Joshua 5:9-12; Psalm 32; 1 Cor 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 Trinity Episcopal Church 4 th Sunday in Lent, Year C-March 18, 2007 The Rev. Linda Spiers This past week I made a quick trip to Virginia to attend the funeral of my young cousin s husband. I took the overnight train Tuesday night into Wednesday to Richmond. Early Wednesday morning a woman boarded the train in Alexandria and sat in the seat across the aisle from me, and we began talking for a bit. She was heading for the funeral of her ex-husband and just wanted to talk. Proudly she showed me a picture of her only son who had just moved out of her house to be on his own. He had recently graduated from college and had a good job. After our conversation we drifted back into our own little train world she writing thoughts she would offer at her ex-husband s funeral and I knitting a prayer shawl at that point. She had been fascinated about the notion of a prayer shawl. Later I overheard her strike up a conversation with the young man who sat in front of her a young man who looked to be about 19 or 20 and just a little younger than her own son. They chatted away, to most of which I didn t pay attention. But I did hear her ask him an interesting question, so, do you belong to a particular religion? No, he quickly replied, I don t believe in anything. She proceeded to do the most gentle evangelizing bold but gentle. She shared with him why God was important in her life what being a Christian means to her. They listened intently to each other, asking questions of each other and responding with honesty. It was as if the young man recognized the wisdom of this sage sitting next to me. 1
He was from a Christian home an upper middle class home. His mom was working on him to attend church, but church was boring, and he saw no reason for going. He didn t have to work, and his grandfather was paying for his college as well as giving him expendable income. It was different for the woman s son who did work for his education and now affords his independence. The young traveler was exploring and claiming to be a non-believer. I wondered later about the impact this woman had on him if someday he wouldn t be coming home or coming to a place of believing. We hear stories on this 4 th Sunday of Lent that tell of travelers people moving from one place to another being sought by a reconciling God. The Israelites now led by Joshua move from life in the wilderness to life in the Promised Land a land where they are fed not by manna but by the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. (Joshua 5:11). God gave the land to the Israelites. They didn t take it by force or earn it. God sought the Israelites over and over and gave them the land. Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt. (Joshua 5:9). Despite what the Israelites had done or not done, the reconciling God sought them and gave them the land. As the Israelites traveled across the Jordan God asked that they mark the spot where they moved into this holy ground. Joshua instructed that 12 Israelites one from each tribe pick up a stone from the Jordan and carry them to the place where they camped. From that day forward those 12 stones remain as signs among the Israelites. When your children ask in time to come, What do 2
those stones mean to you? then you shall tell them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the covenant of the Lord. When it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. So these stones shall be to the Israelites a memorial forever. (Joshua 4:6b-7). Tell your children what the stones mean In Luke we hear the familiar parable of the prodigal son. Some say it the story of the prodigal father or the beloved father. It is the story of one recklessly extravagant as Webster would define the word prodigal. I believe it s the story of a father s recklessly extravagant forgiveness and love the kind of recklessly extravagant forgiveness and love God has for each of us. The traveling young son in the parable squandered his inheritance until he had spent everything. A famine took hold of the land. He found himself in the status of a Gentile one who worked to feed pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. (Luke 1516). The laws of the Jews were very specific to what one eats: The pig, for even though it has divided hoofs and is cleft-footed, it does not chew the cud; it is unclean for you. Of their flesh you shall not eat, and their carcasses you shall not touch; they are unclean for you. (Lev 11:7-8). The traveling young son had sinned on many accounts and chose to come home. Maybe he would be forgiven Not only is the traveling young son forgiven, he s also given an extravagant welcome home. Jews and Christians alike welcome home sinners, but the 3
extravagant nature of this welcome home is beyond measure: the best robe, jewelry for his hands, sandals for his feet. Get not just a calf, but the fatted calf! There was music and dancing. This was reconciliation like the traveling young son had never imagined. He was lost and was found found and embraced in extravagant love. Henri Nouwen writes in his book entitled The Return of the Prodigal Son the following. More than any other story in the Gospel, the parable of the prodigal son expresses the boundlessness of God s compassionate love. And when I place myself in that story under the light of that divine love, it becomes painfully clear that leaving home is much closer to my spiritual experience than I might have thought Leaving home is much more than an historical event bound to time and place. It is a denial of the spiritual reality that I belong to God with every part of my being, that God holds me safe in an eternal embrace, that I am indeed carved in the palms of God s hands and hidden in their shadows. Leaving home means ignoring the truth that God has fashioned me in secret, moulded me in the depths of the earth and knitted me together in my mother s womb. Leaving home is living as though I do not yet have a home and must look far and wide to find one. 1 The prodigal father had two sons. He deeply loved the two sons. He had recklessly extravagant compassion for each one of them for the one he welcomed home and for the one who struggled to understand why. Of Jesus Luke s writer 4
says, This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them. (Luke 5:2). Jesus teaches with a parable about reconciling love the extravagance of it and the abundance of it. The Good News is that reconciling love is given to us freely not earned, but given freely. Just as God s reconciling love is given to each one of us, so are the ministry of reconciliation and the message of reconciliation. Who knows what impact the woman I met had on the traveling young man she met whether that Amtrak train becomes a sign of God s reconciling love? Who knows what impact you might have on the people around you? God s reconciling love is recklessly extravagant, boundless, and given to us all. It s ours to embrace in Jesus Christ and ours to share with each other. Amen. 1 Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Meditation of Fathers, Brothers, and Sons, (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 33, 35. 5