THE PRODIGAL SON (20 th Century Version)

Transcription

1 THE PRODIGAL SON (20 th Century Version) There was a single mother who had two sons. When the time came for him to go off to college, the older son said to her, Mom, I know the plan was that I live at home and commute to save money, but I really want to live in the fraternity house next to campus to have the full college experience. Though recently divorced and struggling to start a small business, his mother agreed, dipped into her meager savings, and sent him off to college. The older son moved into the fraternity house on his 17 th birthday and soon fell into a pattern of dissolute living: partying and drinking almost every night; skipping classes and not studying; squandering the money his mother had sacrificed, while telling her that he was doing great at college. One morning, following a wild, late night Halloween party, the older son awoke with a splitting headache and a throat so sore he could barely swallow. Blood tests at the campus health center confirmed he had contracted infectious mononucleosis and would need to withdraw from school immediately! Suddenly, he came to himself and thought, if only I d stayed at home, none of this would ve happened, and my mom s money wouldn t have been wasted. I ll go to her and say, Mom, I m so sorry. I ve been a total idiot. Please forgive me and take me back under your roof. But when she saw his car pull up, she ran out, hugged him, and said, Son, you look terrible. Put your things in your room; I ll go shopping and fix your favorite steak tonight. I m just so glad to have you home again. And so it was that my freshman year at San Diego State University came to a premature end many years ago. True, I was the older son, it was my mother who welcomed me back, and the fatted calf had been dead for several days and become neatly packaged steak at the local market, but the elements of our biblical story of the prodigal son were still pretty much in place.

2 The enduring value of these parables and the genius of Jesus in telling them is that they contain lessons that have no expiration date. If it hasn t happened to you already, then I can almost guarantee that one day, with maybe a few plot variations, you will find yourself in the role of the prodigal son or daughter, the forgiving parent, or the angry sibling and maybe all of the above; and when not if it happens, as the prodigal will you come to your senses, repent, and beg forgiveness? Or, will you stubbornly refuse to admit your mistakes, continue to lie, and fail to summon the courage to go to the person you have wronged? As the parent figure, will you welcome with joy and open arms and forgiveness the returning prodigal even before he opens his mouth? Will you serve up today s version of the fatted calf.? Or will you slam the door in your prodigal s face and turn your back, or, worse yet, open the door reluctantly as you utter those four words that I m quite sure Jesus would just as soon never pass our lips you all know the 4 words I m talking about, don t you? I told you so or their equally distasteful relative, I might forgive, but I ll never forget. If you ve already lived one or more versions of this parable, then what you did is what you did, and all God ever asks of us is that we learn from our experiences, and make whatever changes are called for. And, as with all these parables, we need not experience them literally in order to grasp the larger truths they convey and then apply them to our lives. So it is with The Prodigal Son. The setting, the century, even the characters, might change; but at its heart it will always be a story of repentance, forgiveness, second chances, and reconciliation. And finally, a story about the awesome, Godly power of unconditional love. Because when you get right down to it, even though the word itself is never mentioned, it is love unconditional love that really drives this parable from start to finish. And it becomes all the more powerful because while the word itself is absent, every single act of the father testifies to his unconditional love for his two sons. But just what is unconditional love? It s a question worth asking if God expects us to practice it in a world and in a culture surrounding us where the concept of love itself is becoming trivialized. Last Thursday night on American Idol which I was watching of course only to do research I m

3 pretty sure the 4 judges together must have said, I love you at least a total of times to 20 contestants whom they barely knew! So trying to get some handle in today s world on the kind of unconditional love Jesus expects us to show towards others, as His ambassadors as Paul phrased it in today s 2 nd lesson, represents quite a challenge. And yet it s a challenge we must meet if we are to embrace the parable and make it real in our own lives and in doing so, help comes to us from an unexpected source. How many of you remember what stands today as one of the most vilified and ridiculed lines concerning love in movie history. Complete the sentence for me Love means..never having to say you re sorry. It comes from the 1970 tear jerker, Love Story, based upon Erich Segal s book of the same name. You needn t have read the book or seen the movie to know what a profoundly ridiculous statement that is when it comes down to human relationships. And yet with a small twist, it comes very close to grasping the unconditional love God already has for us and calls us to have for our neighbors. Here it is: Unconditional love means never having to hear, I m sorry. While it may be important for the repentant sinner to at some point verbalize repentance and remorse to the person wronged, as we will do in our Confession shortly, unconditional love means that we are forgiven by God at the very moment we come to ourselves, resolving to repent as did the younger son in the parable. This is a point easily overlooked, that while the son intended to apologize and had rehearsed his speech of repentance while he was still far off, the father acted out his forgiveness and unconditional love by embracing and kissing him. Even when his son tried to start his speech, the father couldn t have cared less, saying, Quickly bring out a robe, the best one, put a ring on his finger, sandals on his feet, and kill the fatted calf. The story tells us the father had compassion for his returning son, an appropriate word, for it comes to us from 2 Latin words, cum to be beside or with and pati to suffer. So to have compassion is literally

4 to be with one who is suffering. And anyone who has ever had to swallow their pride, admit they were wrong, and then walk that oh so long road to the door of the person they have wronged, knows what it means to suffer. What God, the father figure in the parable, is saying to us is that if you ever find yourself waiting behind that door and see the repentant sinner approaching, exhibit the unconditional love of God by showing compassion before they give voice to their repentance. And once you have acted out your forgiveness, make sure that it is the forgiveness which springs from the fountain of unconditional love not, I love you followed by I told you so. Not, I forgive you but I ll never forget, and certainly not, You re welcome back, but in my house, it s my rules. On the night before His death, Jesus gave His disciples a new commandment that forever changed how God expects us to treat one another. And while it extends to all areas of our relationships, nowhere is it more critical than in those human minefields of repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Earlier, Jesus had told them that we must love our neighbors just as we love ourselves. However, realizing that many people did not love themselves all that much, Jesus raised the bar at that Last Supper. He said, A new commandment I give you. Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. The very next day, on what we can now call Good Friday, Jesus showed them and all future generations the kind of unconditional, selfless love He was talking about. The kind of love showed by my mother, who embraced me and welcomed me when I crawled home feeling every bit a terrible son and a failure mid way through my first semester in college. That experience forever changed me and has shaped the way I have dealt with others, both in my personal life and as God s servant in parish ministry. I know not what Prodigal stories lie in your pasts, but I suspect we all have a few in which we have played at times all three roles in today s parable. And since we re all fallible human beings, I also suspect we each have in our past unresolved issues with someone grudges held, forgiveness withheld, or lingering anger coupled with the need for some closure and, hopefully, reconciliation. These, over time, become festering

5 sores on our very souls, crying out for someone to stop the bleeding; for someone to come to themselves, to swallow their pride and to make that call; to send that letter or e mail; to knock on that door, realizing we are guaranteed no tomorrows and that Jesus cautions us never to allow the sun to set on our anger. We know how we re called to act in the future but if this gospel, if my words today speak to something in your life that remains unresolved, remember the New Commandment calling us to model Christ like unconditional love, and be what Paul calls an ambassador for Christ by taking that first step to reconciliation. And if unconditional love is too broad or vague for us to act upon, Paul gives us these words to act upon and to live by, be we prodigal sons or daughters, forgiving fathers or mothers, or angry and jealous siblings: Love is patient, love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three. And the greatest of these is love. AMEN