Scripture: Luke 15:11-32
The last two sermons have been dealing with themes that I consider fairly familiar ones at Sojourners. Two weeks ago I was talking about doubt, which I think is a comfortable topic and a common experience among us at Sojourners, not for everyone necessarily but for a good portion of us. And it’s a familiar preaching topic for me, since as I pointed out, the lectionary every year includes the story of the disciple Thomas and his legendary post-resurrection doubt regarding the idea that Jesus was alive after all, not dead and gone. So I’ve done a number of homiletical takes on the topic of doubt over the years. Last week, it was the idea of being on a journey, again suggested by the lectionary passage which was about the disciples on the road to Emmaus, but also suggested by the fact that understanding faith as a journey is a pretty common and comfortable thing for us here at Sojourners, and a pretty comfortable thing for me, in spite of the fact that I am sometimes uncomfortable with how comfortable that concept can become.
Today, I think the scripture is a familiar one, the passage usually referred to as the parable of the prodigal son. It’s not the lectionary scripture for today. But I thought that since today is a communion Sunday, I would reflect on another familiar Biblical theme, the image of shared meals. Actually, there was such a scene in last week’s scripture, as Jesus shared a meal with the forlorn disciples along the road to Emmaus and it is said that “he was at table with them, and he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he vanished from their sight.” It was probably that section from last week’s scripture that suggested this week’s theme to me, especially as I knew we would be sharing communion today. But then I began to think also of the many scenes in the gospels where Jesus shared meals with people, or where he himself used that as a device in the stories he told. And in that context, the parable of the prodigal son occurred to me. I’ve been dealing with familiar things recently. Why not keep it going and deal with what has to be considered, along with the parable of the Good Samaritan, one of Jesus’ more familiar stories. Besides. I thought, I’m not sure I’ve preached on this parable at Sojourners, as familiar as it is. So, all that is how it came to be that we’re looking at the parable of the prodigal son this morning.
For some people, I know, this parable is not only a familiar one but a favorite one. It is a favorite in fact for people across a fairly broad theological spectrum, from sort of hard-line evangelists to the more kindly kind of preacher who just wants to say “God loves you”.
I’m sure I’ve heard sermons of what I just referred to as the hard line evangelical type that were based on this parable and where the preacher was focusing mostly on the prodigal himself. It is, after all, generally called the parable of the prodigal son. Anyway, this kind of sermon would focus heavily on the actions of the prodigal in coming to his senses and deciding to come home, to return to his father’s house, mending his ways and begging forgiveness as he did so. That would be presented as the model for all repentant sinners. Of course there is the assurance in the background that if you did so, that God would receive you lovingly and would rejoice at the fact that you had come to your senses, but the focus would be on the need for repentance and the need to make that decision to come to Christ or throw yourself on the mercy of God. I can’t tell you exactly where I’ve heard this sermon, but I’m convinced that I have heard it—more than once. And if that’s not the case, then the devil has put that sermon in my mind, because it has been planted there somehow. It’s rattling around in my head, and it seems quite real.
And then, of course, there would be those who would focus instead on the father as an image of God, who would suggest that this is not really the parable of the prodigal son but the parable of the loving father, or some have said the waiting father. The emphasis here would be on the loving nature of God, who far from judging or condemning us for our sinful ways or demanding our repentance, always has a place in the divine heart for those of us who have wandered off in any way, always yearns for our return, and runs out to meet and embrace us before we have had a chance to even say “I’m sorry.” It is a story in other words about the extravagant love and unconditional grace of God, who cares only that a child has found his way home. For those who see the good news of the gospel message being that God’s love for humanity is just such a thing as depicted here, this can also be a favorite parable. It’s not so much that we are to think of ourselves as comparable in every way to the prodigal. It’s more that if God’s love extends so overflowingly to the prodigal, then surely it is extended just as generously to all of us. And I’m sure there are many other reasons why people might be particularly fond of this parable.
There are also some reasons why people might be not so fond of it. Mostly I think because the story doesn’t end with the return of the prodigal and the heartwarming embrace between father and son. It goes on to say that the father not only was overjoyed to see his son. He decides to throw him a lavish party. And since the prodigal had already wasted his portion of his family inheritance, presumably the cost of this lavish party would be coming out of the inheritance of the other son, who now makes an appearance in the story, who we find is an elder son who never left home, worked diligently at the family business, has been a good steward of family finances, has done everything you might expect of an elder son and then some, and who has never had a lavish party thrown for him, maybe hasn’t felt very appreciated at all when you get right down to it, which was sort of all right—not really, but sort of all right—until this brother shows up who gets all this royal treatment which the elder brother has never gotten a taste of.
Jesus has him complain to his father about it. “What’s the deal here? This isn’t fair. If it wasn’t for me, you wouldn’t even be able to give a party like this—for anyone.” And some of us might complain about this part of the parable too. It isn’t fair. Is that the way Jesus wants us to view God? Not so much as someone whose love is just more than we could ever imagine or deserve but one whose love is distributed arbitrarily and unfairly. Does God take the good people of the world for granted and reward people who make a total mess of their own lives and other people’s as well, do their best to mess up the life of the world for that matter, and then when they realize their way of life is not sustainable, that is when they run out of money, then and only then do they have a change of heart. Are we really supposed to like this story? Are we really supposed to like the image of God in this story?
I sympathize with people who object to this part of the story. I’m an elder brother. I’m literally an elder brother. I’m also figuratively an elder brother in the sense that I identify myself much more with the qualities of the elder brother in the story than with the prodigal. I was in my growing up years a responsible, achieving, non-rebellious, do-what-was expected kind of child—mostly all of those things anyway—who never quite got the hang of being an acting out teenager and who when eventually making life decisions of my own and leaving home still did not go off and waste the family fortune, or half of it, in riotous living. I don’t say all this boastfully. Jesus certainly doesn’t present being an elder brother type as something to boast about, and being an elder brother type I’m willing to say that at least for some of us being an elder brother type may involve not only having a commendable sense of responsibility but also a noticeable lack of gumption or imagination or whatever other qualities might lead one to step outside the boundaries of polite society. Nevertheless, I think I have some understanding of where the elder brother in the story is coming from when he complains about the way things are going, and some understanding of where some readers might be coming from when they object to this part of the parable.
But in the end that’s not where I come down, because here’s the thing. The parable is not, so far as I’m concerned, about the prodigal and his need (or our need) to come to our senses and repent and realize that we live by the mercy of God. OK if people want to play up that message. I don’t believe it’s at the heart of the parable. It’s also not about the elder son and his concern for the fairness of the proceedings. Clearly Jesus didn’t tell the parable to offer an example of how to be an even handed parent who lets all the kids know equally how much they are loved and appreciated for who they are. It is not even a parable, in my view, about the unconditional, exuberant love of the father as a reference to the unconditional, exuberant love of God, though again, OK if people want to make a lot of that message too.
For me, this is a parable about the kingdom of God, the reign of God, as just about all of Jesus’ parables are. You’ve heard me say it before, and you’ll hear me say it again. Just about everything Jesus said and did pointed to the hoped for reign of God that he taught his followers to pray for. And especially the meals, the parties, the banquets. From real life dinner parties where he welcomed the unwelcome, people being lowered through the roof into the middle of a gathering, sitting at table with people you weren’t supposed to be caught in the general vicinity of, inviting himself to dinner at the home of a person who wouldn’t have dared invite him, surprising impromptu dinners along the road or beside the lake, and then the stories of banquets and parties. In each case, whether in the stories Jesus told or in the story of his ministry, the parties typically consist of a very unlikely collection of people, because in the kingdom of God the boundaries which have divided us this way and that and separated us into all sorts of groups will be broken down, will disappear. And the only reason the gospel meals and parties and banquets seem to consist of such unlikely collections of people is because we have grown so accustomed to the ways we have divided ourselves up that anything else seems unlikely. All the scenes of people gathering to eat around a common table, to party, or to banquet, if you will, all of them are visions of God’s reign where our divisions have been overcome at last. There is a point here which we should be very clear about. The stories about Jesus being at table with tax collectors and sinners are not stories that are intended to admonish us to be kind to the less fortunate. I think sometimes, maybe often, they are treated that way. But all the images of dinners, parties, and banquets are not there to tell us to be nice to the underdog. They are there to point us all toward the reign of God, where God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and where our joy and our belonging, everyone’s joy and everyone’s belonging, is to be found.
And so with the parable of the prodigal son (or whatever name you choose to give it) the focus as I see it should not be on the prodigal, on the elder son, or on the father. The focus should be on the party, which is precisely the point of the story. The party is not a kind of excessive expression of welcome home for a stray member of the family. It is what the story is about, the reunion, the unlikely reunion of God’s people. Repentance is sometimes called for. Fairness is always a worthy value. God’s gracious love and mercy are fundamental parts of the Christian gospel. But it is the reunion of God’s people in the kingdom of God that I believe was Jesus’ heart’s desire and that is at the heart of his message to us.
So too when we gather to eat around a common table, as we do today, it is about a vision of God’s reign, a prayer for the reunion of God’s people. It may be lots of other things too. Communion has many layers of meaning and it resonates for each of us in different ways. But among its many meanings is this vision of God’s reign where our divisions have been overcome at last. It is why everyone, without exception, is welcome at this table. It’s more than that. It is not only that all are welcome to the table. The table contains a vision of the reunion of God’s people. It is, in its very nature, a welcome table. Amen.
Jim Bundy
May 3, 2009