Journey to the Far Country...and Back

Preaching about the Prodigal Son doesn't work.  I've tried.  This is about the 5th or 6th time in my ministerial career that I have taken up this story and, on any human scale, this parable that Jesus tells in the gospel of Luke (and only in the gospel of Luke) does not work.

I mean, weren't you convicted by Bishop Cho's sermon last week?  Those of you who were here for either the morning or the evening service heard our new resident bishop challenge us to change our behavior.  He talked about hard things.  He talked about tithing.  He talked about living our lives in the world as people who really believe that Jesus is Lord.  He talked about giving an hour a day to prayer and Bible reading.  He really believes that our behavior makes a difference.  He really believes that there will be no vital congregations until there is a vital spirituality moving through our churches and through us.  I told him last week after his sermon, "You have such a gracious presence but you say really hard things."  It's what I most appreciate about him.

So now we come to this story that most people call the parable of the Prodigal Son but which, if we're being honest with ourselves, most of us would call the parable of Bad Parenting.  I mean, can you imagine:

T: Hello, and welcome to today's class on Biblical Parenting.  I'm glad to see so many people here.  And some of you brought your children with you today.  That's wonderful.  There's plenty of sticky food and noisy toys in the back so feel free to let your kids run wild while we're talking today.

K: (from back) Hey, they've got a saxophone back here!

K2: (from back) And fingerpaints!

T: Today I want to look at a story from Jesus about a man who had two sons.  Now back in the day, when the father died in a situation like this, the oldest son would get the majority of the property and wealth and the younger son would get a smaller share.  So one day, the younger son comes and says to the father, "I can't wait til you die.  I want my share of the inheritance now."  Let's playact this a little bit.  What are some responses that the father might have?

1: Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha....you want...ha, ha....you want what?  Ha, ha, ha...that's a good one, son.

T: Alright, anybody else?

2: You know, Old Yehuda wants to be chief priest, too, but it's not happening.  You just get back to work.

T: Um, hm.  One more?

3: I'm sorry, son.  I thought you said you wanted your share of the inheritance, but I know I didn't hear that, did I?

T: O.K.  Interesting.  Well, here's what the father actually says: "O.K."  And he divides up the estate.

2: Wait.  What?

T: He divided up the estate.

2: What kind of parenting is that?

3: He gives the kid the money?  He's just going to blow it on extravagant living.

T: Interesting you should say that.  Because the boy goes to a far country and blows it all on extravagant living.

3: Told you.

1: Show off.

T: O.K., so the son is broke.  He's hungry.  He ends up slopping pigs and what the pigs eat starts to look good to him.

3: A good Jewish boy slopping hogs?  That's wrong.

T:  Then he comes to his senses.  He remembers that even his father's servants at least have food to eat.  So he decides to go home.

1: Well, I hope he's ready to do some groveling.

T: He is.  He gets a whole speech together in his head.  He's going to confess to his dad that he had sinned against heaven and against him.  He going to say, "I don't deserve to be called your son."  He's going to beg to get hired on as a servant.

1: Sounds about right.

T:  But when he's on the way home and while he's still way off in the distance, the father sees him and has compassion on him.  He hikes up his robe and the old man runs out to meet his son.  He hugs him and kisses him.

2: Wait.  What?

T: The boy tries to get his speech out.  He confesses that he has sinned.  He says, "I don't deserve to be called your son."  But before he can get it all out, the father stops him and orders up a party.

2: Wait.  What?

1:  A party?  For the younger son?  The one that blew all that money?

3:  That's just wrong.

T: So what kind of lessons for parenting can we see here?

[crickets]

You can't see any lessons for parenting?

1: A party?  Really?

3: That's just wrong.

2: How's this boy going to learn anything if he goes off and blows his dad's money and then gets a party when he comes back?

T:  Well, from the father's perspective, it's all about celebrating that the boy has come home.  The boy was dead...

2: Wait.  What?

T: Well, I don't mean literally dead.  It was like he was dead and now he's alive.  He was lost but now he's found.  So they have a party.

3: [after a pause]  That's just wrong.

1: So how does the older brother feel about all this?

T:  He's not happy.  He comes in from the fields and hears this party going on.

2:  Wait.  What?  They didn't invite him to the party?

T:  Well, they do when he gets back.  But the older brother won't go in.  He's too mad.  The dad comes out to see him, just like he did with the other brother.  He begs the older brother to come in.  But he refuses.  Says, "Look, I've been here working all this time and I never even got a goat for a party."

2: Wait.  What?  He wants a goat for his party?

T: Well, the younger son got a fatted calf.

2: What kind of party is this?

T: A good one.  At least back in the day it was.  Anyway, the son is furious.  He can't understand why the father would throw a party for the son that didn't play by the rules and went off and blew his money on who knows what all.

1: Well, now he sounds like a sensible guy.  The first sensible guy in this whole story.

2: What would you even do with a goat at a party?  Hitch it to a cart and give rides?

3: No, you eat it.

2:  Now that's just wrong.

T: But the father doesn't think it's wrong to have a party.  He knows the older son is close to him.  He is just grateful to have the younger son back.  Because he was dead...not literally...and now he's alive.  He was lost and now he's found.

3: That is the craziest story I have ever heard.

1: [to back] Come on kids, we're leaving.

K: But I just found the sandbox!

People would leave a session on parenting if we took the father in this story as the model.  It doesn't fit any kind of parenting we know about.  But what if this is not a story about human parenting so much as it is a story about God's love and the way THAT love works?

This week I rediscovered Rembrandt's painting of the Prodigal Son.  It was one of his last major works and it is among his best.  In the painting we see the three major figures in this story, the father and the two sons, all in relationship to one another.  The older brother gets our attention because he's looking down on his brother's homecoming with a great deal of judgment.  Who knows what he sees?  Perhaps he sees that the son has come back with a shaved head like a penitent and we wonder, with the older brother, how much the younger son has changed.  It's easy to be remorseful when you've lost everything.

The older brother probably notices, too, that the younger son is still wearing the fine clothes that he left home with, even if they are kind of tattered now.  He probably sees that the younger son still carries a small sword on his belt, a vestige of his old life and who he once was.  We are suspicious of how genuine this repentance is.

But look at the father.  The father is entirely unconcerned with what's going on around him.  He has no look of judgment on his face.  There is no trace of disgust or anger.  He is embracing this child.  He is accepting this child.  He was dead.  Not literally dead.  But dead enough.  And now he is alive.  How can he not celebrate?

The interesting thing is that the scene that Rembrandt depicts never happens in the story itself.  The three characters are never together in the parable.  The message is carried in two major confrontations - one between the younger son and the father, and the other between the older son and the father.  In both cases the father has come out of the house to meet the son.  In both cases he expresses his love for the son.

We can see that love in the one-on-one exchanges.  It's only when we put the brothers side-by-side that we start to get nervous about this story.  That's when we start to worry about whether this story is fair.

But God's love is incredibly personal.  It comes to each of us in our need.  Gerard Manley Hopkins, the priest and poet, said once "Searching nature I taste self but at one tankard, that of my own being."*  When it comes to our particular need before God, we can't look to someone else.  We taste self but at one tankard.  I know the pains and failures that have come to my particular life.  I know what the far country looks like in my particular life.  I know the terrain very, very well.  And what it means for God to meet me on the way back from that particular country is not what it means for you.  I may be the younger brother or I may be the older brother, but I can still be dead.  Not literally dead.  But dead enough.  And need to be made alive again.

For that to happen I need a God who loves me like this crazy father and not like this older brother.  I need a God who knows that my repentance could never be enough to change my life entire.  I need a God who knows that even when I think I'm being sincere, I have an incredible capacity for fooling myself.  There are places where I still hold on to the sword and still wear the pretentious clothes even though I have no right to them.  There is still a bit of pride in me.  There can never be enough humility.  What I am is unforgivable and yet that is exactly what God gives to me despite myself - forgiveness.  The older brother will always peer at me with judgement, but God will always look at me with love.

This God who sees me while I am still far off.  Who abandons all his dignity to run and meet me on the road.  This God who has been to the far country himself and who knows exactly what he is doing when he welcomes me back and throws a party...this God sees through the judgement because he has taken it on himself.

Have you been heartbroken by love, too?  Has love ever failed you?  Did your parent's love fail you?  Your spouse's love?  Your friend's love?  Every human love has its failures.  Because every human love is tied up in our anxieties about whether we are worthy of the love we receive.  We never know quite how the other person sees us.  Never quite sure what's being asked of us when we receive love.

But there is no anxiety in God's love.  God knows our every weakness and loves us anyway.  God knows our deepest secrets and loves us anyway.  God knows our shame and loves us anyway.  God knows our sins and loves us anyway.  God knows our pride and our sloth and our pretense and our worry and our wayward ways.  God knows that tankard from which we drink.  And loves us anyway - not because God needs to love us, but because God wants to.

And all the other stuff - the new behavior, the prayer, the scripture reading, the missions, the tithing, the church community -- it's all there because God loves us and wants us to love God, too.  And so we give.  And so we are ambassadors for God.  And so we live as agents of God's reconciling love - not because we have to be acceptable to God - but because God met us on the road and called us in.  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

*Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844-1889), British poet, Jesuit priest. Comments on the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius Loyola. Poems and Prose of Gerard Manley Hopkins, ed. W.H. Gardner (1953).