Sermon 3/21/04
Role Playing - Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
(view lectionary notes for this text)
If last week we feared that our unfamiliarity with the gospel lesson would make it difficult to understand what Jesus was saying, today I fear we have the opposite problem: our extreme familiarity with this parable of the Prodigal Son makes us all too likely to miss learning anything new from the text, as we assume we already know what this story is all about.
We know this story: the younger son demands his inheritance from his father. He leaves home, and lives beyond his means. Soon, he fins himself in great need. He makes his way home, hoping to at least find welcome as a servant. But when he arrives home, his father welcomes him with open arms, kills the fatted calf, and throws him a party. Meanwhile, the older son is none too pleased, wondering why his father never appreciated him and his obedience in this way. The father replies, "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."
This parable seems so clear. And indeed, many themes of this parable are easy to grasp. But we can always dig deeper, take a new approach, and challenge our old assumptions. For instance, when I was reading the text this week, I was surprised to realize it was not the act of demanding his inheritance and leaving home that got the younger brother in trouble: these actions were actually O.K. in themselves. Only when the son was on his own did he take up the 'dissolute' lifestyle that got him into trouble.
What are the details that we miss with familiarity? How can we look with fresh eyes? One common way to approach this text is to try to place ourselves in the role of one of the characters of the parable. Most often, people seem to choose to see themselves as the younger brother, the Prodigal Son himself. Why is this? Do we have a center-stage desire that reveals itself in our casting of ourselves as the star? Perhaps it's just the reassurance that no matter how many times we screw up, God keeps accepting us back home.
On the other hand, perhaps we can picture ourselves as the older son too. Something in human nature makes us want to ensure that everyone else has as hard a time at things as we have had, not easier. My older brother is fond of telling me how much easier the rest of us kids had it with our mother than he did. Perhaps you've told someone younger about how hard things were when you were young and had to walk to school barefoot to school, in the snow, uphill both ways. Recently, I heard some proposed legislation to General Conference that would make the probationary period before ordination, the period I am in right now, one year shorter. However, the change would not work retroactively, so I would still have to complete three years of probation. My reaction? "Well, if I have to do three years, then they should have to do three years." If I think about the situation rationally, I feel differently. But my gut reaction is to make sure it's not any easier for those who come behind me. After all, didn't I have to work as hard as they did? This reaction is that which seems to motivate our older brother in this story. Perhaps he does not in principle want his father to reject his brother when he returns home. It just seems unjust that so much fuss should be made over the one who has ventured astray, when he's been at home all this time, being an obedient and faithful son.
But whatever role we choose for ourselves, we do well to remember why Jesus shares it in the first place. Jesus tells this story, one of a series of similarly themed parables, in response to the Pharisee and the scribes, because they are publicly voicing their disgust over those with whom Jesus has chosen to spend his time. Instead of simply mingling nicely with his social and class peers, he keeps spending time with those most would usually seek to avoid: sinners, tax collectors, adulterers, prostitutes.
We simply are not following Jesus very well, because we don't believe he really means we're supposed to mix with sinners. We seem to fall into this trap of thought from all sides. First, as I mentioned, we think of ourselves as the younger brother, not the older. We get the idea that we're the sinners Jesus mingles with in his ministry. We're ever going wayward, and we thank God that Jesus still wants to have something to do with us. If we look back at the beginning of our passage though, we find that Jesus is dealing with two groups of people. There are the Pharisees and scribes on the one hand, and on the other, those they deemed to be sinners, those with whom Jesus was spending so much time. Did that mean the scribes and Pharisees were free of sin? Of course not. But though they sinned as much as the next person, they didn't belong to the group of people categorically dismissed as sinners by proper society. They weren't tax collectors. They weren't prostitutes. Their sins weren't flaunted and revealed to all. So indeed, though we certainly are sinners, most of us probably don't qualify for the younger brother status Jesus and the scribes and Pharisees are talking about. We're just the regular run-of-the-mill sinners. What that means is that Jesus is spending his time eating with somebody else, and insisting that we're supposed to do the same.
Second, when we do see fit to do ministry with those we consider in some way beneath us, with those who would fall into that society-shunned category of sinners, we get the idea that it's enough to provide some sort of service: perhaps a food pantry for those who are hungry, a rehab program referral for those struggling with addictions, a prison ministry for inmates - but that it's ok if we don't want to be friends, companions, with the people we serve. We want to share the gospel message with sinners, along with suggestions for how to mend their ways, we just don't want to share ourselves. After all, what kind of good Christian would hang out at the bars? What would you think if I spent my weekends at parties with drug users? If your neighbors in the pew next to you also spent time at a "gentleman's club"?
We excuse ourselves by insisting we don't want to be tempted, that we don't want our lives or our children's lives to be full of negative influences.Christ calls us to be pure and to live holy lives: surely spending our times in shady places with shady people won't bring us purity, will it? I wonder, though, how strong our faith is, when we never consider how strong of a positive influence our lives might be to others, instead of always worrying about how much of a negative influence others will be on us. It doesn't speak well of our trust in God to think we will always be so easily led off God's path. Imagine if Jesus only kept company with the scribes and Pharisees, worrying about the behaviors of the tax collectors somehow rubbing off on him!
When we finally are convinced that our direction, our energy, should be in serving the outcast sinners, we still can't let go of the older brother's sense that ought to be done to the younger sibling to make things fair. If the younger brother comes penitently ready to act as servant, we older brothers are all too ready to hand a list of demands, ways in which forgiveness can be earned. But here, Jesus encourages us to choose a different role for ourselves. The father in our parable offered no reprimands, only compassion. He offered no chastising, no moralizing, no judgments, no ultimatums, no payments to be completed. He just offered his young son his open arms. In the same way, Jesus shared God with sinners by sharing himself. Jesus shared hope of a different way of life with them by sharing forgiveness, sharing grace, sharing unconditioned acceptance. Jesus spends much more time preaching at scribes and Pharisees then he does preaching at the outcast sinners. With the sinners, Jesus simply spends his time, spends himself, trusting that simply by sharing love, transformation can, would, did take place.
Christ calls us to do the radical work of simply being friends with people that everyone else writes off as valueless. Christ calls us to do the radical work of withholding judgment in a world that is so quick to hand judgment out to whole groups of people. Christ calls us not to separate ourselves from those who seem farthest from God's reach, but to get right into the center, and change lives by giving ours to those who need such hope.
"Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, 'This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.'"
God welcomes us, sinners though we are. Are there any we can not welcome too? Open your arms. The one who was lost has been found safe in God's love. Amen.