The Church of the Pilgrimage March 6, 2016 Rev. Dr. Helen Nablo Luke 15:11-32 Jesus continued: There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, Father, give me my share of the estate. So he divided his property between them. 13 Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything. 17 When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants. 20 So he got up and went to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. 21 The son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. 22 But the father said to his servants, Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate. 25 Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 Your brother has come, he replied, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound. 28 The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, Look! All these years I ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him! 31 My son, the father said, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found. The Call of Home It s a story that will evoke memories of homecomings. This week I found myself remembering when I d come home from college on break, when the house I d grown up in (one I d willingly departed from) suddenly seemed so wonderful the wing chairs, the living room sofas. after the hard, cold surfaces of dorm life it all seemed so soft and luxurious. I found myself remembering the trips back (to my father s childhood home) in Canada, when the good china and festive Christmas crackers sat upon a lace covered table,
and around that table people who knew us people with whom we shared many such occasions, many such meals. I found myself remembering being in a Philadelphia airport, introducing family, in particular Ben, who was then in fourth grade, to his sister, fourteen months old, who had come all the way from China. I found myself also remembering the feeling when the plane lifted off, leaving China, this huge responsibility we felt in taking this little girl from her native soil, from one home to another. The story of the Prodigal Son stirs us on so many levels. Family. Home. Being separated. Coming back together again. Maybe in listening to Al read this morning you had home type memories personal homecoming stories come up for you. The story, however, begins with a break. A son making an audacious request. Father, give me the share of the property that belongs to me. In bible study this week we spoke of what a shocking thing it was, what the younger son did. First of all his arrogance: The property that belongs to me Oh no, it doesn t the middle eastern audience, Jesus audience would have cried. To ask for your inheritance, back then, was like saying to someone I wish you were dead. Why don t you just drop dead? Or you are dead to me. We imagined the tone of his voice, Father, give me the share of the property that belongs to me. We imagined the father watching him leave, and the long weeks and months of waiting and wondering if he was alive or dead. It isn t easy being a parent someone said. How is it we have children and they are oh so different? another said. We wondered some about the back story of the story. Had the younger son always been a little wild, Inclined to buck authority?
What was it that made him so desperate to flee? Some of you know the Wednesday morning bible study Has been meeting, for the winter months, at Amy Simpson s house. The parking is so much easier, and Amy really makes us feel at home. Amy in fact, treats me like a queen, setting aside a bowl of fruit salad since I can t eat the various gluten containing things that people eat with coffee and tea. Anyway, sitting there this week, listening to the group talk, I found myself looking out the big picture window of Amy Simpson s living room. So my chair looks out the window, where I can see yard and a big tree and the street, and on the other side of the street more yard, and trees and some bright blue sky. And because I am having a rather physical experience of the bible story, I share that. That long ago Jesus told a story about a father who waited at a large picture window, or perhaps an open air doorway. And that sense, that image made the story seem even more poignant to me. I could imagine the father trying to go on living his life, but how he never stopped looking across the valley for the one who had left so suddenly and so harshly. At that, our conversation turned to parents who have children who struggle with addiction and how they might hear this parable Jesus told. I kept thinking of that window. Of how it would be hard on a marriage there could be a tendency to be distracted by grief or distress Of how it would be hard to pay attention to other children when one of yours ups and leaves like that. I thought of the ache that would come not knowing where your child was, if they were dead or alive, and to know that your child wasn t even capable of understanding the distress they were causing, that being the nature of addiction and of how others, others in your community, would say things about your son or daughters character because they just didn t know or understand the grip addiction has on a person. This week Amy s picture window brought home to me the suffering love of one who can only wait,
the vulnerable love that cannot control, only wait. I know, of course, that the Father in the story is suppose to be God A God of love who waits for us to return But I think there are parents on nearly every street in town in every church and synagogue who know something of this gazing out a window Wondering, aching, and yearning. So though the story has the son Come to himself or come to his senses and turn his face toward home, and though there are these details in it (how the son thinks how he can live a little better back home as servant or maybe (perhaps?) as a forgiven son, and how he practices his little speech he s going to give his Dad) what I think Jesus really wants us to take notice of is the Father, what the Father does. Because before the son utters a word, when he is just little more than a speck off in the distance, walking in such a way, holding his head in such a way that a parent could not mistake him for anyone else the father runs out, runs out to greet him. And again, Jesus audience would have gasped. This was not what fathers did. Fathers in the ancient world, at least one commentator said, were remote and distant from their sons. Especially sons that would have embarrassed them, and caused distress among a wider community of folks, people who understandably didn t like land being sold off to strangers so wayward sons could have their inheritance and make fools of their fathers. Ken Bailey, a bible scholar with great understanding of Middle eastern village practices, surmises that there would have been a gauntlet, an angry gathering of townspeople ready to pummel and attack the son and that the father was running out not just to welcome but to protect. If you saw the You Tube of the young African American woman (a Trump protestor) being pushed around at a Trump rally, you get the picture. So the father runs out to greet him before the others can hurt him.. and then when all the son has said is Father
Abba Daddy I have sinned against heaven and before you, I am no longer worthy to be called your son, before he brings up the deal, make me a servant The Father throws his arms around him, and throws a party, one that everyone is going to be invited to because first, he, the Father, is that excited and second, because that is going to be the way to restore this son not just back to the family but back to community. The story, you see, is not just about a man and his sons. We in the West who are so individual, we tend to hear it that way. But middle eastern life in Jesus time was about community, and the story if about restoration in community. The father who runs to welcome the prodigal home knows that his son needs it, this restoration and he knows that his other son, the one with his nose out of joint needs the restoration too which is why he seeks that son out and invites him to come to the party as well. The story is about a father and two lost sons. As preacher Barbara Brown Taylor has pointed out both sons are lost to the father, one to irresponsibility and other to self-righteousness. This is a Father s Love, a love that will move in both directions. Not Father Love as most people knew it or experienced it in their day, back in Jesus day that is, but this radically inclusive seek and save the lost bucking social mores kind of Love, the very Love Jesus came to embody, the very love he was often criticized for. Remember why Jesus was telling the story in the first place. People were criticizing him for eating and drinking with sinners. So Jesus tells a story that is not about narrow gates, A story where neither son gets it right And yet arms are opened wide and everyone is invited to a party that is big enough for all. So we are to focus on the Loving Parent, on God. God who can love in all directions.
Not on which son we are like, or which son our children are like. If God reaches in both directions, in all directions, then God reaches for us because at one time or another, we are one son, or the other: We wander, or we hold ourselves off and God loves us still. It s a lot to get our head around. A lot to get our hearts around. But as preacher and professor Rodney Clapp says, Everytime God s active, stretching, searching, healing love finds someone and calls that person back home, it does not mean there is less for the rest of us. It means there is more. More wine. More feasting. More music. More dancing. It means another, and now a bigger, party. (Sermon Seeds, March 6, 2016, ucc.org website) God calls us home and to this table. And though we aren t suppose to sing Alleluia s in Lent I m going to lift one up anyway: Thanks be to God. Alleluia! Amen.