March 14, 2010

"Welcome Back"

Luke 15:1‑3, 11‑32

On a day like today—after this past week when the spring rains fell, as scripture says, “on the just and the unjust alike,” and the temperature stayed well above freezing and the snow melted—on a day like today, with the birds coming back, and the promise of daylight past 7:00 p.m., we are reminded of what this season of Lent is all about.

Lent is not about the gloom and gray of ashes and late winter, and old, dirty snow. It is the time of increasing light, of experiencing God’s warm mercy. Our word “Lent” after all comes from the Old English word that means “to lengthen.” It is a name that speaks to us of the lengthening of days, the return of the sun to our hemisphere during these weeks before our joyful celebration of the resurrection on Easter Sunday.

We gather here today, a little more tired than usual from losing an hour of sleep, a little smaller in number than usual because spring break has taken so many of us away from here. Nonetheless, we gather as people aware of the goodness of this season and these days.

Several centuries ago, when Lent was observed with more fasting and penitence than it is today, this fourth Sunday of Lent was referred to as “Refreshment Sunday.” It was a little celebration in the midst of the strictures of the season. It was a day on which the Lenten disciplines would be relaxed, a time when apprentices who lived far from home would return to visit with their families.

Refreshment Sunday. I like that name. I think that all us can use a day like that, even if Lent is not as rigorous as it once was. Certainly this year, even if our Lenten observances are not all that stringent, the rigor of the winter needs to be countered with some refreshment. We can use a time to let up on ourselves, to turn our hearts and our lives once more to the God from whom all blessings flow.

What better time, then, to hear this parable of the Prodigal Son, a story of leaving home and of homecoming that speaks to us of the great mercy and the amazing grace of God?

The parable of the “Prodigal Son” calls deeply to the listening soul. Its scenes have been sung about, acted out, painted, danced, and sculpted and yet it is never exhausted. Something about the original story continues to hold our attention. It speaks to our hopes for acceptance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. It tells us, if we have ears to listen, that our hopes have been met in the grace and mercy of God.

On the other hand, it might be that the parable of the prodigal son has become a bit of a bore. One person put it this way: “The shock value has worn off. Just say the opening line: ‘There was a man who had two sons,’ and we know where this one is going . . . The road back from the far country is paved and well lit, and we have traveled it many times.”[1]

There’s the danger—as well as the opportunity.

Can we still be surprised by such a story?

Can we still be surprised by the God to whom the parable points?

As often seems to be the case, the good religious people of the day are criticizing Jesus. Of course, their accusations are right on target: “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The person you’d cross the street to avoid, the one whose character you question, the stranger, someone different—these are the very people Jesus greets and embraces. Those who are not quite good enough are the ideal dinner companions for Jesus.

If you really think about that, it’s as troubling today as it was 2000 years ago.

Jesus is trying to explain why he hangs out with the low lives that he does, why he insists on bringing good news to the people everyone despises instead of to the good religious people. And, as we will see once more, Jesus is inviting us to respond to what he does with rejoicing and celebration.

He tells a parable that all too often mirrors our own stories: children leave home, members leave a church; spouses leave one another all because a distant land seems far more attractive. We drift from one place to another looking for fulfillment, for purpose.

On their old "Beggars Banquet" album, the Rolling Stones tell the gospel story: “The poor boy took all he had and started down the road . . .and said ‘That’ll be the way to get along.’”

Get what you can and get out.

We usually learn to demand our rights sooner than we learn to value our relationships. The younger son in the parable Jesus tells is acting within his rights. There were legal means at the time that allowed a son to receive his inheritance before the death of his father. He is acting within his rights, but he is destroying his closest relationships in the process.

It seems so easy at first. Move away from family, cut yourself off from community, run from God—that always seems the way to get along. It happens often enough—often enough that when we hear this story it sounds familiar, plausible.

In a far country, the prodigal son comes to his senses. Realization is the beginning of repentance, of turning our lives around. The wonderful message of Christianity is that anyone can repent. No one is so far away from God, no one is so cut off from the Divine Source of Life that they cannot head in a new direction and find the life that God desires for him or her.

“Believe I’ll ride, believe I’ll go back home,” is how the Rolling Stones put it.

When I hit the “home” key on my laptop, the cursor moves back to the beginning of the line. It goes to the place where it started.

“Home,” the poet Robert Frost famously wrote: “Home is the place where, when you go there, they have to take you in.”

Going home, of course, is not as easy at it might seem. Anyone who has been away from home—anyone who has lived in the far country of life knows the fear that those at home are still angry, or even worse the fear that those at home may no longer care.

 Thomas Woolfe told us “You can’t go home again.”

In her novel Home, which many called a modern retelling of the story of the prodigal son, Marilynne Robinson helped us see with heart-breaking clarity the difficulty of returning home.

Going home is not easy. But there is the hope.

At the end of George Balanchine's ballet “The Prodigal Son” we see the son, worn out from a wasted life slowly dragging himself back home. Earlier he left with leaps and bounds, dancing his way to a far country. Now he crawls back, barely supporting himself with a walking stick. But in the last moments his father comes to meet him, picks up his weary body, enfolding him in his cloak. In this final, loving embrace we see that all is well and all will be well.

A Muslim theologian once said that when we take one step toward God, God takes ten steps toward us. When we walk toward God, God is already running toward us. Jesus tells of a similar God. We don’t need to think of God as male—the father in this story isn't God—but the parable gives us one image of the love that God has for us.

God's mercy and grace are incredible. We wouldn't have come up with such amazing love on our own. But when Jesus eats and drinks with outcasts we see a God who races to meet us when we turn and start on a new path, a way back home.

We are so familiar with this parable that we often want to end the story here—with the embrace, with the welcome, with the rejoicing.

There is more for us to hear, however. And for many of us the response of the older brother is crucial.

Listen. Can you hear the singing and the hand clapping—the music in the distance? As you draw closer can you see that people are dancing?

A party? Rejoicing? Celebration?

Oh, this is too much! Fred Craddock speaks for many when he suggests: “Of course, let the younger son return home. Judaism and Christianity have clear provisions for the restoration of the penitent who returns, but when does it say that such provisions include a banquet with music and dancing? Yes, let the prodigal return, but to bread and water, not fatted calf; in sackcloth, not a new robe; wearing ashes, not a new ring; in tears, not in merriment, kneeling, not dancing.”[2]

What is going on here?

We don’t like to recognize the reflection of ourselves in the one who goes off and sulks because of the feast taking place.

But let’s be honest. The God Jesus reveals is far too forgiving for many people; far too forgiving even for many of us in the church.

After all, what kind of world would it be, when it came to the basic scheme of things, if the good-for-nothings were treated the same as everyone else? What kind of world would it be if the recognition of those who work hard and do good deeds and make sacrifices was taken away and given to the prodigals?

What kind of world, indeed?

That appears to be the question that Jesus was asking in many of his parables. It may be the question that Jesus was asking with his life. Those who seek to live by merit can never know the joy of grace. Sharing in God’s grace asks that we join in the celebration when others are the recipients of that grace also. Part of fellowship with Christ is receiving and rejoicing with others who do not deserve our forgiveness or God’s grace—that is, with people very much like ourselves.

This parable works so well because as we listen we look at the world through the eyes of several different people: the son who left, the father. Now we stand outside once more, alone with the elder brother.

What’s all this music and dancing? 

Are we ready to come inside once again, to join in the party with all the other undeserving? Are we ready to rejoice instead of sulk?

What kind of world would it be?

What kind of world is in the making as the realm of God interrupts our old moral order with grace and love and acceptance?

What kind of world would it be if we went along and joined in the singing and dancing, the feasting and rejoicing?

What kind of world would it be if we were a part of the celebration?

What kind of world, indeed?