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Sermon 3/18/07 Don Evans Luke 15:1-3 & 11-32 Our Prodigal God Greetings to the faithful saints of Bethany United Church of Christ; I bid you the peace that Christ so loving bestows on all of us. Today's scripture in Luke is a very familiar parable. It was Jesus' way of explaining to the Pharisees the need for him to be among the sinners. He was seeking out the lost sinners so he could bring them to newness of life in the love of God. It is a situation we can envision ourselves in, but if we are not careful we can envision ourselves only in the positive light of being the welcoming person. It is a parable that asks us to look deeper and ask ourselves tougher questions, which I'll come back to a little later in the sermon. The parable is also well suited for the Lenten Season, which is a time for our personal reconciliation with God. It is a time when we can look at the sins so prevalent in this teaching as well as the sins in our own lives. Remember the 7 deadly sins – Lust, gluttony, greed, sloth, hatred, envy and pride. Some of these sins I saw in the reading include greed, in the "I want it all right now" attitude of the young son. I saw envy and hatred in the older son when he alienated himself from father and brother as well as greed when he saw what was supposed to be his spent on the brother. Sloth, and probably, lust occurred in the low living conditions of the younger son. I think if we look close enough we can see them all revealed in the parable and if we look even closer we might very well find them in our own lives. Let us hear the parable again, but this time in words and in a situation of our time. Sometimes hearing an account from a different perspective can bring new insights and understandings to us. It is a retelling of the parable by Rev. Donald Schmidt in his book, "Bible Wonderings Familiar Tales Retold." I do some of my best thinking when I'm shaving. It's a quiet, peaceful time, and I'm all alone. I like that. The bathroom mirror affords a wonderful reflection through the top of the window, and I can see the road stretching off into infinity. Ah, that road. Sometimes I'll see a car or two driving by. Maybe it is an early morning bird checking out last night's road kill. If I'm running late, I notice the local kids heading out to the school bus. I think of the times I have traveled down that road—a short jaunt to town, or the beginning of a journey to places far and beyond. And, of course, I think of coming down that road in the other direction, tired in the evening, and glad to be coming home. It's down that road that my son left. So many times I had watched him and his brother walking with their friends, headed for school; or maybe riding their bikes, laughing and claiming ownership of the whole world. But one day, my son went down that road, and didn't come back. "Dad," he said, coming up to me when I was reading the paper, trying for all the world to act as if he was self-confident, but with every word almost quivering. "I was wondering, um, you know, um, you said that everything you owned would go to my brother and me when you and Mom died? Well, I was, um, just thinking that, um, well, my brother likes the farm and seems bent on sticking around here, so, why don't you give him the farm? I mean, I don't want it. Then you could, um, give me that money you've got saved in the bank, and we'd call it a deal? What do you say, Dad?" He paused for a short second but, before I had a chance to say anything, continued quietly, "And, well, maybe I could have it, now? What do you think?" Did it matter what I thought? We both knew what I would do. We both knew what he would do. Why argue with fate? The day I handed him the cashier's check, we knew what was next, although we both clung briefly to a bit of denial. "I think I'll maybe spend a bit of this, do some traveling. But I'll save the rest for college. I'm just going to take a few months to find myself, and then I'll go back to school in the Fall." He left the next morning, without saying goodbye. We heard from him once, a postcard in January from Florida. That was it. Three years went by. We wondered and worried. Each story of a hurricane, a riot, a bitter cold snap, unemployment, drug wars—they all made us look at each other a little more fearfully, and wonder, but we didn't talk about him. It seemed that words might somehow seal his uncertain fate. The farm continued. We continued. But we ached. How we ached. Each morning, while I was shaving, I would notice that road. I thought at one point of even boarding up the window, so I wouldn't have to look. Tried drawing the shades a few times, but it felt wrong somehow. I needed to wonder. And after a while, it got easier to look at the road. But the pain never went away. Where was he? One March morning, as a particularly cold winter was fighting to hang on against the inevitability of spring, I saw the road in the mirror. I stood, as usual, in my underwear and lathered up my face. I looked down as I rinsed the razor and, when I looked up, I saw a distant figure on the road. I couldn't identify it, but I didn't need to. I knew who it was. I dropped the razor, dabbed at the cream on my face, and ran out of the bathroom. Taking the stairs two at a time (and thinking for a fractured second of the zillion times I had told the boys never to do that—funny the things you think of at the strangest times) I leapt out the door and ran up the road. He stopped as I got closer, as if he didn't know what I was going to do. I held him, not caring if I crushed his bones, so long as I could just feel his heart. "Dad, I'm so sorry, I..." I didn't want to hear it. I only wanted to savor this moment, this homecoming, this holding. It was too good to cloud it with words. After a long, long, hug, and heaving tears, I stood back and focused on him. He looked awful: not an ounce of meat on his bones, and that gaunt, pained, sickly look on his face from too many drugs and too much fear. But he was alive. And he was home. "Let's get you inside," I said. "Your mother's got some coffee on. I hope this version touched someone anew. In getting back to discussion, I want to touch briefly on two aspects of the parable. There are some things in the parable that are often overlooked, as we all too often do when things are too familiar to us. Many times we just are looking at the inheritance issue and the wonton spending and living of the young son. My first point is the undignified running of the father to the son. He would have had to hike up his robe and expose his legs to be able to run. Can you imagine what goobers Steve and I would look like if we suddenly raced down the isle and out of the church. You would probably think we had just lost our minds. This was some thing that just was not done by respectable men of Jesus time. In the retold story the father there also abandoned his own teachings as he raced down the stairs to greet his son. Second, we also think of the word "prodigal” in terms of absence and/or reckless spending. Our perceived notion is that one needs to run off somewhere and squander a bunch of money. The younger son certainly did that, but the father also spent recklessly when he threw the party for a son who may have or may not have been repentant. Prodigal really means "recklessly extravagant”. Is not our God recklessly extravagant in his showing of grace and mercy upon us both in the here and now and in the here after? With this definition in mind, I most certainly think we worship a prodigal God. Now is time for us to look at some questions we should be asking. How about these questions: When did the lost sons find repentance? Was it when they were down and out in the pig sty and street gutters and awoke to the situation they had gotten themselves into or when their fathers embraced them on their return? Did the fathers do the math on what their sons had cost them? Do we really want what we deserve? Do we really deserve God's grace? Have we reconciled ourselves to our father in heaven? What places have we wandered off to and away from God? Are we lost in our world of daily living, caught up in hectic fast paced lifestyles? Are we lost in the many addictions our society has to offer? Just like it is hard to see an individual tree in a forest, could it be too hard for us to see our sins in the sea of so many sins around us? Jesus describes the giddy welcoming joy in God's heart when the lost are found. We are the sinners and tax collectors, and even the older brothers alienating ourselves from our Father. Jesus is our brother who will celebrate with us at our party. Can we bring ourselves to be received and honored or are we to ashamed to ask to come home? Can we envision God running to greet us? Can we envision God greeting the likes of Jeffrey Dahmer or Timothy McVeigh when and if they ask his forgiveness? In my law enforcement days I met several persons convicted of various degrees of murder. I got to briefly know a man named Willy who served time for the murder of his wife. I saw and talked to him the county jail and even took him to the funeral home to view the body of the wife he had slain. After his trial I was the one who delivered him to the state prison. I know he was truly repentant and I know he found God in his cell. Maybe I should say God found Willy in a little dark steel cage. He is a free man today and one who I would not be the least bit afraid to have as a neighbor. I know he will be embraced by God when the time comes. I wish I could say the same for some of the students I teach. God will seek us out even in the remotest places we have put ourselves in. The fathers in both stories were as equally restored to life as where the sons. God will find us and restore us to life and all we have to do is repent of our sins. The first retelling of the parable is powerful enough. But Rev Scmidt did a second which takes it to much richer level. It reminds us that our human relationships are never lived in a vacuum, but are intertwined with others in a wonderful, jumbled mess called life. I got in the car and drove through the fear of the night. It was late. It took two hours. That strange mix of adrenalin, pain, anger, fear, joy, and love propelled me down the road. What would I say to her? What would she say to me? It was far more awkward than I had imagined. There were no words. She looked like a walking cliche of cheap tart, painted and drugged, eyes hollowed by despair into glimpses of nothingness. My daughter. Our hug was uncomfortable, forced. She seemed too scared to let herself go into my arms, and so it was business-like, strangely appropriate. My questions were buried under an avalanche of silence. I couldn't ask them. Not yet. Maybe never. I wanted to know, and I didn't want to know. I was probably as scared as she was. They kept her—there was a fog of technicalities about jurisdiction and stuff that I couldn't understand. The drive home took much longer. We were allowed to visit her twice a week, and so we did. Drove two hours there, and two hours back, for one hour in a room full of a bunch of nervous people. All the way there we would convince ourselves it was better than nothing; on the way home we didn't talk much. It became less uncomfortable over time. She began to look a bit better. Each week her smile dared to come back a little more. We found we could joke about a few things. We still didn't ask all of the questions we wanted, but they somehow got answered little by little as heart threads reconnected. One night we got home late, and I went into the kitchen to make myself a sandwich. Our other daughter Susan was just coming in from an evening out. "How was your day?" I asked. "Fine." She said. Then added for effect, "as if you care." "What do you mean? Of course I care." Check: did I sound too defensive? "Yeah, right. You're never here." Calm. Be calm. Don't yell. Don't let all of that tension out. She doesn't deserve it. I breathed. "You spend all your time off visiting that little slut." I wanted to yell. But by the grace of God, I didn't, and in that microsecond, Susan started to cry. "It's not fair," she said. "I know. But she's your sister, and I love her." Suddenly the air in the kitchen felt heavy. "And I love you, too," I continued. "For the last three years I've had the privilege of watching you become a woman. I've gone to your basketball games and cheered like an idiot. I drove you to school when you missed the bus. I watched the fashion show when you bought all those clothes with your first paycheck. I've been worried when you stayed out late, and relieved when you came in, knowing you were safe and had been laughing with your friends. "All of this, Susan, and I've loved every minute of it. But I never knew where your sister was. I imagined the worst, had to love her from a distance, not knowing if she were alive or dead..." My tears were hot. Susan hugged me. "I'm sorry, Dad," she said. And then added, "I love you." The Methodist church in Rootstown has the following statement on their church sign. "Even the feeblest of knocks will open the gates of heaven”. I propose that it takes much less physical effort than that. All we have to do is with penitent heart whisper "I am sorry” and our prodigal God will rush to greet us his prodigal children. Amen. |
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