A parable is a dangerous thing. If you were here last Sunday and you heard Lester Mackenzie preach about Jesus' parable of the fig tree, you know that already. You know from Lester's sermon last Sunday that the parables of Jesus aren't simple little stories with a clever little symbolic meaning. You know that they are knotty and profound and challenging. You know that Jesus uses them to challenge his followers - that's us - to rethink what we have always believed about ourselves, about our relationships, about God. That's what makes parables dangerous. That's why Lent is a season full of dangerous parables. This morning's Gospel reading is known as the parable of the Prodigal Son. If you ask me, that's not a very helpful title. It's not helpful because it's not dangerous. In fact, it's downright nice. It encourages us to think of this parable as a kind of stick figure cartoon drawing in which there are three frames. In the first frame, a stick figure leaves home. In the second, the stick figure is miserable and laying out cold in the pig field and the little tornado appears over his head and his little eyes turn into X's - you know. In the third frame, the stick figure comes back home and his stick figure father shouts "yippee!" Isn't that nice? Isn't that safe? A softball-pitching, safety-loving preacher will interpret the parable this way: stick figure one: that's us. We're sinners. Stick figure two, the father: that's God. God forgives us when we return to him. Isn't that nice? Isn't that safe? And let me quickly say - that's all true, as far as it goes. It just doesn't go anywhere near far enough. Because if you haven't found the danger in a parable, the twist, the risk, the thing in the parable that speaks to you in ways you wish it wouldn't - if you haven't found that, you haven't really heard the parable yet. And the twist, the risk, the thing in this parable that speaks that kind of uncomfortable truth to me is the character whom most preachers leave out: the elder brother in the story. The elder brother in the story isn't nice at all, and what he has to say to me is dangerous, and challenging. First just a word about the younger brother, the famous prodigal. As the parable begins, he's a young man. He decides it's time to seek his fortune, to see the world, to go in search of America, to sow his wild oats. He asks his father to cash out his inheritance now, and fork over the 1
proceeds, and his father, amazingly, does it. And the young man goes off, to take the world by storm, and he goes off alone. And he gets himself into trouble. "He squanders his property in dissolute living," as Jesus says. He indulges himself. He allows his baser desires to run wild. His obsessions and addictions, dormant while he lived at home, run riot. In no time he's broke, friendless, isolated, alone and hungry. He takes the only job he can find - running a pig farm for some pork-eating heathen - a demeaning, humiliating a job for a first-century Jew. He's so hungry that he envies the pigs their slop. And in his misery, he comes to himself and says, "Wait a minute. It hasn't always been like this. Maybe I can get out of this. Maybe I can go back where I started. Maybe I can ask for help, and maybe my father will have mercy on me and save me from ruin." So he does. He returns home, and it's all vastly better than he expected. He expected to show up on the front porch filthy and dejected, but his father runs to him when he's still a long way away, with clothes and sandals and a ring for him so when he arrives home he looks like a million bucks. He expected to be assigned menial labor with the hired hands, but his father treats him like the guest of honor. He expects a meager loaf of bread in the bunkhouse but his father puts on a lavish banquet. It's a story of a young man who gets into trouble, humbles himself and asks for help, and finds mercy and forgiveness and unconditional love beyond his wildest dreams. It's a moving, powerful image of the depth of God's love for us. Isn't that nice? It's very nice. But we still have the elder brother to deal with. And there is nothing nice about him at all. He's self-righteous and entitled and envious. "For all these years, I've been working like a slave for you," he says to his father. "Never once have I disobeyed you, never once have I broken the rules or stepped out of line, and I have nothing to show for it. But my creep younger brother squanders half the family fortune, comes home broke, and you go hog wild like he was Bill Gates or something." The younger brother, the prodigal, gets into trouble, humbles himself and asks for help, and finds mercy and forgiveness and unconditional love beyond his wildest dreams. The older brother is much too smart for that. He's far too practical to just go careering off and blowing money he doesn't really have. He's much too committed to playing by the rules, to looking good, to making sure that his sins stay subtle and well-concealed. Because if you keep your sins well enough 2
under wraps, you can keep things under control, and you won't have to ask for help, and you can go it alone. Why not do the smart, shrewd, practical thing and make sure you keep your sins - and the price you pay for them - strictly to yourself? Why humiliate yourself by admitting you can't do it alone when you don't have to? Why humiliate yourself by asking for help from other people - or from God? That's the way the elder brother has dealt with his anger and his resentment and his envy - by telling himself and everyone else that his sins are nobody's business, not even God's. These are private matters. Why make such a big deal of it? Doesn't that just make sense? Well, yes. That's the problem. It does make sense. It makes a frightening amount of sense to ME. You see, I'm learning a dirty little secret about myself this Lent, and my secret is this. In former years, as Lent would approach, I would tell myself that I wanted repentance, but the dirty little secret was that I wanted it on MY terms. I wanted repentance, but I wanted it to be quick, private, and painless. I wanted repentance, but I wanted it quick: I didn't want to have to do the long-term heavy lifting of opening the broken parts of my life to God. I wanted repentance, but I wanted it private: I wanted to do it alone, without having to ask for help or expose my fears or my weaknesses or my shame to anyone else. I wanted repentance, but more than anything else I wanted it to be painless: easy, and entertaining, and sacrifice-free. That's my dirty little Lenten secret, that I wanted repentance on my terms. And what I've figured out, at last, is that repentance on my terms isn't repentance at all. It's just a sort of spiritual airbrushing, strictly for public consumption. It's the kind of pseudo-repentance that the elder brother in the parable probably did a lot of, congratulating himself on his piety while he never admitted his envy and his grudges and anger - until his younger brother came along and out-repented him, did it better and more sincerely and more openly than him, and he was exposed as the fraud he was, and he exploded in rage and hate against the people closest to him. And the dirty little secret I learned about myself this Lent is that I'm so much more like THAT, so much more like the elder brother, than I am like the younger brother, the prodigal. So this Lent, I'm trying to get a little more prodigal. I'm trying to learn from and be more like the younger brother - not in his excesses and his dissolution, but in the humility and the openness 3
and the honesty with which he admitted his problems to himself - and to other people. This Lent I'm trying to be less concerned about the state of my self-image and more concerned about the state of my soul. This Lent I am making a real effort to ask people who care about me to help me deal with the parts of my life where I feel stuck or confused or broken. This Lent I'm spending a lot of time with a few very close friends and I'm giving up my dishonest silence about the parts of my life where I most need their love and support. Because I can't repent without that kind of rigorous honesty, and I can't repent without that kind of support from my brothers in Christ. Without real honesty on my part, and real compassion and wisdom from people who love me, I'll never repent. I'll just wave my spiritual airbrush around and hope my sins will magically disappear, and I'm here to tell you that didn't work. I'm also here to tell you that real repentance - not the spiritual airbrush kind, but the honest, open, shared-with-others kind - is anything but quick, private and painless. It's a slow, often tedious process. Not doing it alone requires great intimacy and trust and risk. And it can be downright painful. But even just a little taste of it is changing my life. So that's been my Lenten challenge: To put down my spiritual airbrush and pick up the spiritual power tools of honesty and willingness. To stop trying to convince myself and others that I'm really just fine, and to begin to share my struggles with a little handful of brothers I deeply trust. To repent of my sins, like the prodigal younger brother, instead of just airbrushing the flaws in my self-image, like the older one. And here's my Lenten challenge for you. There is something in your life that cries out for God's mercy and forgiveness and healing. I know that because you are a human being - we all are. That's true of all of us. But what is it for you, for you personally and specifically, that God the Father of Prodigals is seeking to heal? And what can you do to not be so alone with that stuff? Who can you ask for help? What part of your brokenness is God longing to heal, and whom might God want you to seek out as your companions in the journey? Think about those questions. If you begin to get some answers, the road of real repentance and healing and transformation will begin to open up in front of you. 4
It's the Fourth Sunday of Lent. Are you ready yet to put down your spiritual airbrush and pick up some spiritual power tools? Amen. The Reverend Michael Scott Seiler The Fourth Sunday in Lent 2010 (Year C) The Parish of Saint Matthew 5