(Readings: Isaiah 53:1-5, Matthew 8:14-17)
Our Gospel reading tonight is taken from Matthew’s Gospel, in a section immediately following the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ teaching had begun to attract crowds, and among them were various persons asking for healing – a leper, whose disease had cut him off from his community, and a Roman centurion asking for healing on behalf of a beloved servant. Although Jesus had offered to go to the centurion’s home to lay his hands on the servant, the centurion felt himself unworthy to have Jesus under his roof – “only speak the word, and my servant will be healed” was the centurion’s request. Having commented on the centurion’s great faith, spoken the word of healing and sent the centurion on his way with his blessing – “go, let it be done for you according to your faith” – Jesus entered the home of Peter’s mother-in-law, who was in bed with a fever. Jesus touched her hand and healed her, and she got up and began to serve. That evening, those who were ill and were possessed by demons were brought to Jesus, and he healed them. Matthew ends the passage with a reference to the Isaiah passage read tonight: “he took our infirmities and bore our diseases.”
We read this passage tonight in unique context, in a time of great debate over how our society will deal with the cost of treating illness in our country, with legislation passed that some see as a decades-overdue expression of caring for the most vulnerable in our society and others see as governmental intrusion into private matters, a turning point down the road to bankruptcy and national ruin. In other words, how in our society will we bear the cost of one another's diseases? With strong views on all sides of the healthcare debate as a backdrop – and you’ll hear no policy prescriptions from me – it seems like a unique perspective from which to consider Isaiah’s description of the suffering servant, which the writer of Matthew’s Gospel saw fulfilled in Jesus, “surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases.”
In our age of advancing technology – and in my day job I work for one of Philadelphia’s academic health systems that serves some of the poorest neighborhoods of the city – disease is treated as a collection of symptoms, and a patient presenting with a complicated set of symptoms may be shuttled around from one specialist to another, one physician looking at the heart, another at the lungs, another at the gastrointestinal tract, and so forth - sort of like a car going through an assembly line. And yet, just as human beings are more than a collection of body parts, illness carries over into many dimensions of our lives. Physical or mental illness can leave us unable to hold a job, socially isolated and cut off from friends and family, homeless, even threatened by physical attacks by those who prey on the vulnerable. And the relationship works both ways – our life choices, our social and economic context, can either protect us to some extent from illness, or promote the onset of disease. For example, residents of some inner-city neighborhoods are vulnerable to asthma and other respiratory problems because of industrial pollution or because of widespread infestations of vermin in peoples’ homes.
So when Jesus healed those with leprosy and demon possession and various illnesses, he was doing more than relieving physical distress, far more than relieving symptoms. He was restoring wholeness, returning a leper isolated by disease to the embrace of his community, returning Peter’s mother-in-law to her place in the household. More than this, Jesus’ healings had ramifications far beyond helping the individuals touched by Jesus. Both Jesus’ teaching, as in the Sermon on the Mount, and healing represented an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God into the world, God’s reign breaking into a world dominated by the power of sin and evil. In teaching and healing, Jesus was taking on and driving out the powers of evil that kept people in physical distress, mental ignorance and spiritual isolation and deprivation. A cosmic mission – but played out in scenes as individual and tender as Jesus touching the hand of Peter’s mother-in-law as she lay in bed with a fever.
God loved the world – God loves each of us, every one of us here tonight – so much that God sent Jesus, his only-begotten Son, to take on all the powers and principalities that keep us enslaved to sin and oppressed by illness. Jesus took all our sin and all our sufferings on himself – he was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities. Upon Jesus, through his death on the cross, was the punishment that makes us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.
And so, as Christ’s body in the world, we who call ourselves Christians are to be those to whom people can come for healing. The mission statement of one of our neighboring United Church of Christ congregations in Mt. Airy expresses it well – they see their congregatiuon as "a healing station for the spiritually wounded." That can be the mission of our various churches in Bridesburg as well. People come to the church sick and wounded in many ways – spiritually distressed, suffering family turmoil and social isolation, unemployed and economically struggling, and, yes, sometimes in physical and mental pain and illness. Sometimes they come to us wounded by abuse from previous congregations, and wonder whether they will find in our congregation the healing touch of Jesus, or a fist slamming them in the gut. So in our ordinary conversations in the church, we truly meet people at their most vulnerable, and in so doing we walk on holy ground.
In a minute or two, we will begin a time of healing prayer. There is oil, olive oil, for anointing. In a few minutes, after some brief introductory words, I will invite those with prayer requests – for yourself, for others, for the world – to come forward. I would also invite any other clergy here tonight who feel so led to come forward as well. In so doing, we can walk in the way of our Lord and Saviour, as we bear one another’s burdens and come together to ask for Christ’s healing touch. Amen.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
What A Waste
(Scriptures: Isaiah 43:16-21, Psalm 126, Philippians 3:4b-14, John 12:1-8)
Some of us may remember reading O Henry’s story from many years ago, “The Gift of the Magi”. It was about a young couple, Jim and Della, in dire economic circumstances but very much in love, who sacrificed greatly to buy presents for one another. And if you’ve read stories by O Henry, there’s always an unexpected twist at the end. Jim had sold his one possession of value, the prized watch from his grandfather, in order to buy a lovely set of combs made of jeweled tortoise shell for Della. Meanwhile, Della had her long, flowing hair, of which she was very proud, cut off and sold to a wigmaker, to raise money to buy a chain for Jim’s prized watch. On Christmas Day, each was disappointed to discover that the gift chosen had been rendered useless – Della had chosen a beautiful chain for a prized watch Jim no longer had, and Jim chose beautiful combs for hair Della no longer had. And yet the narrator tells us that each was pleased with the gift received - the extravagant, costly sacrifices each made reaffirmed the profound love that Jim and Della shared for one another. How different from, to use a more current and very different example, the storyline in an old Seinfeld episode about “regifting,” taking an unwanted, unused, unopened present one has received – perhaps an ugly sweater or a hideous tie – and wrapping it up and passing it along as a present to someone else. Ironically, from a material standpoint, in the Seinfeld example, everyone wins – the giver gets rid of unwanted clutter and at least there’s the hope that the receiver can make use of it – and yet “regifting” does nothing to strengthen the bonds of affection in the way that the costly giving of O Henry story portrayed, in which, from a material standpoint, Jim and Della both lost out.
Which brings us to the costly gift received by Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson. While we have spent much of the year thus far reading from Luke’s Gospel, today we take a detour into the Gospel of John. Jesus and the disciples were at the home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, and the sisters Mary and Martha. They gave a dinner for Jesus, with Martha, of course, serving – very much in character for practical Martha; it’s what she did best. And we may remember from Luke’s gospel, 10th chapter, the story of Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha served, and once again Mary likewise acts in character. Mary took a pound of perfume made of pure nard – which was imported from the Himalayan mountains; you can imagine it was quite costly – and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. John tells us us that the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Judas Iscariot, who would betray Jesus, lays into Mary, asking “why was this not sold for 300 denarii” – one denarius was roughly a day’s wage, so three hundred of them was almost a year’s wages – “and given to the poor.” From a practical standpoint, what Judas says makes perfect sense. Who could argue with he’s saying? And yet John’s gospel gives us a strong hint not to side with Judas: “Judas said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse for the disciples and used to steal from it.” Jesus rebukes Judas: “Leave her alone” – parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke quote Jesus as saying, “she has done a lovely thing” – “she bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you will have with you always, but you will not have me with you always.”
What’s going on here? – quite a lot, actually. First, we want to unpack the old church tradition that tells us that Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus feet and washed it with her hair. This tradition is an attempt to pull together the varying accounts of the anointing in the four Gospels. Mark 14, the earliest of the gospels, and Matthew 26, which followed Mark in this tradition, describe Jesus being anointed on his head in Bethany near the end of his ministry, 2 days before Passover, at the house of Simon the Leper by an unnamed woman; Luke chapter 7 describes Jesus being anointed on his feet in Galilee, much earlier in his ministry, in the home of Simon the Pharisee by an unnamed sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. And of course we have John’s account of the anointing of Jesus feet and washing with her hair by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazazus, 6 days before Passover at the end of Jesus’ ministry – so early church tradition equated Mary in John with the sinful woman in Luke. But that’s not what John is telling us – Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were a family, two sisters and a brother, living in Bethany – the name means “house of affliction” – whom Jesus knew and loved. Scholars disagree whether these varying traditions among the four gospels represent one anointing or more than one, but we should let each account stand as the various Gospel writers tell them.
More important is the transition that is taking place in this section of John’s Gospel. Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, bringing Lazarus from death to life. At the same time, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, with full knowledge that he’s going there to die. Indeed, the religious authorities are searching for him, and even Lazarus, whom Jesus had brought to life, is under threat from the religious authorities, because people are coming to see Lazarus, and the raising of Lazarus is drawing disciples to Jesus. Jesus’ time with the disciples, his time in earthly ministry is growing short. The next day – which we’ll celebrate next Sunday – will mark Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. All too soon will come the betrayal in the garden, and the events of Good Friday. So the writer of John’s gospel is preparing us for what is to come. In today’s Gospel, Lazarus, brought to life, and his sisters are hosting Jesus, who is preparing for death. Mary anoints Jesus’ feet – and when a body was prepared for burial, it would have been packed in spices for preservation, beginning with the feet. The Greek word for perfume, myrou, is related to the myrrh that was used as a preservative. She wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair – and in her culture a woman would have let down her hair only in moments alone with a spouse, or during time of mourning as a sign of distraction. So Mary, perhaps not even fully realizing the implication of what she was doing, made a costly offering of pure perfume of nard out of the purity of her great love for Jesus, in preparation for Jesus’ upcoming death and burial. Because, as Jesus told Judas, they would not, at least in bodily form, have Jesus with them always.
In this story we have a contrast between the wisdom of our culture and the way of Jesus. Our culture tells us to be prudent, calculating, cautious. Waste not, want not, as our parents taught us, especially if our parents grew up or were alive during the Depression of the 1930’s. Wise words for difficult times, such as we face today.
And yet our faith tells us that, while there are certainly times for prudence, there are also times when we are called to put caution aside, when our response to God’s great love cannot be calculating and measured and even stingy, but extravagant and costly, as is God’s love for us. God’s love for each one of us cost the death of God’s own Son. In the words of Lamentations, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” Indeed, how can we hold back, when God calls for our undivided love and devotion in response. So this Gospel reading is a challenge to our natural tendency – that is to say, our sinful tendency - to hold back on our love for God and neighbor, to dribble it out in small, carefully calibrated doses.
At the same time, we can draw comfort from this story. When we are faithful in our discipleship to Jesus, we rarely see the results of our actions. A branch of science called chaos theory says that small changes in local conditions can snowball into large effects far away. In a popular illustration, chaos theorist Edward Lorenz postulates that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings outside our window may trigger a thunderstorm halfway around the globe. In the same way, our prayers and acts of devotion to God and love of neighbor, made as an offering to Christ, may play out in powerful ways that we’ll never know on this side of eternity. Our neighbors will chide us – why spend so much time and give so much of your means to the church? What difference does it make? What a waste! And in our moments of discouragement, we may be inclined to agree. But we can draw comfort that in the eyes of God, who sees all, our prayers and acts of love are a lovely thing when offered in faith to Jesus. Mary poured out an extravagant offering of perfume in love to Jesus, and yet in God’s eyes not a drop of her offering was wasted. Nor are our greatest – or smallest – prayers or acts of kindness wasted when offered to Christ.
Matthew’s account of the anointing says that “truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told in remembrance of her” – and indeed, the story is preserved to this day. May future generations tell of the love offered in Christ’s name by the members of Emanuel Church. Amen
Some of us may remember reading O Henry’s story from many years ago, “The Gift of the Magi”. It was about a young couple, Jim and Della, in dire economic circumstances but very much in love, who sacrificed greatly to buy presents for one another. And if you’ve read stories by O Henry, there’s always an unexpected twist at the end. Jim had sold his one possession of value, the prized watch from his grandfather, in order to buy a lovely set of combs made of jeweled tortoise shell for Della. Meanwhile, Della had her long, flowing hair, of which she was very proud, cut off and sold to a wigmaker, to raise money to buy a chain for Jim’s prized watch. On Christmas Day, each was disappointed to discover that the gift chosen had been rendered useless – Della had chosen a beautiful chain for a prized watch Jim no longer had, and Jim chose beautiful combs for hair Della no longer had. And yet the narrator tells us that each was pleased with the gift received - the extravagant, costly sacrifices each made reaffirmed the profound love that Jim and Della shared for one another. How different from, to use a more current and very different example, the storyline in an old Seinfeld episode about “regifting,” taking an unwanted, unused, unopened present one has received – perhaps an ugly sweater or a hideous tie – and wrapping it up and passing it along as a present to someone else. Ironically, from a material standpoint, in the Seinfeld example, everyone wins – the giver gets rid of unwanted clutter and at least there’s the hope that the receiver can make use of it – and yet “regifting” does nothing to strengthen the bonds of affection in the way that the costly giving of O Henry story portrayed, in which, from a material standpoint, Jim and Della both lost out.
Which brings us to the costly gift received by Jesus in today’s Gospel lesson. While we have spent much of the year thus far reading from Luke’s Gospel, today we take a detour into the Gospel of John. Jesus and the disciples were at the home of Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised from the dead, and the sisters Mary and Martha. They gave a dinner for Jesus, with Martha, of course, serving – very much in character for practical Martha; it’s what she did best. And we may remember from Luke’s gospel, 10th chapter, the story of Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet while Martha served, and once again Mary likewise acts in character. Mary took a pound of perfume made of pure nard – which was imported from the Himalayan mountains; you can imagine it was quite costly – and anointed Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair. John tells us us that the house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Judas Iscariot, who would betray Jesus, lays into Mary, asking “why was this not sold for 300 denarii” – one denarius was roughly a day’s wage, so three hundred of them was almost a year’s wages – “and given to the poor.” From a practical standpoint, what Judas says makes perfect sense. Who could argue with he’s saying? And yet John’s gospel gives us a strong hint not to side with Judas: “Judas said this not because he cared for the poor, but because he was a thief; he kept the common purse for the disciples and used to steal from it.” Jesus rebukes Judas: “Leave her alone” – parallel accounts in Matthew and Luke quote Jesus as saying, “she has done a lovely thing” – “she bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. The poor you will have with you always, but you will not have me with you always.”
What’s going on here? – quite a lot, actually. First, we want to unpack the old church tradition that tells us that Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus feet and washed it with her hair. This tradition is an attempt to pull together the varying accounts of the anointing in the four Gospels. Mark 14, the earliest of the gospels, and Matthew 26, which followed Mark in this tradition, describe Jesus being anointed on his head in Bethany near the end of his ministry, 2 days before Passover, at the house of Simon the Leper by an unnamed woman; Luke chapter 7 describes Jesus being anointed on his feet in Galilee, much earlier in his ministry, in the home of Simon the Pharisee by an unnamed sinful woman who washes Jesus’ feet with her hair. And of course we have John’s account of the anointing of Jesus feet and washing with her hair by Mary, the sister of Martha and Lazazus, 6 days before Passover at the end of Jesus’ ministry – so early church tradition equated Mary in John with the sinful woman in Luke. But that’s not what John is telling us – Mary, Martha, and Lazarus were a family, two sisters and a brother, living in Bethany – the name means “house of affliction” – whom Jesus knew and loved. Scholars disagree whether these varying traditions among the four gospels represent one anointing or more than one, but we should let each account stand as the various Gospel writers tell them.
More important is the transition that is taking place in this section of John’s Gospel. Jesus has just raised Lazarus from the dead, bringing Lazarus from death to life. At the same time, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, with full knowledge that he’s going there to die. Indeed, the religious authorities are searching for him, and even Lazarus, whom Jesus had brought to life, is under threat from the religious authorities, because people are coming to see Lazarus, and the raising of Lazarus is drawing disciples to Jesus. Jesus’ time with the disciples, his time in earthly ministry is growing short. The next day – which we’ll celebrate next Sunday – will mark Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. All too soon will come the betrayal in the garden, and the events of Good Friday. So the writer of John’s gospel is preparing us for what is to come. In today’s Gospel, Lazarus, brought to life, and his sisters are hosting Jesus, who is preparing for death. Mary anoints Jesus’ feet – and when a body was prepared for burial, it would have been packed in spices for preservation, beginning with the feet. The Greek word for perfume, myrou, is related to the myrrh that was used as a preservative. She wiped Jesus’ feet with her hair – and in her culture a woman would have let down her hair only in moments alone with a spouse, or during time of mourning as a sign of distraction. So Mary, perhaps not even fully realizing the implication of what she was doing, made a costly offering of pure perfume of nard out of the purity of her great love for Jesus, in preparation for Jesus’ upcoming death and burial. Because, as Jesus told Judas, they would not, at least in bodily form, have Jesus with them always.
In this story we have a contrast between the wisdom of our culture and the way of Jesus. Our culture tells us to be prudent, calculating, cautious. Waste not, want not, as our parents taught us, especially if our parents grew up or were alive during the Depression of the 1930’s. Wise words for difficult times, such as we face today.
And yet our faith tells us that, while there are certainly times for prudence, there are also times when we are called to put caution aside, when our response to God’s great love cannot be calculating and measured and even stingy, but extravagant and costly, as is God’s love for us. God’s love for each one of us cost the death of God’s own Son. In the words of Lamentations, “Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?” Indeed, how can we hold back, when God calls for our undivided love and devotion in response. So this Gospel reading is a challenge to our natural tendency – that is to say, our sinful tendency - to hold back on our love for God and neighbor, to dribble it out in small, carefully calibrated doses.
At the same time, we can draw comfort from this story. When we are faithful in our discipleship to Jesus, we rarely see the results of our actions. A branch of science called chaos theory says that small changes in local conditions can snowball into large effects far away. In a popular illustration, chaos theorist Edward Lorenz postulates that the flapping of a butterfly’s wings outside our window may trigger a thunderstorm halfway around the globe. In the same way, our prayers and acts of devotion to God and love of neighbor, made as an offering to Christ, may play out in powerful ways that we’ll never know on this side of eternity. Our neighbors will chide us – why spend so much time and give so much of your means to the church? What difference does it make? What a waste! And in our moments of discouragement, we may be inclined to agree. But we can draw comfort that in the eyes of God, who sees all, our prayers and acts of love are a lovely thing when offered in faith to Jesus. Mary poured out an extravagant offering of perfume in love to Jesus, and yet in God’s eyes not a drop of her offering was wasted. Nor are our greatest – or smallest – prayers or acts of kindness wasted when offered to Christ.
Matthew’s account of the anointing says that “truly I tell you, wherever this good news is proclaimed in the whole world, what this woman has done will be told in remembrance of her” – and indeed, the story is preserved to this day. May future generations tell of the love offered in Christ’s name by the members of Emanuel Church. Amen
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Father and Sons
(Readings: Joshua 5:9-12 Psalm 32 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Luke 15:1-2, 11-32)
Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 15:1-2, 11-32) is one of the most beloved parables in the Bible, the parable of the Prodigal Son. The heartwarming story of a father giving his long-lost son a lavish welcome home gives us all a graphic picture of God’s embracing love. Like other favorite Bible texts, it’s been preached so often and so much has been said about it that it may seem there’s nothing left to say. And yet, if we let the parable sit with us a bit, it may have some moments of discomfort, some jagged edges….and may yet reveal new insight into the depth and costliness of the love that God has for us, the depth and costliness of the love we are called to show for others. I would note that some of the material in this sermon comes from Henri Nouwen’s book titled, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” which we began to study last Sunday, and which we will continue to study this week and next.
Remember the setup for the story: the Pharisees and scribes are grousing that Jesus has lousy taste in friends, that he hangs out with sinners. What kind of example is Jesus setting, letting just anyone hang out with him? So Jesus tells them a story….
We know how the story starts: “a father has two sons, and the younger says, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.” The words go by so quickly that we may not take in the full implication of the younger son’s request. In our society, we are used to the idea that at some point, children will leave their parents to make their way in the world. And it might not be unexpected for parents of moderate means to help children with, perhaps, a check to cover part of the down-payment on a starter home. But in the agricultural society of Jesus’ day, granting the son’s request would have meant selling off the younger son’s share of the family farm to convert it to cash, diminishing the family’s land holdings and risking the security of the rest of the family. More than that is what the son’s request says about his attitude toward his father. Normally the receipt of an estate means that a family member has died. The younger son’s request basically has the implication that he wishes his father were dead, but since that’s not the case, he wants the next best thing, to treat his father as if he were dead. Nice kid. Especially since there were no nursing homes to be found in this society, and so it was part of the social contract of the day that in return for being cared for as a child, an adult would care for his parents in their declining years. But the younger son wanted no parts of this – just “Hey dad, show me the money.” And in a village setting, of course, all this drama would be playing out for the entertainment of the neighbors.
But the father graciously divides his property among the two sons – the elder brother would have gotten 2/3; the younger, 1/3. A few days later, the younger son packs up his belongings and goes off to a far country – Gentile country, we should understand - where he squanders his money on loose living and surrounds himself with lots of fair-weather friends, who abandon him when the money runs out. He is eventually reduced to hiring himself out to Gentiles, to feed their pigs. In hunger and desperation he resolves to return home, with memorized little speech of repentance, prepared to ask his father to treat him as a hired servant. We don’t necessarily get the feeling that the son’s repentance is all that heartfelt; it’s entirely possible that, having abused his father’s generosity at the beginning of the parable, the son is entirely willing to manipulate his father’s feelings of compassion in order to save his own skin now.
Luke tells us that, “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, he ran out to put his arms around him.” In the society of Jesus’ day, the patriarch of family did not run; indeed, the patriarch’s children and servants would have run to do his bidding. But the father sacrificed all dignity in order to run out to meet his son, welcoming him lavishly and throwing a banquet.
It is at this point that we meet the elder son, who had been working in the field. When he hears that the younger son has returned and that his father was throwing a party, the elder son was furious. But once again, the father sacrifices his own dignity to go out and meet the elder son where he is, to plead with him to join the party. The elder brother spits his resentment into his father’s face: “For all these years I’ve worked like a slave; I’ve done all you asked, and you never threw a party for me – but when this son of yours comes back after spending all your money on his prostitutes, for him you kill the fatted calf!” In his resentment he has come to see his loving father as a taskmaster, a slavedriver. Despite the elder son’s dutiful obedience, we find that, in his own way, he’s as lost to his father as the younger son had been, whom the elder son names to his father as “this son of yours.” But the father tries to heal the relationship: “My son, you are always with me, and all I have is yours. But we had to celebrate, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found.”
It is part of the genius of Jesus’ parable that the ending is left open-ended. We aren’t told whether the elder brother ever joined the party to welcome his brother home. Nor are we ever really told whether the younger brother cleaned up his act. In the end, we’re left with the father’s extravagant love for both his sons, and his willingness to leave all personal dignity behind in order to heal his broken relationships with both of them.
I also believe this parable is memorable because I suspect we can all see ourselves in the parable. Perhaps our lives have carried us far from home, far from the embrace of the church, seemingly far from God. In this parable we can hear God’s voice of love for us, love that will not give up on us, in the words of our final hymn, love that will not let us go.
Or perhaps we see ourselves in the dutiful elder brother, the one who always did as his father asked, who never left home…but who feels resentment at the father’s welcome of the younger son. We may be like the Pharisees and scribes, wonder why Jesus always surrounds himself by such scummy people. Of course we realize it’s a good thing that the younger brother his home, but we think he should be put on probation, told to be quiet and go to his room, rather than welcomed home with a wild party. In some denominations, it seems like the folks with the most shocking pre-conversion stories, those who lived the most flagrantly sinful lives before coming to Christ, are the only ones valued. We’ve who have kept the home fires burning, perhaps kept our church going through good times and bad, may need reassurance that God just as passionately, just as extravagantly loves us, that God will meet us in our moments of resentment with words of healing and reassurance.
It may be difficult to see ourselves in the role of the father. And yet this is the direction in which Paul’s words point us: “we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view….so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away; all things are become new. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
The ministry of reconciliation – we see what this ministry looks like in the father’s words and actions, his willingness to sacrifice his dignity and security to heal broken relationships with both of his lost sons, and to welcome them into the circle of his love. The ministry of reconciliation, as we are called to proclaim God’s extravagant love both for those who are far off and those who are near, those who like the prodigal younger son have spurned the Father’s love, and those who like the elder son resent the Father’s love for those who have wandered. The ministry of reconciliation, as we proclaim God’s amazing grace that saved wretches like all of us.
Says the father, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found.” May we here at Emanuel Church rejoice in God’s prodigal, lavish, extravagant love for us, and God’s prodigal, lavish, extravagant love for all who come our way. Amen.
Today’s Gospel reading (Luke 15:1-2, 11-32) is one of the most beloved parables in the Bible, the parable of the Prodigal Son. The heartwarming story of a father giving his long-lost son a lavish welcome home gives us all a graphic picture of God’s embracing love. Like other favorite Bible texts, it’s been preached so often and so much has been said about it that it may seem there’s nothing left to say. And yet, if we let the parable sit with us a bit, it may have some moments of discomfort, some jagged edges….and may yet reveal new insight into the depth and costliness of the love that God has for us, the depth and costliness of the love we are called to show for others. I would note that some of the material in this sermon comes from Henri Nouwen’s book titled, “The Return of the Prodigal Son” which we began to study last Sunday, and which we will continue to study this week and next.
Remember the setup for the story: the Pharisees and scribes are grousing that Jesus has lousy taste in friends, that he hangs out with sinners. What kind of example is Jesus setting, letting just anyone hang out with him? So Jesus tells them a story….
We know how the story starts: “a father has two sons, and the younger says, “Father, let me have the share of the estate that will come to me.” The words go by so quickly that we may not take in the full implication of the younger son’s request. In our society, we are used to the idea that at some point, children will leave their parents to make their way in the world. And it might not be unexpected for parents of moderate means to help children with, perhaps, a check to cover part of the down-payment on a starter home. But in the agricultural society of Jesus’ day, granting the son’s request would have meant selling off the younger son’s share of the family farm to convert it to cash, diminishing the family’s land holdings and risking the security of the rest of the family. More than that is what the son’s request says about his attitude toward his father. Normally the receipt of an estate means that a family member has died. The younger son’s request basically has the implication that he wishes his father were dead, but since that’s not the case, he wants the next best thing, to treat his father as if he were dead. Nice kid. Especially since there were no nursing homes to be found in this society, and so it was part of the social contract of the day that in return for being cared for as a child, an adult would care for his parents in their declining years. But the younger son wanted no parts of this – just “Hey dad, show me the money.” And in a village setting, of course, all this drama would be playing out for the entertainment of the neighbors.
But the father graciously divides his property among the two sons – the elder brother would have gotten 2/3; the younger, 1/3. A few days later, the younger son packs up his belongings and goes off to a far country – Gentile country, we should understand - where he squanders his money on loose living and surrounds himself with lots of fair-weather friends, who abandon him when the money runs out. He is eventually reduced to hiring himself out to Gentiles, to feed their pigs. In hunger and desperation he resolves to return home, with memorized little speech of repentance, prepared to ask his father to treat him as a hired servant. We don’t necessarily get the feeling that the son’s repentance is all that heartfelt; it’s entirely possible that, having abused his father’s generosity at the beginning of the parable, the son is entirely willing to manipulate his father’s feelings of compassion in order to save his own skin now.
Luke tells us that, “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion, he ran out to put his arms around him.” In the society of Jesus’ day, the patriarch of family did not run; indeed, the patriarch’s children and servants would have run to do his bidding. But the father sacrificed all dignity in order to run out to meet his son, welcoming him lavishly and throwing a banquet.
It is at this point that we meet the elder son, who had been working in the field. When he hears that the younger son has returned and that his father was throwing a party, the elder son was furious. But once again, the father sacrifices his own dignity to go out and meet the elder son where he is, to plead with him to join the party. The elder brother spits his resentment into his father’s face: “For all these years I’ve worked like a slave; I’ve done all you asked, and you never threw a party for me – but when this son of yours comes back after spending all your money on his prostitutes, for him you kill the fatted calf!” In his resentment he has come to see his loving father as a taskmaster, a slavedriver. Despite the elder son’s dutiful obedience, we find that, in his own way, he’s as lost to his father as the younger son had been, whom the elder son names to his father as “this son of yours.” But the father tries to heal the relationship: “My son, you are always with me, and all I have is yours. But we had to celebrate, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found.”
It is part of the genius of Jesus’ parable that the ending is left open-ended. We aren’t told whether the elder brother ever joined the party to welcome his brother home. Nor are we ever really told whether the younger brother cleaned up his act. In the end, we’re left with the father’s extravagant love for both his sons, and his willingness to leave all personal dignity behind in order to heal his broken relationships with both of them.
I also believe this parable is memorable because I suspect we can all see ourselves in the parable. Perhaps our lives have carried us far from home, far from the embrace of the church, seemingly far from God. In this parable we can hear God’s voice of love for us, love that will not give up on us, in the words of our final hymn, love that will not let us go.
Or perhaps we see ourselves in the dutiful elder brother, the one who always did as his father asked, who never left home…but who feels resentment at the father’s welcome of the younger son. We may be like the Pharisees and scribes, wonder why Jesus always surrounds himself by such scummy people. Of course we realize it’s a good thing that the younger brother his home, but we think he should be put on probation, told to be quiet and go to his room, rather than welcomed home with a wild party. In some denominations, it seems like the folks with the most shocking pre-conversion stories, those who lived the most flagrantly sinful lives before coming to Christ, are the only ones valued. We’ve who have kept the home fires burning, perhaps kept our church going through good times and bad, may need reassurance that God just as passionately, just as extravagantly loves us, that God will meet us in our moments of resentment with words of healing and reassurance.
It may be difficult to see ourselves in the role of the father. And yet this is the direction in which Paul’s words point us: “we regard no one from a human point of view, even though we once regarded Christ from a human point of view….so if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; old things have passed away; all things are become new. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.
The ministry of reconciliation – we see what this ministry looks like in the father’s words and actions, his willingness to sacrifice his dignity and security to heal broken relationships with both of his lost sons, and to welcome them into the circle of his love. The ministry of reconciliation, as we are called to proclaim God’s extravagant love both for those who are far off and those who are near, those who like the prodigal younger son have spurned the Father’s love, and those who like the elder son resent the Father’s love for those who have wandered. The ministry of reconciliation, as we proclaim God’s amazing grace that saved wretches like all of us.
Says the father, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life, was lost and has been found.” May we here at Emanuel Church rejoice in God’s prodigal, lavish, extravagant love for us, and God’s prodigal, lavish, extravagant love for all who come our way. Amen.
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