Luke 15: 1- 32, Sunday 9/29/19, Rooke Chapel Congregation
Family is a big word.
A sticky word.
For many of us, a given.
A rock.
Perhaps for you,
the word brings up memories of loud dinners around shared tables,
or quiet moments, vacations, sporting events,
love and connection and joy.
Perhaps for you,
the concept is more fraught,
strained and complicated and hard.
Perhaps painful,
or full of longing,
or regret.
For the students among us,
there are, I’m sure, manifold changes in your relationships
to parents and siblings.
New experiences of mature connection,
new possibilities,
new difficulties,
and, of course, for many during the college years,
we experience grief first-hand for the first time,
when we lose a close friend, professor, grandparent, or parent.
This, too, is family.
And it turns out,
our scripture’s story about family,
is more nuanced than we might care to think.
Jesus and Paul – the two foremost figures in the Greek New Testament,
were both single and childless (1 Cor 7)
And Paul admonishes followers at various points to keep it so.
Jesus says, in Luke Chapter 14,
“Whoever comes to me and does not hate father and mother,
wife and children, brothers and sister,
yes even life itself cannot be my disciple.”
This is not the stuff of “traditional family values.”
And yet,
the central metaphor of our faith,
is that of family:
Father, Son, and Spirit.
And, actually, when Jesus uses the word,
he usually uses the Hebrew Abba,
which we would better read as “Dada” or “Daddy”
than Father.
Complicated and opaque as it may be,
we put Trinity, family,
at the heart of God,
the heart of the Universe.
And in our scripture, at the middle of it all,
is this story.
The so-called Prodigal Son.
Charles Dickens and Ralph Waldo Emerson called it,
the greatest story ever told.
And I must say, I think I agree.
So I hope you’ll not read too much,
into my selection of the so-called Prodigal Son story,
for family weekend here at Bucknell.
I certainly hope you don’t feel like the Bucknell experience,
is primarily about “squandering fortunes on dissolute living”
But I suppose you can read a little into it.
Because College is surely about change,
of the good sort and the hard.
And a nice, open-armed embrace for our students can indeed go along way,
if they’ve got up to some challenging stuff.
But if we read this story as advice on parenting,
it’s possible we’re missing the point.
Parables are not fables,
as we’ve discussed before.
They disrupt our thinking,
more than they offer concrete and simple morals.
And I know we bit off a big chunk of scripture this morning,
so I want to be sure we don’t miss the beginning:
Which is righteous, religious folk, grumbling about Jesus.
They want to like Jesus, perhaps,
but he just keeps being too darn disruptive.
In this case, eating with sinners.
Now, eating,
unlike our 15 minute mad-dash through the Bison,
was a long and intimate act.
A commitment and an embrace of sorts.
And “Sinners” in this sense,
means those who are visibly, seriously, and habitually wrong.
The prostitutes and tax collectors and the like,
openly flouting conventional law and tradition.
The Pharisees, who strove to be righteous,
don’t appreciate Jesus’ intimacy with such folks,
and Jesus is forced,
as they say, to drop some wisdom.
“which one of you” he starts,
“having 100 sheep…”
And I imagine the Pharisees,
start to zone out, or roll their eyes a little bit.
Yeah, yeah, Jesus. Good shepherd,
stay with the flock,
we’ve heard all this before.
But instead,
Jesus gives what may be the worst shepherding advice,
in the history of the nomadic world.
I’m no expert in sheep,
but even I know,
that leaving 99 sheep in danger for the sake of one who wanders,
is a terrible way to shepherd.
The obvious answer to Jesus’ rhetorical question,
is “No one!”
Not one of us would do that for a sheep.
Not if we wanted to make it in the cutthroat world of shepherding.
So, Jesus resets:
okay, okay, what if you lost a valuable coin.
And we think,
sure,
we’d light all the lights,
and sweep under all the chairs.
Not to brag,
But I am something of an expert in losing things –
car keys, shoes, belts, pants, coffee cups, bulletins, you name it.
But never, in the history of my losing and finding anything,
have I called together my friends,
and neighbors for a, “I found my car keys party.”
Jesus is messing with us,
and the Pharisees.
He’s being funny.
And finally we get to the Prodigal Son,
the kid says “give me my inheritance.”
which is the first-century Palestinian way of saying,
“I hate you and never want to see you again.”
And the father goes, “Okay.”
And he – seemingly immediately,
blows all his inheritance on booze, parties, women, fraternity fees,
I don’t know what else.
food, drugs, island cruises,
What are the kids into these days?
Left with nothing,
he gets a job on a pig farm –
the lowest of the low.
And he stinks
and he despairs.
We know this story, though,
and how it ends,
so the scent of the fatted calf wafts into the first half of the story,
and we can’t fully feel or smell his despair,
but he sure can,
so he heads home to dad.
And notice
he’s not repenting in that moment.
He’s not seen the light,
he’s not sorry – despite his rehearsed line
he just knows he wouldn’t starve at home,
and hopes his father won’t turn him away.
And he goes,
and is welcomed with open arms.
and not just welcomed, but celebrated.
The loving father –
half his fortune frittered away –
gets out the good wine and the good meat,
to celebrate his son’s return.
This isn’t a father looking for contrition,
or asking if his son has learned his lesson.
He’s simply, preemptively filled with delight.
His son, who was lost, is found.
And they’re ready to celebrate.
And we laugh a happy laugh with them both.
And then it gets serious.
Because while I’m not much like the shepherd –
leaving my duties to seek the lost.
Or the woman,
who throws a party for her coin.
And despite some less-than-life-giving choices during my college years,
I never much empathized with the younger son,
nor much with the Father.
But the older brother?
He hits a little too close to home.
“A good man, in the worst sense of the word”
said Mark Twain.
Joyless, nose to the grindstone,
trying to earn what he thinks he’s due.
to this point,
the readings have a comic flair.
The shepherd is funny.
And the woman is really funny.
And the son, is sad, but in a funny way.
But the brother,
the brother’s the punchline.
And for the Pharisees,
and for me (and maybe you).
It ain’t so funny.
He’s all my pettiness.
All my self-righteousness,
all my schadenfraude
all my joylessness, condensed.
When his long-lost brother returns,
all he can say is:
“My brother spends half your money,
while I’m here earning your favor
and I couldn’t even get a goat?”
And even here,
the Father shows grace.
“All that’s mine is yours.”
All you have to do is ask, my son.
you don’t have to slave away to earn it,
because it’s already yours.
The secret is,
that the “good” brother is,
despite his good intentions,
just as lost as his profligate brother.
And the story stops,
before we learn which way he goes.
Will he accept the abundance of love his father shows?
Or walk away.
Really,
the story’s not about the Prodigal,
nor the Brother.
But about the father,
and we know he won’t run away.
This is certainly not a lesson in shepherding or banking.
Not even, I don’t suspect, a lesson in parenting.
Or siblinghood.
Like usual, this is a lesson about God.
And the ridiculous,
comical love
shown to us.
And the story assumes,
we won’t always react well.
Because somewhere deep inside us,
is the brother,
thinking we can earn God’s favor,
and the world’s success,
and make our own blessings.
And somewhere inside us,
is the younger brother,
eager to take what we have,
and eat, drink, and be merry,
til we’ve nothing left.
But deeper still,
within us,
or at least,
within the very heart of God,
at the heart of the very universe,
is grace.
An absurd and comical and sometimes terrifying love,
that says,
“even you who are lost the pursuit of short-term pleasure”
even you are loved here.
A love that says,
“even you who think you’re better than,
the people who are obviously lost.
Even you who are too caught up in your work,
and earning, and striving.”
Even you have a home here.
And the amazing thing,
is that we can participate in that love,
not only through song, and prayer and worship.
But when we support and care for our children,
and appreciate our parents,
we are part of that love.
And when we find friends,
who we start to call family,
we are part of that love.
And when we mess up real bad,
when we squander fortunes in dissolute living.
When we become so self-righteous as to seem irredeemable,
we have access to a deeper love,
rooted in forgiveness, justice, and hope.
Love which – like everything else,
we can make a mess of.
But which flows from and to the very heart of God.
So, what is family?
A reflection,
however imperfect,
of the sort of love and relationship we believe,
is at the very heart of the universe.
Family is something we can access,
whether or not we have good parents,
and kind children.
It is a signpost,
toward that deep, loving relationship,
which we all have access to,
which is at the heart of it all,
and ready to welcome us home,
not matter when,
again and again and again,
with the good robe waiting,
and the good food already ready.