March 7, 2010

Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32; Psalm 32

We are continuing our Lenten series on the theme “Holding on and letting go”.

During this series we are asking ourselves – what am I holding on to that maybe I need to let go of? And – what are those things I need to keep hold of or begin to hold on to that I had let go of?

The basic question is – what do I need to let go of in order to hold on to God?

Today, we want to look at the parable that is traditionally called the “prodigal son” to see what we need to let go of in order to hold on to God.

I say “traditionally called the prodigal son” because the parable is really more about God than it is about either son in the story.

My sermon title for today is “A passionate lover”. For me, that title better describes what this parable is about and the picture of God that emerges from it.

Now, Luke in chapter 15 tells three consecutive parables about lost things being found.

• The first one is about a shepherd who loses one sheep and so he leaves the 99 to go out and find the one missing sheep.
• The second parable is about a woman who has lost one of her coins and she sweeps the whole house until she finds the lost coin.
• Then the third parable is about two sons who are lost and a father desperately seeking to have a relationship with them.

Now, we have to ask – why does Luke tell three parables about lost things? Wouldn’t one story be enough?

The reason, I think, Luke tells these three stories about lost things being found is because the Pharisees and religious leaders were upset that Jesus was hanging out with lost people. Jesus was hanging out with tax collectors and prostitutes.

In verse 2 it says – “the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling and saying, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

So, Jesus tells these stories to the Pharisees about lost things being found because the Pharisees think they are completely okay with God.

They think they are right in their beliefs.

They think they are going in the right direction.

The Pharisees have no idea that they could ever be lost.

These parables then are meant to wake the Pharisees up and to help them see that they are lost too – that they are going in the wrong direction.

Do you know that it is possible to be lost and not know it?

You might not know this, but my family is aware that I am directionally impaired. Left on my own I frequently get lost. Thank goodness for a GPS.

One time I was driving from Raleigh, NC to Harrisonburg, VA for a meeting. I had traveled there many times so I knew the way. However, this time I made a wrong turn and drove for several hours before I realized I had gone the wrong direction.

I was lost for a couple of hours and I didn’t even know it. I thought I was going in the right direction but I was actually going in the opposite direction that I wanted to go.

So, I was lost and I didn’t know it.

The Pharisees are lost too, but they don’t know it. They think because they keep all of the laws, have the right education, have the right pedigree and right name, and are overly zealous for God – that they are far superior to that bunch of losers – the prostitutes and tax collectors.

The Pharisees are angry that Jesus would want to hang out with such a bunch of sorry losers.

I think the Apostle Paul helps us understand the Pharisees way of thinking because Paul was a Pharisee of the Pharisees. In Philippians 3 Paul describes his own journey of being lost and found.

Paul writes – “I was circumcised on the eighth day, a member of the household of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew born of Hebrews, as to the law – a Pharisee, as to zeal – a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law – blameless.”

Paul thought he was doing all the right things and had it all together with God – until he encountered Jesus. And then he realized all of his “outer props” were keeping him from God and were no more important than “dung”.

Paul says in Phil.3:8 – “I regard all these things as rubbish (the Greek word really means just a bunch of crap), in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him.”

Paul was lost but he is now “found in Christ”.

The truth this morning is – we are all lost. Some of us just don’t know it or we are too proud to admit it and so we never ask for directions.

The good news, though, is that God is passionately looking for those who are lost.

And the story of the “prodigal son” is all about God seeking those who are lost. So, let’s look at this story.

In the first century it was customary for the eldest son to inherit the home place when the father died. It was then up to the eldest son to determine if he wanted to share it with the other siblings.

So, for a son to ask for his inheritance before his father’s death was like the son saying to his dad – “Dad, I wish you were dead now. I can’t wait for you to die. I don’t plan to take care of you in old age.”

Asking for his inheritance while his father was still living was a very insulting thing to do in that culture.

And so you can imagine why the elder son in this story got so angry. Not only was the younger son taking part of his inheritance but then he ends up losing it all. The eldest son may have shared some with the younger son but now it was taken completely out of his control.

The father, by giving the younger son half of the inheritance, was doing something that he did not have to do. The father was being overly generous with him.

The father could have coerced the son to stay or even attempted to persuade him to stay home.

The father also could have threatened to take away the whole inheritance and said – if you leave you won’t get anything.

The father could have controlled his son’s behavior, but he didn’t because ultimately he wanted a relationship with his son. So, the father gave him space to just walk away – even though it was deeply painful to him.

The reality is that you can never coerce a relationship.

To have a relationship with someone you have to always be willing to let them go. You can coerce behavior from someone, but you can’t coerce a relationship.

The father – by giving his son an inheritance and letting him leave home – is really a picture of how God treats us.

In a sense, God is all powerful and could control us but God never uses that power to coerce us in any way because God also wants a relationship with us.

God always gives us space to walk away and to screw our lives up – just like the younger son did.

Luke tells us in verse 13 that the younger son, after receiving his inheritance – “gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in reckless living.”

The Greek word here does not necessarily imply “immoral living”. He was just young and reckless and thought his money was limitless.

If he wanted something he bought it.

But after a while he runs out of money and friends and there is also a famine in the land. The only job he can find is work for a pig farmer.

And for Jews, pigs were unclean. So being around pigs would make him like a Gentile – an outsider and unworthy of God.

But it was there, in the pig pen, that the younger son finally comes to his senses.

He is out of money. He has no friends. He is hungry. Sometimes God uses those things in our life to bring us to our senses. He now wants to return home.

I can imagine this morning that some of you here can identify with this younger son. At some point, you walked away from God and screwed up your life.

You may have flushed your career down the toilet with gambling or alcoholism or adultery or just terrible money management.

Or maybe you left home in anger as a young person and you severed all of your relationships with your parents and family and now you have no idea how to reconnect.

Along the way some of us have acted like the prodigal son and so we can say – I am that son or daughter.

I also think, though, that while many of us may not have squandered away our life like the prodigal son – we still squander away much of our life.

• How much life do we squander away by holding on to petty gripes and grudges and worries?
• How much life do we squander away by mediocre marriages and shallow relationships?
• How much life do we squander away by settling for church attendance – rather than radical discipleship?
• How much life do we squander away because we are so busy working for stuff we don’t need – and our closest relationships are all suffering?

I don’t know what it will take for us to wake up and stop chasing the American dream, but I know that God wants us to come to God’s banquet table and to feast on God’s goodness and mercy.

We don’t have to satisfy ourselves with pig food when we can sit at the table with God and live in his love and presence.

God will always let us walk away but God will never stop watching, waiting, and searching for us.

In this parable, as soon as the father saw his son returning home – Luke says that the father left his house and ran to meet him.

In the first century, for the father to run to meet his son, would have been considered a degrading act. An elderly man with flowing robes never runs anywhere.

But the father running to his son becomes a beautiful picture of God looking for those who are lost. God doesn’t care how he looks because his child is coming home.

The father welcomes home his son who has hurt him so much. A son who had wished he was dead. And who has squandered away all of his life’s savings.

This father, who could have been angry and resentful, is instead full of compassion and mercy.

I think many people have a hard time with this picture of God. Most people think we are to pursue God. And they envision God more as one who is distant and detached from us. One who is above passion and emotion and pain.

But God is pictured here as passionately pursuing us – chasing after us and is full of emotion and passion and love.

We have this same image of God in the OT. The prophet Hosea is told by God to marry a prostitute. So he marries Gomer and they have three children.

But after a few years Gomer leaves Hosea and returns to her life of prostitution. Then God tells Hosea to go out and find his prostituting wife and marry her again.

And so Hosea goes knocking on doors asking for Gomer. He walks through the streets calling her name – saying “I love you Gomer and I want you back.”

Through Hosea God says to the children of Israel – I love you and I want you to come back.

God keeps looking for us even when we chase after other gods. God keeps calling our name and inviting us to come home.

The OT also pictures God as mother looking for her child. God says to Isaiah in Isaiah 49:15 – “can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb? Even these may forget yet I – says God – will not forget you.”

Like a mother desperately looking for a lost child – God looks for us.

And when God finds us – God throws a huge party!

As soon as the father meets his son he throws his arms around him, kisses him, gives him a robe and a ring and new sandals. And he orders his servants to kill the fatted calf and to prepare a feast for the whole community.

The prodigal son comes back home to be a hired servant for his father, but instead the father unexpectedly welcomes him back as a son.

Not a word is said here about the past or about guilt. There is no repayment plan. There is no second class status for his son.

Even though the father has suffered much – he regains a relationship back with his son through the simple beauty of his sacrificial love and forgiveness.

The God of the bible is this merciful. God is this gracious. God is this forgiving. No matter what we have done – God takes us as we are and restores us to wholeness.

The amazing thing is that God wants to throw a party for each one of us. When God finds us all heaven rejoices. The angels are wearing party hats and high-fiving each other. There are banners welcoming us into the Kingdom of God.

The good news this morning is that you are worth celebrating! Reconciliation is worth celebrating! God wants to throw a party for each one of us.

Some of you this morning may need to have a party thrown for you. You need to know deep in your spirits that God loves you beyond anything you can do or say.

I know a woman who as a young girl was beaten and abused often by an alcoholic father. She always struggled to experience God’s love. This was a long process but through prayer and the imagination of inviting Jesus to come to her – she was able to see God throw a party for her with signs and banners and balloons and dancing.

And for the first time in her life she knew deep in her spirit that she was loved by God.

We all need to know that God has thrown a party for us – that we are worthy of God’s love and kindness.

The thing that is so offensive to the elder son and to the Pharisees and to those of us who have stayed home and worked so hard to be good and righteous – is the unfairness of God’s grace and the lavish party.

For the elder son, it might have been okay to let the prodigal son come home – but to bread and water not a fatted calf. Let him come home in tears – not joy. Let him come home kneeling and begging – not with dancing and music.

My guess is that some of us this morning can identify most closely with the elder son. We have stayed home but we are just as lost as the younger son.

I certainly identify more closely with the elder son. I left home as an exchange student at age 17 to live in Mexico City. I was in a place where no one knew me and I could do whatever I wanted.

I tasted beer and tequila for the first time, but those things were not really tempting to me. I didn’t care for it and I could never understand why people wanted to get drunk and sick and vomit. It just made no sense to me.

I was also around people who smoked pot and used drugs but it never tempted me. I never wanted to even try any of that stuff.

I was tempted, though, by all the beautiful young women. I am only grateful to God that I did not succumb to those temptations.

My problem is that it is easy for me to be self-righteous. To think that I am better than those who have partied their lives away or messed up everything.

I am learning what it means to live in God’s free grace and to rely on God’s mercy – not my own righteousness.

For those of us like the elder son, we see our father every day but we don’t know him. We are a son or daughter in name, but in spirit we are a servant and a slave.

We are lost at home and we don’t know it.

The Pharisees don’t know how to party because they don’t know what it means to be lost and then found. And yet God’s grace and mercy and love are always there for the Pharisee too.

To receive God’s grace, though, the Pharisees need to let go of all of those external props and be found in Christ.

God wants to throw a party for the elder son as much as for the younger son.

God doesn’t want us to be hired servants – God wants us to be sons and daughters – children of God.

The good news this morning is that God is a passionate lover who will never quit looking for you until you are found.

Let us pray.

I want you to take a moment to reflect on your relationship with God. As you do, I invite you to confess those things you need to let go of that are keeping you from God. (silence)

And now, I invite you to confess those things that you want to hold onto. (silence)

God, like the woman who lost her coin, you are searching every corner of the house looking for us.

You are looking out the window – intently watching for us to come home. Ready to sprint out the door to hug us and kiss us and welcome us home at our first sighting.

God, this morning wake us up to your passionate love for us. Show us what you are really like.

Help us let go of all those things that keep us from you. Help us be unsatisfied with pig food.

Help us internalize your forgiveness and mercy and unconditional love.

And God, for all those who are here today who have never seen you throw a party for them – may they know in their hearts that all heaven is celebrating their homecoming today.

May we all rejoice in God’s great mercy and grace! Amen.