He's bankrupt. He has no friends or relatives near by. There are
no government bail outs. He's lonesome. He's hungry. He's destitute. He left
his comfy home, caring father, familiar scenes of home and belonging, to become
a nobody in a strange land, corralled with pigs in a pen, pining for their pods
for his supper. He's on his own and it's the pits.
The Problem with the prodigal son, is not that
he wanted to be on his own. That's a natural process of growing up toward
maturity, being responsible for one's self. It's a rocky ride, with its own
issues, but not morally wrong in and of itself. The problem with the prodigal
son is not that he demanded his inheritance and took off for Timbucktu. That was
unconventional, rude, insensitive, and stupid, but not morally debilitating. No,
the problem with the prodigal son is that he wreaked havoc and dismemberment of
his relationship with the one person to whom he owed everything: not just how
he lived, but his very life.
As Jesus tells the story of the lost son, we
see the love of God in the father figure. God gives us everything, even life
itself just as the father in the story gave everything to the youth; he withheld
nothing the youngest son asked for. Why? Why would God just hand over the things
we demand? Is God so weak that His favors can be bartered and bought? Demanded
and abused? By no means! God longs for our willing obedience.; for us to come to
Him because we want to, because we love Him. God's extravagant love honors our
freedom of will. If it takes a detour into a dark desperate place where we feel
faraway from Him to bring us running back, then so be it. The far country might
be a foreign land, or a distant city, or clandestine moments with a coworker, a
hidden stash, or particular websites on the computer in the office. That
country far and away is whenever we rebel against God. The Apostle Paul speaks
to us in his letter to the Church in Ephesus : But now in Christ Jesus you
who once were far away have been brought near through the blood of Christ. 2:13.
Christ is about transforming the old hurtful ways we lived when on our own
to the joyous way to live in Him. When we return, He's eagerly waiting – as if
we had never left an He is waiting with gifts of healing and restoration.
Where do
you see yourself in this story? Are you the dad with the heaving heart who lets
his baby go? Or, have you been the son who, with great dreams launches off
only to crash and burn, making a wreck of his life and relationship with God.
Or perhaps you are the eldest son, hanging out behind the scenes, waiting for
the fall out? Where are you in your relationship with your family? The prodigals
in your life? Your God?
Jesus
told this story to tax collectors and pharisees, sinners and saints alike. Each
one is precious to our heavenly Father who longs for us to be in a deepening
love relationship with Him. We enter that relationship through Confession:
confession of faith in Jesus Christ, symbolized by our Baptism.
We remain blameless in that relationship through confession of our
sin which He alone can remove by the cleansing of His blood.
Today, both of these graces abound for us,
here and now. The Father who waits for our return, the Father whose grace helps
us receive our returning prodigals, and the Father who longs for reconciliation
among us waits at this table. It is a table for all, and a table for one: you.
Draw near. Receive His grace through the renewal of your baptism, and through
this act of Holy Communion, receive His mercy, forgiveness, and love.
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