The Holy Gospel According to Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32…
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
3So he told them this parable: 11b"There was a man who had two sons. 12The 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. 13A 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. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17But 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! 18I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands." ' 20So 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. 21Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' 22But 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. 23And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
25Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' 28Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29But 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. 30But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' 31Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32But 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.'"
The Gospel of the Lord…
Last week we heard a parable with three characters- a vineyard owner, a gardener and his fig tree. It was supposed to surprise us, wake us up, cause us to scratch our heads and ask, is that what Jesus was trying to say? This morning is no different, but perhaps a little harder. Because this morning we confront one of the most well-known and beloved parables found in our holy texts. The parable of the prodigal son.
It is a parable of grace, a parable of forgiveness. It is a parable of homecoming, where fathers hike up their robes and run down the block in order to wrap their arms around their children. We’ve seen it in pictures, most of us have heard it or even taught it in a Sunday School lesson. Which, I must tell you, makes this quite a parable to preach. I’ve heard more than a few sermons on it, and some preachers have gotten a little caught up in presenting this parable as something bright shiny and new, because we just know it too well. They preach it from every angle, from the older brother’s perspective, from the younger brother, from the father, from the other hired hands. One writer even suggested preaching from the perspective of the fatted calf!
I’m not going to try and be that creative with you today. I’m just going to tell you some stories, because what I am most struck by is the way this parable lives among us. So today, we will begin with some modern day parables.
I was called to jury duty this week. I spent most of Monday cramped up in a chair waiting to be called to a courtroom. It was tedious. I was bored. And then, they called panel 21. Along with many others, we filed through the criminal court building and into a courtroom. It was there I saw him. The defendant. He looked like he could be a child. Young. Too young, really. His suit didn’t fit well. It was too big, just like his crime. Accused of murder with a deadly weapon. I made an audible gasp when the judge read the charges, and then I couldn’t stop staring. What happened to you, I thought? What happened to you that brought you here, in a suit that is too big, accused of murdering someone? Don’t you just want to go home? Do you feel so lost, sitting there? Can you even imagine that someone might run down the road, hike up their skirts and flat out run to envelope you in their arms?
Then a chaplain friend of mine called me this week, shook up by a new case. It was the case of a young man, only our age, who had suffered his fair share of depression, who couldn’t go on even one more day. So he took a bottle of pills, and left a note. But not just one note, another handwritten note stuck to his bedroom door to make sure that the hospital knew he had a do not resuscitate order. But what he couldn’t see in the midst of his pain was who was going to be left behind, that his own father would find him and would hold his hand as he lay in a coma and beg him to open his eyes and come home. Perhaps there was no one to help him come to himself, no one to remind him that there was one more place to go as he sat in the midst of the muck and the mire that was all he could see in this life.
I think this is why this parable sticks with us. We can see ourselves and our neighbors in everyone in the text. We have been lost, lost like all of these characters. We have been lost in giving everything away, in being extravagant and lavish in our love and our trust only to face the disappointment of someone we love squandering all we have in dissolute living. We have woken up one day only to find ourselves living among the pigs, so far gone that we don’t know what happened to the grand lives we had planned. And, we have all been standing outside the door, watching the feast and celebration wondering if there really was a place for us, or if the party was always going to be about someone else.
What is supposed to surprise us about this parable? Perhaps that it lives among us, even now. We know what is like to see ourselves and each other lost in the midst of this world, and we know what it means to be found and captured by grace and mercy. Sometimes I am utterly overwhelmed by how much is lost in this world, how many people walk around like the living dead, wishing that someone would even offer them even the pods that the pigs were eating in order to help them feel alive again. Sometimes I am utterly overwhelmed by how often we are so sure that we have gotten where we are all on our own, and the idea of helping one another, of trying to offer a hand to someone in need seems like it somehow throws off the balance of the world, it is just too unfair. But most of all, I am utterly overwhelmed that the father keeps on running down the road, keeps on sharing his inheritance, keeps on giving us the means to try it all on our own, knowing full well that the deepest life is always at home, in relationship with him and with one another.
When we open our eyes to see God’s word living among us, it makes it even harder to remember the beginning of this story. Because our text for today begins as the answer to a question. Jesus is welcoming and eating with some sinners, and so the gathered crowd of religious leaders starts to grumble. And so he tells them three parables- one about a lost sheep, that the shepherd cares so deeply for he is willing to leave all the other 99 sheep out in the pasture in order to find this one. And then he tells the parable of a lost coin, one woman’s tiny coin when she already has nine others, a little coin that she turns her entire household upside down to find. And finally, he tells this story, our parable for today, about three people, and I think more than just one brother who is lost.
And, I wonder, if Jesus sat among us now, if he would tell us other stories. Perhaps a story about how somewhere in this city there sits a man who is young and broken and facing the possibility of a conviction for murder. Or perhaps the story of somewhere in this city where a father is leaning over the bed of his son, wishing that he had the chance to come home again. But it doesn’t end with just the lostness of this life, in our biblical parables or in the world around us.
Because each one of these stories ends with a celebration, a shepherd that rejoices when he finds his sheep, a woman who throws a party for all her neighbors when she shakes out the cushions and finds her coin, a father who kills the fatted calf, invites his hired hands and his friends to celebrate because life has come out of death, what was lost has been found.
We don’t know how this story ends, the best parables never tell us. We don’t know if that older brother waits outside with a scowl on his face and envy in his heart. We don’t know if that younger son becomes a different man because he has been wrapped in this kind of lavish love. I don’t know what will happen to a boy on trail or a family who has lost a son. But we do know that God is a God who searches diligently for us, who will find us no matter how far away we have gone, who will find us even when we are dead in order that we might have life. And we know that our God keeps on throwing parties, keeps on running down the road even when we are far off, keeps on inviting us to the table, because there is always room, there is always a place, there is always abundant grace and mercy to be shared. We had to celebrate and rejoice, he says, because the one who once was dead has found life, the one who was lost, has been found. Amen, and thanks be to God.
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