Our Prodigal God
4 Lent, Yr. C
Joshua 5:9-12
Pam 32
2 Corin. 5:16-21
Luke 15:1,11b-32
The Rev. Joanie Brawley
When my husband and I were first married, we lived in Arizona while he finished graduate school. Everything about the state was different from our native Virginia, and it was a wonderful time of adventure. On weekends, we liked to explore, and we’d often heard about a long-deserted silver-mining settlement named Jerome, where (among other oddities) one-half of the rough, 19th century town jail apparently still stood… the other half of its single jail cell having long ago collapsed, sliding down the side of the mountain below where the town had once stood.
So early on a Spring Saturday, we drove out into the desert, leaving 95 degree Phoenix for the mountain cool of Jerome, AZ. The journey began blissfully! The SW desert in the Spring is stunning! Even Cacti struggle the rest of the year in the desert, but the brief spring rains bring a glorious profusion of the most exotic, colorful flowers. By mid-morning, we saw a small, rusty, battered sign leaning askew along the highway, which read “-er-me” (both the “J” and “o” had worn off.) Had we been wiser, that dilapidated sign might have aroused our suspicions about its authenticity, or at least have given us a hint of just how remote our anticipated destination was. Nevertheless, without a moment’s hesitation, off the highway we drove, onto a rough, pot-holed road, with not a building - or a sign in sight. We never questioned if we were on the road that would actually get us to Jerome. Soon the desert blooms vanished and the road lead up a steep, twisting mountain, surrounding us on both sides with dust, rocks, and boulders. The increasingly rugged road became increasingly narrow. This also might have been a good moment to re-think our route to Jerome, but no! This was an adventure! On we climbed, the temperature dropping with each turn. Before long the maintained road essentially ended… leaving us to navigate a rocky, hair-pin trail which dropped off perilously on one side of our little Toyota and nearly scraped the mountain on the other. Soon, high in the desert mountains, half-melted ice packs dotted the rocks around us. With each turn, I became more anxious. But I wasn’t going to be the one to “quit.” No sir, not me … that is until … it started to snow… not a few fluffy flakes here and there, but a full-fledged mountain blizzard! We simply couldn’t see our way forward one more foot…
So there were were - two determined adventurers, headed, we’d decided - we’d hoped - to Jerome, AZ … now essentially dead-ended on a tiny, rocky trail, high in frigid mountains, in a blinding blizzard … with no place to turn around! Unbelievably (and I know, by God’s Grace alone!) we literally had to gingerly back our way down and around that mountain for what seemed like miles before we could turn ourselves toward home … never having reached Jerome!
We eventually did make the trip to Jerome, many years later, by a far different (that is, correct) route. Who knows where we were actually headed on that long-ago trip; but it wasn’t Jerome, AZ! We had surely taken the wrong road, were completely off course … yet nothing deterred us from our chosen route - until reality hit … and the road we were sure would get us where we wanted to go … didn’t … because it couldn’t.
Being truly lost is terrifying … no matter where or how we experience it! When you’ve chosen the wrong road, there is a point when you can’t imagine how you will - can - ever be found, and that is a place of utter, terrifying helplessness. Truth is, the entire Bible is the story of the self-sacrificing lengths to which our God goes … to seek, find and save His, rebelliously, lost and wandering children.
Perhaps this is one reason why all of chapter 15 of Luke’s gospel is composed of three different, consecutive parables. Jesus tells about lostness … first of a lost sheep, then a lost coin, and now this very familiar parable of the Prodigal Son. Each story concerns the joyful return of something greatly treasured, hugely valuable and anxiously sought. Clearly, Jesus wants His listeners to be assured of God’s tender, seeking concern for the lost.
However, there are two very different groups gathered around Jesus for these parables… the outcast tax collectors and sinners, on one end of the spectrum … and the Pharisees and Scribes (whose job it was to study and interpret Jewish law) on the other. You can be sure these two groups are listening to Jesus with very different ears, and for very different reasons.
With even a cursory reading, the Prodigal son’s sin (his chosen lostness) is apparent. His father (God) extravagantly blesses his younger son - including selling all that he has, so the son can make his own choices, discover his own life path, with assets - gifts - that would not have been his until after the father dies! When this son asks for his portion of his father’s estate, he is wishing his father dead! There is no gratitude, no respect (much less love) in his demand; he is using his father for the “goodies” he can get, without regard for anyone or anything beyond himself.
When the renegade hits rock bottom - alone, broke (and broken) - he returns to his father, seeking his forgiveness, and the minute his father sees him - still off in the distance - the old man runs - runs - to meet him - something no dignified 1st century Jewish father would have done. Clearly, regardless of what this son has done, the father’s acceptance and love for his son has not changed. When the young man repents of his sin, not only does the father immediately forgive him, he calls for a huge celebration… “For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” The return of his now remorseful son reverberates across the centuries with the joyful assurance (especially to the outcast “sinners” in Christ’s audience) that God’s love, grace and forgiveness is complete, perfect … and inexhaustible!
Jesus could easily have ended the parable - joyfully - right here, just as He did the two preceding parables. But, in this parable, there is another son … and this older son is enraged! When the father rushes out of the party, pleading with this son to join the celebration, he spits an insulting rant with something akin to: “Listen, YOU!” This son is furious about his father’s unreserved generosity in liquidating his estate in the first place. He’s irate that his father rejoices over the prodigal’s return with additional gifting of even more goodies, and … most of all, he’s incensed that (for all his own obedience and acquiescence to his father’s house-rules) the old man has never given him “even a young goat so that (he) might celebrate with (his) friends.”… Ironically, it is now the older brother who is literally, spiritually… and joylessly… standing alone and outside his father’s house.
And, this is where Jesus ends his final-of-the-three parables! This maybe-too-familiar parable just became a bit … troublesome … because on some level, we likely identify with this older son. In many ways, he’s what most of us think we should be, what we hope we might be! He knows and follows certain standards. This son’s been obedient and diligent to the best of his ability. Unlike his younger brother this son’s life is defined by moral uprightness; his intent is to navigate a path of personal responsibility, appropriate self-restraint and discipline … ostensibly for the greater good of “righteousness” and personal virtue. He’s not perfect, but when he fails to measure up, we can imagine that he feels just terrible! Even in failure, there is a standard (usually his standard!) by which he and everyone else is judged.
Two brothers, who seem so very different from each other: the one who has run away, has now come home to the father’s joy; the other who stayed home, has now turned away - to his father’s infinite sorrow. One son is self-indulgent, irresponsible and wasteful; the other is rules-following, self-controlled and uber-responsible.
And yet, if we look closely at their individual moments of choice, these two men form two sides of exactly the same coin.
As the parable opens, neither son’s relationship with his father is based on love - but on their father’s usefulness. Both use him for what he can provide … as each pursues his own plan for happiness or self-satisfaction. Both are alienated from the father: one through willful dis-obedience, the other through strident self-righteousness.
Each of these sons had built his own … dead-end roadblock to true relationship with the father. Both resent their father’s authority. The younger’s tactics are more obvious; he seeks to escape his father’s governance through rebellion. The older son’s resentment is expressed more subtly; he seeks autonomy by staying close, making himself righteous, and thus - he believes - earning the father’s beneficence. The older son believes he is owed the father’s favor, as he himself finally tells us, “because I have never disobeyed your command.”
Happily, the younger son comes to see his real inheritance - his father’s love and forgiveness - as boundless and undeserved. Sadly, as the parable ends, the Pharisaical older brother’s pride (the base of all human sin) has left him - stridently stranded on his own high, narrow, blind trail - outside his father’s awaiting banquet … a banquet of welcoming Love and forgiveness.
…
Jesus has offered three parable pleas to those who follow Him … each showing the Lord’s eager, seeking Joy when whatever - whoever - was lost is found. But, why does Jesus work so hard to rouse these “older brother” Pharisees? Perhaps it is because their sin (and their plight) is every bit as grievous and sorrowful as any renegade younger brother’s. The pride and self-righteousness of the older brother masks his excruciatingly lonely and terrified situation. Younger sons know they have problems; they know they have failed and need all the undeserved, saving Grace God offers them. But older brothers must forever keep score - on themselves and all those around them. They don’t trust God, nor do they really love Him; for older brothers, God is an exactly boss, not a loving father.
In his book, Prodigal God, Tim Keller writes that older brothers “have a radical insecurity that comes from basing (one’s) self-image on achievement and performance … (so that) … the main barrier between Pharisees and God is” as Keller writes, “not their sins, but their damnable good works. … To find God,” Keller continues, “we must repent of the things we have done wrong; but if that is all you do, you may remain just an older brother. To truly become Christ's (followers) we must also repent of the reasons we ever did anything right. Pharisees only repent of their (overt) sins, but Christians repent for the very roots of their righteousness - the sin of seeking to be their own Savior and Lord.”
And so, even 21 centuries later, Jesus leaves the parable’s end open for us - the ones who now faithfully lean in to hear His stories, and follow His path, and fill His church Sunday after Sunday. Jesus now asks us what lies behind our relationship with God? His questions are especially appropriate Lenten questions, for they are self-examination questions. Is my obedience offered in trade for God’s protection or provision? Have you followed an ever-narrowing trail of perfectionism and self-righteousness which will leave you in a rocky desert, cold and alone and far from Home? Are our obedient good works the means by which you hope to save myself? Or is our love of God simply in grateful, humble response to His Love, and Hope and Creative, inexhaustible Forgiveness and Grace?
Psalm 100 offers a sweeping directive worth our prayerfully Lenten pondering: “Know this: The Lord himself is God; He Himself has made us, we are His; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter His gates with thanksgiving; go into His courts with praise: give thanks to Him and call upon his Name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting; and his faithfulness endures from age to age.” (Psalm 100:2-4)
Thanksgiving and praise. Perhaps the words of the Psalm are prescriptive. Perhaps we really do “come into His presence” when we authentically, deeply praise and thank him. Is that part of our path into deep relationship with God? Genuine praise and thanks is a pretty effective antidote to pride and self-righteousness; it’s nearly impossible not to be humble and grateful to God when we come before Him with thankful, meek hearts! And every single one of us has something - many, many things for which to thank our Lord!
Beloved sons and daughters of God, this is now our parable to contemplate; ours to respond to. These are now our questions to ponder and they outline the sometimes rocky path through a Holy Lent. But Jesus tells us today that, while even at our best, we are all prodigals at times recklessly - willfully - blindly - flailing through the Gifts and Callings of the Life our gracious God has given us. Thankfully, for all that we are and aren’t … our God is always more prodigal with His Love and Forgiveness that we are with our sins! By grace alone, we serve a recklessly extravagant, Prodigal God - who relentlessly seeks us with His own heart, through His own beloved Son Jesus - so that we too could join in His boundless, eternal Banquet … made ready - once and for all - by Christ on Easter morn.
Praise and Thanks be to you, Lord God! AMEN