Who are
you in this story? Who am I, for that matter? The characters are a father
and his two sons, although it could just as easily be any combination
of father, mother, brothers, and sisters. The gender is not the point.
The attitude is. This story which has been called the story of the Prodigal
Son, along with the story of the Good Samaritan, both of which appear
only in Luke's gospel, certainly rank as the most popular, and the best-known
stories of Jesus. But Jesus' point has not just to do with the repentance
of the Prodigal Son. It has equally to do with the love of his father
and the resentment of his brother. And so I ask again: Who are we in
that story, because there is room for all of us.
If any
of you remember my Advent sermon when I talked about identifying with
John the Baptist because of having played that role in a former parish's
production of Godspell, let me just add that in the same production
I also played the role of the resentful older brother in this story
of the Prodigal Son. And just like it was a little scary how much I
relished being able to point John the Baptist's finger at the congregation
and called them, "You viper's brood," it's equally scary how
much I could get into the part of the self-righteous, resentful older
brother in the Prodigal Son. Truth be known, whatever part in that story
you and I identify with there's always something of the older brother's
attitude in most of us that rings true.
But let's
get to the other two first.
Jesus
intends for the father figure in this story to represent God. He is
God because of God's unconditional love for us, a love with no strings
attached. This story doesn't say that the father approved of what the
younger son did, only that he welcomed him home and that the father's
forgiveness was extended even before the younger son could publicly
repent. Robert Frost once wrote, "Home is the place where, when
you have to go there, they have to take you in…Something you somehow
haven'to deserve."
But even
though in the story the father is meant to represent God, you and I
are meant to identify with the father and to ask ourselves to what extent
the love we have for our children or our parents or our brothers and
sisters or our friends is conditional on what it is we receive in return.
That's a hard thing to do, this unconditional love business, especially
if we have good cause to be angry, and maybe that's why in the parable
it's God who is represented by the father. But Lent is a good time to
think about one or two relationships that have disappointed us or troubled
us, and how it is we might hold those relationships up to the light
of God's forgiveness and God's open arms and God's compassion.
But then
that leads us to the object of the father's unconditional love that
was the Prodigal Son, the lost son, the profligate son. How do we identify
with him beyond the obvious examples of those who screw up their lives
so badly, ending up penniless and homeless and so destitute that the
soup kitchen is their last hope of survival? I don't know about you,
but I've never had a day in my life when I was hungry apart from my
own desire to be hungry. I've never been so completely destitute that
I've had to throw myself upon the mercy and charity of others to stay
alive. And yet, don't we all have moments of selfishness, of irresponsibility,
of ignoring conventional wisdom and at least fantasizing about what
it might be like to live as if there were no tomorrow. And what does
it mean to "come to your senses" in the realization that where
you find yourself in life is not where you're meant to be, that you've
wandered so far away from those values and circumstances you'd once
held in such high esteem? Apart from the big, bad ones, how do we deal
with the little indiscretions, the small lies, the little bit of cheating
which then become habitual and take us to that "far country,"
in which the Prodigal Son found himself when he "came to his senses"?
And how difficult is it for us once we've realized the truth to say
we're sorry, to own the truth that when we hurt ourselves we hurt others,
and when we hurt others, we hurt ourselves?
Which
then leads us to the older brother who had none of those problems. Far
from it! In fact, in every other circumstance we would commend his loyalty
as a son, his hard work, his worthiness-in short, all of those things
you and I have been taught are good things. In fact they are good things,
but like all good things they become susceptible to our pride, and our
righteousness creeps towards self-righteousness, and our sense of privilege
becomes entrenched with the conviction that we deserve it. That's the
exact scenario being played out in this story as the older brother seethes
at the generosity of his father's heart toward the sibling who had betrayed
his father but who had assuredly betrayed his older brother. What kinds
of feelings are engendered in us when we think our parents have been
unfair? What do we feel when a friend aces an exam we know they haven't
studied for, and we barely get a C (if people get C's anymore) after
working our tails off?
The point
Jesus makes is that the older son in his resentment is just as lost
as the younger son, but that the older son is just as loved as the younger
son, and that all of us need that healing and forgiveness and reconciliation
in real life as much as they are represented in the life of a story.
When
we come up to the altar rail for Healing in a few minutes or in our
prayers for healing, perhaps we should lift up not only physical need
but also emotional and spiritual need by which we find ourselves estranged
from others and therefore estranged from God. What is that far country
in which we find ourselves, how is it that we are cut off from those
places of safety and welcome? How might we experience the unconditional
love of God for us by offering up those things that separate us from
God and from others, or others from us?
In this
sacrament of Healing God is saying, "Come home, come home."
Amen.
