Luke 15.11-32
Then Jesus said, “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 gather all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property is 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 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. Btu 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.’”
All preachers struggle with the familiar texts. Easter. Christmas. What can we say that hasn’t already been said? Yet, on those occasions, preachers do well to remember that people don’t show up on Christmas or Easter to hear what we have to say. They come for the music, the candles, the lilies. They come with expectation, desperation, and even hope.
But today isn’t Easter, and it isn’t Christmas. And somehow today is worse. Today we’ve got a text that even if you’ve never been to church before you’ve probably heard it before. The Parable of the Prodigal. A son squanders his inheritance, returns home and a party is thrown.
Outrageous stuff really.
Well, Fred Craddock, teacher of preachers, also suffered from this particular ministerial malady, how to tell a story that everyone already knows. So, one Sunday, he decided to tinker with it.
That’s a dangerous thing to do.
But he did it. And so he stood before the people of God and told them a different version of the prodigal.
There was a man with two sons and the younger one tells his dad to drop dead so he can claim his inheritance early. Well, the man doesn’t die, but he cashes out on his retirement portfolio and hands half of it over. It only takes a few weeks for the boy to blow it all on things you’re not supposed to talk about in church. The boy falls on hard times and even finds himself digging for food scraps among the trash. But he comes to his senses, and realizes that he could go home. It might not be great, but it has to be better than this.
So home he goes. And when he knocks on the door he father lays into him and rips him a new one. “I worked my whole life for you and you wasted it. And then you have the gall to come home? There’s no place for you here any more. You don’t deserve it.”
The father slams the door in his younger son’s face. He walks into the living room and lays eyes on his elder son, the one who stayed home, the one who has been responsible, works for the family business. And the father says, “Look, your brother just tried to come home and seeing him made me realize that I haven’t fully appreciated you. So we’re going to throw you a party tonight. Here, take some money and buy yourself some new clothes, invite all your friends, you deserve this.”
And from the back of Fred Craddock’s little church, a little woman shouted out right in the middle of the sermon, “That’s the way it should've been written!”
Let’s talk plainly shall we? The parable of the prodigal isn’t fair. It’s all wrong, right?
The father in question gives over to his son’s request for an early shot at the inheritance, effectively dying to whatever the rest of his life could’ve been. He seemingly ignores the elder son all while the younger son wastes the life that was given to him in what scriptures call dissolute living, let your imaginations run wild with that one.
And then, when the kids comes home, before he even has a chance to apologize, repent, make amends, the dad is tackling him in the street and pummeling him with kisses.
And then he clothes him in the finest robe, gives him a ring, kills the fatted calf and throws him a party.
And then (!) when his older son has a fit about the whole thing, not unwarranted, the father lays into him about his wasting the opportunity to celebrate his recently lost and now found brother.
And then (!) Jesus doesn’t even tell us what happens next! The story ends on a cliffhanger, a dramatic ellipsis, and we do not know whether to elder brother celebrates or stays in his anger.
So here’s my question: Why is this parable so popular?
Well, it’s all about grace.
Grace used to be our word, that is a word of the church. But it’s been out there floating around for so long now that its not entirely clear what we’re talking about when we talk about grace.
I’ve long appreciated Frederick Buechner’s unpacking of the word. “Grace,” he says, “is something you can never get, but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about anymore than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth… And a crucial eccentricity of the Christian faith is the assertion that people are saved by grace; there’s nothing you have to do, there’s nothing you have to do, that’s nothing you have to do.”
And that, to our modern ears, is downright foolishness. We can’t quite wrap our heads around it because grace is completely counter-intuitive to the workings of the world.
It’s why that woman shouted out in the middle of Craddock’s sermon.
The voices we hear six, and sadly sometimes seven, days of the week, from inside and out, tell us that we will get what we deserve. Everything in life is therefore contingent on our ability to make something of nothing. And, if things continue to remain in the nothing it’s our fault.
Dave Zahl calls this a hierarchy of deserving. That, without really giving it much thought, we place others and ourselves into these categories of earning and deserving such that the externals of our lives become indicative of our worth and value.
In other words, if we work hard, we will receive benefits in proportion to our efforts, no more and no less. At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work, until it doesn’t. It doesn’t take long to look around and see people who have done nothing but have everything, and people who have done everything and have nothing. Meritocracy is a myth.
And even though we might know this to be true, that doesn’t really stop us from giving ourselves over to it constantly. The pressure of deserving is like a treadmill that runs us ragged, always humming under our feet, and we’ve been on this treadmill for a very long time.
Jesus’ particular parable of the prodigal comes at a time in which all of the tax-collectors and the sinners are coming near to hear Jesus. And the Pharisees, the do-gooding religious types, grumble among themselves because they cannot believe Jesus has the gall to “welcome sinners and eat with them.”
Even in the first century, the hierarchy of deserving is present. According to those among the religious elite, the tax collectors and sinners don’t deserve to be near Jesus. Whether or not he’s the Messiah is beside the point. The outcasts are outcasts for a reason. They don’t deserve anything.
And so Jesus responds to their grumbling with a story that results in even more grumbling. The prodigal is Jesus’ penultimate proclamation about the business of grace. To quote Dave Zahl, “Grace is one-way love. Grace is a gift with no strings attached. It is non contingent, compassionate alliance. Unmerited favor. Sacrificial love that seeks a person out at their most unlovable.” Zahl also says that “grace is the answer the Bible gives to the question of God’s disposition toward troubled people like you and me.”
And that’s really the crux of the whole parable. Neither of the brothers deserve anything and yet both of them are given everything. No matter how good we might think we are, even if we treat others with love and dignity all the time, when it comes to sin, Jesus says its the thought that counts.
It’s not an easy thing to admit or confront, but none of us is righteous.
At some point or another we will be the younger brother with foolish decisions and heartbreaking actions. And at some point or another we will be the elder brother with self-righteous indignation and judgment over and against all the younger brothers in our midst.
It’s really a terrible parable. At least according to the terms of the world. It’s unfair and frustrating and more than a little unnerving. And yet, grace is fundamentally unfair, otherwise is wouldn’t be grace. It’s completely unfair because what we think is good and right and true matters little to God. Ultimately, none of us can hold a candle to the fire of the prodigal father who sees what we cannot.
Instead of shutting the door in our face, instead of abandoning us to our own mistakes, God gives us Jesus. And that’s a relief.
It’s a relief because no one gets what they deserve and the people who don’t deserve anything get everything!
The prodigal perfectly proclaims the paradox of the gospel: Jesus dies and is resurrected for us whether we deserve it or not. Like the younger brother, we don’t even have to apologize before our heavenly Father is tackling us in the streets of life with love. And like the older brother, we don’t have to do anything to earn an invitation to the party, save for leaving our judgments and self-righteousness behind.
Contrary to how we might imagine it, or even experience it, the whole ministry of Jesus isn’t dependent on our deservings, or our abilities, or our morality, or our faithfulness. Instead, it’s all about the God of the good time who is just dying, literally, to share it with us.
As we mentioned before we had VBS all week at the church. The theme was “Egypt: Jospeh’s Journey From Prison To Palace.” And I, as the storyteller, was the titular Joseph. Each night I gathered with the groups here in the sanctuary to tell them “my” story.
On the first night we met in the narthex turned prison cell where I talked about hope.
Later, I shared about being elevated to the Pharaoh’s palace because of my special ability. Then we talked about wisdom and the decision to save food for seven years. Next my good for nothing brothers came to Egypt looking for food and we talked about anger and forgiveness. And that night I asked the kids what I should do. And, of course, one of the participants immediately said, “Don’t give them anything, they don’t deserve it, they threw you in that pit.” But before I had a chance to respond, one of the other participants said, “Of course they don’t deserve it. But that’s exactly why we have to help them.”
We finished the story on Friday with talk of celebration. And we had a dance party right here in the sanctuary, cutting up the rug as we reveled in the Good News of God’s grace.
It was a perfect way to conclude because Grace is a party. It’s the cosmic bash, the great celebration, the constantly goes after all the non-celebrants in the world. Grace begs the prodigals to come out and dance, and it pleads with the elder brothers to take their fingers out of their ears. The fatted calf is sacrificed so that the party can begin. Jesus goes to the cross and breaks forth from the tomb to make everything of our nothing.
We can leave the ledger keeping behind. We can let down our hair and take off our shoes and boogie on the dance floor.
We can do all of this because what was lost to the world of deserving, has been found in God’s kingdom of relief. Amen.