A sermon by Senior Minister John B. McCall, March 14, 2010
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Luke 15:11-24
What do Elliot Spitzer, Dave Letterman, Mark Sanford, Mark McGwire, and Andre Agassi have in common? (Oh, yeah, other than the fact that they’re all men!) Each of them has given us a public confession – a public acknowledgment of the wrongs they’ve done and the injury they’ve caused others.
The list could be much, much, longer, of course. I Googled “celebrity public confession” last week and got 238,000 hits. High profile celebrities betray both public and private trust while the rest of us look on in disappointment… or quietly thank God that no one wants us to stand in front of a camera to fess up about our own sins.
Columnist Matthew Continetti wrote in The Weekly Standard:
This is the age of irresponsibility. There are moments when it seems as though every figure who waltzes across the public stage is a cheat, a fraud, a liar, or a failure. Child abuse scandals have tarnished the image of Catholic bishops and priests. Steroid scandals have racked Major League Baseball, the Tour de France, and the Olympic Games. As the men who brought the financial sys¬tem to the brink of collapse were cashing in and remodeling their offices, the executives and union officials who bankrupted the American automobile industry were begging the public sector to give them aid. On any given day, any public figure might be arrested, assaulted, admit to infidelity, go bankrupt, or break down emotionally in front of television cameras. There are no consequences. (quoted in The Week March 6, 2009)
Many of us feel a deep sense of disappointment at the betrayals of trust that are so commonplace. We’ve lost our heroes… people who seem larger than life and who are worthy of our respect and admiration. I admit I’ve become jaundiced over the years and reluctantly assume that most famous people have skeletons rattling around their closets.
What we do know for sure is that some folks live their lives as though they’re somebody special, entitled to a larger piece of the pie, more accolades and greater prestige than others deserve.
The most recent celebrity confession was Tiger Woods who confessed that he had betrayed his wife and broken his marriage vows many times. And he said that because of his power and celebrity he felt a sense of entitlement.
People stray. People wander. People get lost. I’d guess most of us here have messed up at some point and had to face the decision of whether to admit it, drop our defenses and excuses and come clean… facing the truth that we’ve injured others and have inflicted wounds on our own souls.
And Jesus told a parable of a young man who took his inheritance and went away to a distant land and wasted it all on carousing and self-indulgence. In her poem Dreams, Mary Oliver penned these lines of:
Two great uncles who went west years ago
And got lost in Colorado
Looking for the good life.
I have a picture of them; each is smiling,
Glad to be young and strong.
But you never know, traveling, around what bend
The dreams will curve to an end,
And what will happen then.
The younger son in Jesus’ parable ended up slopping hogs and cleaning up others’ messes. And then he “came to himself” and realized that even his father’s servants were better off than he… “He came to himself…” Another translation says “He came to his senses.” He repented, which means literally “to think again,” and obviously, to come out with a different conclusion. The young man looked around, saw where he had ended up, and realized that his deepest longing was to return home. He so yearned to be back in the embrace of his father that he was willing to return as a servant – no claim of privilege or entitlement, but quite the opposite.
He knew in his rational mind that he had, indeed, treated his father like dirt, for when he demanded his inheritance it was if he were saying “I want now what I should really get only upon your death – so, yes, I wish you were dead so you weren’t standing between me and this great windfall that will gain me everything my heart desires.” He came to himself and headed home and as he went he prepared his speech, confessing his sins and throwing himself on his father’s mercy, offering to be a servant
The son was prodigal, all right. According to Webster’s, prodigal means lavish and wasteful, extravagant. It’s a close relative of the word prodigy, meaning someone of extraordinary talent. So, we often call Luke’s parable “the prodigal son,” the son who wasted his inheritance. We could easily call it the parable of the prodigal father, for the father was extravagant, even wasteful, with his love and forgiveness. His legacy wasn’t his money but his children and his love for them.
The Gospels tell us God is like this father. Jesus made the point very clear in his teaching. God is like a father. Scripture teaches that God is also like a mother, like a cloud, like a mother hen, like a spirit.
Adding Paul’s lesson from 2 Corinthians, we remember that, being like a father, God came to us in Jesus for one purpose: to reconcile the world to the holy one; to put together again the relationship between God and us that we have broken down by our own actions and failures. When we accept God’s love through Jesus Christ we become a new creation altogether.
When we’ve taken God’s good gifts and have run away to a foreign place; when we’ve finally come to our ourselves and realized that we want to go home, Jesus reminds us that God is waiting for us, ready to throw a party in a prodigal display of joy and delight. When we finally “come to our senses” and accept God’s gracious invitation, we’re transformed from earthy, worldly, jaded and broken creatures into a brand new creation. God’s love and forgiveness mold us into the body of Christ. That’s the theme of our two readings today.
A parable, of course, is often a subtle way of telling the truth that may escape some listeners. Remember here that Jesus was addressing Pharisees and scribes who were upset that Jesus had gone to dinner with tax collectors and other sinners, without apology. To them this proved he couldn’t be Messiah.
God, you see, always sided with the prim and proper, not with the outcast and sinful, right? God favored older brothers, not prodigal sons, right? So Jesus told a story that’s like the nose of a camel under the edge of the tent. “Let those who have ears to hear, hear.”
This story is so real and vivid and timeless that every one of us can place ourselves in one or more of the roles. This, indeed, is our story, and it’s true. Using the story, Jesus taught his listeners about the nature of God, the nature of the self righteous Pharisees, and the nature of the sinful late comers who flocked to him. Most importantly, Jesus affirmed that each of us is fashioned and shaped by the divine. We carry in us an authentic self and we struggle with all the temptations and seductions that pull us off course. Sometimes that still, small voice is extinguished all together. And sometimes we come to ourselves, come to our senses, and turn toward home and begin the long, often hard journey back to where we belong.
The righteous, older brother, behaving surprisingly like a Pharisee, was reliable, dutiful, and grown up before his time. He knew exactly how things should be. He followed the rules, toed the line, and expected everyone else to do the same. He believed he was loved because he was good. This good, responsible elder brother figured he deserved his share and more, because he’d never let his father down. Righteous older brothers are like that. Some of us know this truth up close.
But the reason for this story, of course, is to point to the nature of God who gives us the time and space to turn our backs and run away, and who yet doesn’t write us out of the will. The younger son had no use for father, even harshly requesting his inheritance as though his father were already dead. The father, in turn, had prayed his son was still alive and had waited patiently. Then one day, the younger boy came up the road, downcast, heart¬broken, and penniless; thoroughly defeated and knowing it. The father didn’t just accept the apology. He threw a party.
God is like that. Some of us know this truth up close.
Maybe you noticed at Tiger Woods’ press conference, his mother Kultida Woods was right at his side. She said “I’m so proud of you. Never think you stand alone. Mom will always be there for you and I love you.”
So, too, for the father in Jesus’ parable. He apparently had no trouble loving both his sons as different as they were. God’s like that, too, Jesus said. This God of the Gospel loved Pharisees and sinners, Christ centered and self centered and other-centered. Our God is “both/and,” not “either/or.”
I think the hinge to the parable is that all three characters felt alone, cut off, pushed apart, and ultimately, lost. Dag Hammarskjöld, in his journal, wrote: “What makes loneliness an anguish is not that I have no one else to share my burden, but this: I have only my own burden to bear.” [Markings, p. 71] When we isolate ourselves we become self absorbed, bogged down in the little aches and pains and opinions that we know so well. When we live in relationship, we must learn to consider others’ needs along with our own. This prodigal father wanted his sons to live together under one roof. He was much more concerned with relationship than with righteousness; much more focused on family than on formality.
So, here’s a lesson for us in the church. If this is the nature of God, doesn’t God desire that we embody the same extravagant, prodigal welcome? Doesn’t God calls us to be:
• A congregation for saints and sinners; suits and shirt sleeves; righteous and rebellious?
• A congregation for the biblically literate and the biblically uninformed?
• A congregation for the lovers of Kings James, New Revised, and The Message?
• A congregation for singers of Charles Wesley and Brian Wren?
• A congregation for those steeped in many church backgrounds and those who have no church background?
And doesn’t God call us all toward a deeper faith and joy in our discipleship, no matter who we are or where we are on life’s journey?
If we believe this story and the Gospel tell the truth about God, about Jesus and about us, we must be open and confessional, recognizing our brokenness and defensiveness. Here, by the grace of God, we create a safe community
No matter how far you’ve wandered, when you come to yourself and turn toward home you’ll encounter the loving embrace of God who has been waiting to welcome you.