Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."So Jesus told them this parable:
"There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"
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This story of the prodigal son and his brother appears in the Gospel of Luke on the heels of two other parables. The story of the lost sheep - in which a shepherd leaves his 99 sheep in order to find the one who was missing. And the story of the lost coin in which a woman who has 10 silver coins, loses one and then lights a lamp, sweeps the house, searches until she finds it, and then throws a party to share her joy. All three stories are told while Jesus was addressing a large crowd that had gathered to hear him. The part of the crowd that had drawn near to hear him were the tax collectors and sinners. And the other part of the crowd that is singled out were the Pharisees and the scribes, who grumbled about how Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. Looking at the context, its pretty clear that it is these two groups the tax collectors and the sinners, and the Pharisees and scribes, the outsiders and the insiders that are the object of Jesus' three parables of the lost and the found.
Earlier this year, in one of our small groups, we looked at this parable of the lost son and the loving father. In our group we explored the question of which character in the story we most identified with. Examining their own lives, their own experience with families, some clearly saw themselves as prodigals. Children who had taken a wayward course and had returned to the fold and were embraced. Others saw themselves as the more responsible older brother and harbored some resentment toward irresponsible siblings who had done nothing to merit the love of the father. Some saw themselves as the father figure, called on to love children that were either rebellious or steadfast. Others looked at the story and said, "Wait, where is the mother here? Didn't the mother have anything to do with all the comings and goings of her children? The question of the role of the servants in this story was also raised. Those participants in the story who were sent to fetch robes, kill fatted calves, pass on news of the brothers, but aren't fully apart of the family. It is a story that we can't help but involve ourselves in. We have all either felt the joy of being loved by a forgiving parent, or we have felt the sting of the absence of that love. If you are a parent, you have known, or you most certainly will know, how it feels when your children leave your home and take an uncertain path.
I once lost my daughter. It was about 10 years ago, and I was hiking in the mountains of Northern New Mexico with my 13 year old son Nate and my 9 year old daughter Lillian. Leaving our campsite early in the morning, we hiked up countless switchbacks, through pine forests, across the sunny and windswept grasses of the treeless meadow known as Pecos Baldy, and continued on in the late afternoon toward the rugged knoll called Truchas Peak. Lillian had hiked strongly all day, carrying her small load of clothes and sleeping gear. As the day wore on, I could see that she was tiring and I offered to carry her pack. She gratefully accepted the offer and was soon bounding down the trail with a lightness of foot that characterizes her way of being. She asked if she might take Tyke and walk ahead of her brother and me. I sympathized with her desire to be alone with her dog, having spent much of my childhood in such understanding company, so I agreed, taking pleasure in the independence she was showing in unfamiliar and challenging terrain.
Within a few short minutes, she and the dog were out of sight. I quickly became uncomfortable with her absence. I know the Pecos area well, having visited there for more than 20 years, hiking its miles of rugged trails. Until that moment I had never felt remotely fearful, nor seriously considered the dangers that could lie behind every bend in the trail. I called for Lillian. I called for Tyke. There was no answer. There were no forks in the trail and it was plainly marked, so I didn't fear that she might have accidentally veered off the path, but my gnawing apprehension was that Tyke might have chased a rabbit into the dense forest that surrounds the trail, and that Lillian might have headed after him.
Nate and I picked up our pace, calling for Lillian, whistling and calling for Tyke. We grew more and more concerned. Ten, twenty, eventually, thirty very anxious minutes passed and there was still no sign of them. We bounded ahead, moving as quickly as our packs would allow us, continually calling Lillian's name and visually sweeping side to side, looking through the now very threatening forest, searching for a sign that they had left the trail. Evening was quickly approaching and even though it was midsummer, the nights are cold here in the lower Rockies, and without her pack, Lillian had no sleeping bag.
At this point I grew very concerned. Lillian was a small child and normally not too adventurous. I had a difficult time imagining her little body crawling over the large tree trunks that had fallen over the trail or climbing up to unlatch a locked gate that crossed the trail at one point. I decided that we must have passed her and that I should ditch my pack and retrace my steps. I instructed Nate to continue walking up the trail, calling out to Lillian and Tyke, in case we simply had not caught up with them yet.
After a hard look and firm instructions to my daughter's steadfast older brother, I turned around and started jogging back. The surrounding forest, normally a place of refuge for me, now seemed ominous and threatening. I ran as quickly as I could while still keeping an eye out for any sign of Lillian or Tyke. I called constantly, "Lillian, Tyke! Here boy!" and then I whistled for Tyke, over and over again. I listened intently as I ran, hoping to hear Lillian's small voice amidst the sound of the wind moving through the trees.
Now deeply fearful, I turned around and began a faster run in the direction of my son, and, I hoped, my daughter. Still calling, looking, listening, I could see that twilight was not far away. The sun had dropped behind distant Truchas Peaks and a chill was already hanging in the mountain air. I ran and called and listened until, finally, I could hear my son in the distance calling me. I raced toward him and could hear his footsteps approaching me around the next bend in the trail. Much to my relief, his first words were, "I found her. She's okay." Nate had encountered her on the trail, happily skipping along with Tyke, reveling in her independence. Her brother had quickly curtailed that freedom. He insisted that she sit on a log beside the trail and stay there until he returned. When we caught up with her, she was sitting most unhappily on the log where a horde of horse flies had found her and caused her to weep. Our tears mingled, though mine were tears of joy.
We worship a God intent on restoring us to full fellowship with the family. A god who reaches out, who runs to meet those who find themselves outside of the family. It is the outsider, those who feel like they don't belong, that in parable after parable we find to be the object of Christ's loving concern. At the same time, let's not forget that that the Pharisees and scribes were listening to this story as well. And the lesson for them was that they too, in their righteousness, were also welcome in the kingdom. Just as the father welcomed his prodigal son, so too did he tell his steadfast child, "Son, your are always with me, and all that is mine is yours." He too was called into the celebration, a celebration that includes all God's children.
Here is a story of celebration in the middle of Lent. A homecoming where the father welcomes the wandering child with open arms and doesn't ask him what he did with the money. Instead the father says, "Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet and let the party begin.
It's hard for most of us to understand that we really do have that kind of religion. That ours is a faith that points out again and again the abundance of God's mercy and love and forgiveness - that ours is a faith that is based on grace. That there is nothing we can do - nothing - that can result in our not being welcomed into the body of Christ.
For some of us, it seems a hard truth to accept that God's love is unconditional. We can't quite grasp that if we've wandered off, far from the path, that we worship a God that welcomes us back, no strings attached. If you are a visitor with us this morning, on behalf of the family of All Saints', we simply say to you, "Welcome home."