The Fourth Sunday of Lent, March 14th, 2010

The Rev. Dr. Katharine C. Black
Joshua 5: 9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5: 16-21
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

This is the day the Lord has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it. AMEN.

And I rejoice to be with you, not so much to be back, as to be with you. Thank you.

What is the point, the moral, of today's Gospel? To whom was the parable addressed at the beginning? Which is each of us? How many sons is the story about? Which son is each of us? How do we feel about the point of the story?

Some underbrush clearing first, though. In the time of this parable, here were the inheritance laws. The older son inherited twice what the younger would receive, and always double what each son would receive, so the older son would get 2X, and the younger X, but if there were 5 sons, that would still be true. Then the inheritance would be divided into sixths and the oldest would get 2 sixths, and each of the other 5 sons, 1 sixth. That was the law, so when the younger son went off with his third of the inheritance in a land-based farm, raising goats and other critters, a good deal of selling land, cattle, or stored produce would have had to have gone on. This was not a simple cash-based economy that would have allowed the father to withdraw a third of his cash for the son.  Arranging, selling, and loss would have had to have occurred. His reinstatement as a full son, while wonderful for the younger, meant a sharp decrease in the value of the older son's inheritance. That was the law.

Where, then, to start in this familiar story? In our heads, let's draw two columns: one for the Pharisees and one for the sinners, those to whom Jesus was preaching at the beginning of the Gospel. We can fill out who sinners were easily, but Pharisees were not bad., necessarily They were those observing the complexities of Jewish law, tradition, custom, and obligation. They were preserving their way of life and belief from the onslaught of Romans and Romanizing, barbarians, Greek excesses, and whatever else was coming into their city and region from the various trade routes made safe for all, by Roman might.

Perhaps we might go back to the sinners and make them a little more real too. Of course, there were obvious sinners like dishonest tax collectors, cheating gamblers, drunkards, liars, and unfaithful spouses. However also included would be those who disobeyed, flaunted, or just failed to observe Jewish law, both the purity codes and the actual commandments, by omission an/or commission. The Pharisees were those who obeyed God's commandments, and the sinners were those who disobeyed them. Which are you, am I?

Now who are the two sons named in the story? Now look at the two columns on your paper-which son goes in which column? The older goes in the column of the Pharisees, and the younger in the sinner. Yes? Which are you, and which am I? Are we content with 2 columns? Most of us don't want to be Pharisees or sinners, but we do want to be younger sons. Another footnote to go with the underbrush clearing. The younger son doesn't ask to be reinstated as a son, but as a hired hand, so he is not reclaiming either status or inheritance-he has seen what he took for granted as a lowly worker in the fields of the Owner, and it looks like riches. He doesn't ask for anything special; he wants what he has always seen given freely to all who come to work for the Owner's goals: a place to live, honest work, fair reward of food and sustenance, a part in a communal activity that serves the whole, being part of a community, and respect from the Owner. The Parent however greets him as a found son and inheritor.

Why does that sour the older brother? He sees the younger getting time off for bad behavior and reinstatement as an inheritor. He has done to the letter everything asked of him. Now, he sees a diminution in his loot, and he wants to scream, "It's not fair." If the younger goes in the sinner column, doesn't the older go in the other? Again which are we?

Does the older see that it had all been given to him freely? Did his Father owe him all that he gave him? True the older worked hard, but so did the workers-and for a moment let's cast thought to the sons' and workers' wives without any guarantees of any livelihood, but that's another story. Let's consider both columns? Did the older son or Pharisees turn to their Lord, with joy or acknowledgement that God's love-let's cross the parable's line-is offered freely to all? Did the younger and the sinners repent of their misdeeds and did they want to come back -however they would be accepted-recognizing that much they had had was offered freely to all?

As Christians here, we're a pretty good mix. Some of us have put one foot in front of the other as good church people and are a little world, or maybe, church weary. We've done it all essentially correctly and the church is in turmoil and no one is giving us a party or celebration. Others of us, for one reason or another, have experienced the intolerance churches-and society- have mastered over the years for those who don't do it their way: aren't straight white men, are married, aren't married, are gay, aren't GLBT, like incense or don't, like Latin or guitars or praise music or don't, and a host of other dividing-up categories, almost Pharisaic categories.

Is there no one who's satisfied or feels welcome and loved? Part of the younger son's return is that every single thing offered to him does indeed come from the older's take of the inheritance. The older will have to make some sacrifices again even though it is the father who welcomes the younger unconditionally. He reminds the older that all he has is still all the elder's. He and the father each know that, as well.  In the other parables preceding this one in Luke's Gospel, the parable of the lost sheep, and the parable of the lost coin, someone set out to look for and find the lost, but not in this parable. In all three parables there is celebrating at the found sheep, coin, and returning son, but one son doesn't celebrate, even though his father does go out to him, goes out to persuade him of his constant unchangeable love for him. Who might have gone out to each of these lost sons? Who might have brought the younger to his sense before he hit rock bottom, and who could have persuaded the elder that nothing he had, even though it was promised to him, was his by right, but by gift. Apparently years ago a piece appeared in a London paper crying out, "What is Wrong with the World?" G. K. Chesterton apparently wrote to the Editor. "Dear Sirs: 'I am.' Sincerely yours, G. K. Chesterton." That's the point for us, and for all. We are all lost, each in our own way. Some of us by active, conscious, genuine sinning; others of us by self-righteousness and passive complacency that what we have and what we are, are ours by right; we should be rewarded, because we've worked so hard.

Then, now, and this side of the Jordan, I'd guess that is how it has been and will be for all of us. We're all lost, each in our own well-practiced ways. The question is: if each of us is lost, what's the point of this story? Which is the lost son, and how is he to be found? God sent his Son to give human life a try. He neither sinned like the younger, nor was alienated like the older. He understood the risks, perils, and work of human living, as John Newton wrote::

Our pleasure and our duty/ Though opposite before

Since we have seen his beauty/ are joined to part no more.

The two sons, that is sinners and Pharisees, and the two sons in the story, can't get it right. However it is not God's trick for us to be trapped as one or the other, both lost. Jesus showed God, and us, that while we all long for home or heaven, or being in God's favor, we can neither earn that, nor, even be given, that without cost. Jesus lived that life for each of us, he was the brother who went looking for each of us and for our sins and our full-of-ourself-ness. Jesus found that there was personal cost in getting it right, but "God's glory is always to have mercy," from the collect two weeks ago, or "God's property is always to have mercy" from the prayer of humble access. God wants us to come to God. God always initiates the call, racing to the younger son, going out to plead with the older. Jesus so understands the cost that he takes on the sins of all of us for all time in all places, and all is all.

The point is: God wants us all to join in the heavenly banquet: "The hill of Zion yields a thousand sacred sweets/ before we reach the heavenly fields or walk the golden streets. It is always our hope that the older son will take a deep breath, and join the party. The Gospel last week suggests there's always a little more time to get it right, even for him. Whether Babette's feast, or the wonderful banquet of this morning's Gospel, or this somewhat skimpy meal at this altar this morning. Our feast is lest sumptuous than the heavenly feast, but is a foretaste of what is to come. The joining together is the most genuinely realized part of the heavenly meal, the communal sharing and welcome together.

That's the point of the story. God wants us all to come to the heavenly feast with God. God sends his son not only to get us and show us how to do, but also to take on the kinds of sins and barriers that keep us from flinging open the doors and feeling welcome, enjoying the gifts of grace God prodigally flings to us. It is God who is the prodigal one; God is excessively extravagant. God calls us and offers us grace on grace. In response we work to be worthy of all that we're given, but knowing we didn't earn it. We didn't earn clean air and clean water. We didn't earn God's good gifts, and we didn't earn Jesus' understanding and offering of himself to reconcile us to God and God to us. Maybe we haven't thrown away all we've been given and so leap back to God when we come to, but whatever astonishing gifts we've each been given with unimaginable profligacy, we didn't earn. God's grace calls us and welcomes us now and always. William Cowper says

To see the Law by Christ fulfilled/ And hear his pardoning voice

Changes a slave into a child/ And duty into choice.

Let's go together to this banquet, this heavenly feast and imagine, when a bounteous God gets at the food part, as well as the invitation and reception of the feast, what it will be like. Taste and see; God calls us to myriad of delights, and Jesus comes looking for us to bear our burdens, carry our sins, so that we will enjoy the feast freely and thankfully with him forever.

Good News.

© Katharine C Black, 14 March 2010