Coming home

Written by Marv Thiessen

Pastor Marv Thiessen

Calgary First Mennonite Church

March 14, 2010

 

COMING HOME

Luke 15:1-3,11-32

 

The biblical text for this morning is one of the most well-known texts in the Bible. You have likely heard a number of sermons preached from this text. I have preached on this text before in this church. As a result, as the preacher I’m inclined to think that I need to find some new nugget of truth in the text. I need to impress you with something you’ve never thought of before. In that search for novelty, I could be tempted to preach the parable of the prodigal son from a new perspective. Perhaps I could preach a sermon from the perspective of the fattened calf. Or I could preach a sermon addressed to hog farmers. That would make a lot of sense in this church, wouldn’t it? But no, the sermon on this text must remain true to the intent of the story. The story is a response to opposition to the grace of God so we must understand the story as such. The grace, forgiveness and love of God are lavish and extravagant in this story. Although they are that, they are not received well by the intended recipients all the time. As we observe the two sons whose father loves them deeply, we see examples of ways in which we may squander and resist the grace and love of God. As we reflect on ourselves in studying the story, we may be surprised at how God continues to call us home.

I said that this story is a response to opposition to the grace of God. We find that in the first two verses of Luke 15. Tax collectors and sinners were people who were excluded from the religious community in the time of Jesus. Yet, Luke tells us that these people were gathering around Jesus to hear him. Evidently this had been going on for some time because the leaders of the religious community, the Pharisees and teachers, responded negatively by muttering that Jesus welcomed sinners and ate with them. That tells us that this wasn’t the first time they had seen this. Jesus was already known for socializing with people who were excluded from the religious community. Although the religious leaders muttered, according to the story, Jesus knew what they were saying. He responded with three stories: stories intended to communicate God’s joyous and gracious response to people coming home to him that had previously been lost to him.

The third of those stories is our focus for today. We’ll review the basic elements of that story. Jesus tells of a farming father who had two sons. The younger son came to believe that he no longer wanted to be at home, working for his father and waiting for his inheritance. He was looking for fun and adventure now. He told his father he wanted his share of the inheritance so that he could leave home. His father granted his wish and the younger son set off to find his fun and adventure. It seems he did just that. But it didn’t last and he ended up broke and broken, working for a hog farmer. One day he came to his senses and recognized what he had thrown away and how worthless his chosen lifestyle had been. He determined to return home, not looking to be reinstated as a son who would yet own the family farm, but just to live at home, in a context of love and goodness.

When the son came home, the father received him compassionately and graciously. He honored and blessed this son who had rejected him and threw a homecoming party for him. The older son, who had lived a committed and responsible life on the farm, heard about his father’s response to his younger brother for whom he had little use and was angered. He refused to participate in the homecoming party. He acted bitter as he grouched that his father had never given him anything while he had remained at home, working responsibly on the farm. The father remonstrated with him and told him that they had to celebrate. This was family. This was significant. His son had come home. What had been lost was now found. A party was in order.

In this story, we see a home that was less than joyful. We can’t imagine that it was the father’s fault. The father, as he is depicted, wants nothing but the best for his two sons. Of course, they are expected to work and be productive, but they are loved. They are treated with grace. They are even given remarkable freedom. The father does not compel them to do what he would ask of them. But the two sons do not appreciate the ways of their father.

The younger son absolutely rejects the life that his father offers him. He wants nothing to do with his father’s farm. He demands that his father give him his share of the inheritance right now. This would have been abhorrent in society at that time. Children were expected to respect their parents deeply. This was an action of absolute disrespect and rebellion. The son’s request or demand was equivalent to him telling his father that he wished his father were dead. The father would have had the right in that society to punish his son severely. The father in the story, however, offered no correction but rather gave his son the money. His son immediately went and blew it all in wild living.

Here is a son who has been offered a good life but has determined that this good life is not to his liking. He wants something different, something that every listener to the story of Jesus would have recognized as morally wrong. Squandering money in the way that this son proceeded to do would have been something that they would have seen as warranting exclusion from the religious community. As a result, we recognize that the younger son in this story represents the tax collectors and sinners we saw coming to Jesus before Jesus told this story. We also recognize that the attitudes and actions of this younger son must have made this home less than joyful. The way he rejected his father must have hurt the father deeply. It also suggests that he had lived within that home as an ungrateful, irresponsible and rebellious son. His actions and attitudes had contributed to a loss of joy in that home.

It seems likely that the older son also contributed to a loss of joy in that home. Due to his reaction to his brother’s homecoming, we see him as ungrateful, self-centered, self-pitying and spiteful. He looks back and complains to his father that he hasn’t been treated in a celebratory way the way his brother is being treated. His brother has been irresponsible and rebellious while he has been responsible. He characterizes his work on the farm as slavery. He has slaved away for his father for many years. It seems that he is perturbed that his father treats his brother so well. He does not want his brother to receive the treatment that he receives. He also appears to grumble about all his hard work going unrecognized. I think he wants his brother to be excluded and he wants to be recognized for all that he has done. As a result, we recognize that the older son represents the Pharisees and teachers of the law whose negative attitude inspired the story. We perceive them as people who believed that they had worked hard for God’s purposes and felt that people who didn’t measure up to their standards of discipline should not be welcomed by Jesus. We also recognize that the attitudes and words of this older brother must have made this home less than joyful. The way he lacked grace toward his brother and was ungrateful for the good life his father had made possible for him must have hurt the father. It also suggests that his spirit in the home would have contributed to a loss of joy in that home.

I think that in comparing and contrasting those two brothers, we should be led to look at ourselves. Do we contribute to a loss of joy in the house of God? I find that an interesting and intriguing question. If we develop attitudes that are similar to the attitude that the younger son demonstrated, we will contribute to loss of joy in the house of God. That is essentially an attitude of rebellion. We join the younger son if we are people who turn our backs on God who asks us to conform our hearts’ desires to his desires. We join the younger son if we reject God’s revelation given to us in Jesus and in the Holy Scripture. Perhaps we also join the younger son when we reject the wisdom of people that have lived longer and have experienced more than we have. When we live like that in the house of God, we contribute to a loss of joy.

If we develop attitudes that are similar to the attitude that the older son demonstrated, we will also contribute to loss of joy in the house of God. That is essentially an attitude of ingratitude and judgment. We join the older son if we are people who resent the good fortune others receive in life. We join the older son if we think we have done so much for God that we deserve much more goodness than we think we have received. We join the older son if we grumble about welcoming people into the house of God that come seeking God but that we perceive aren’t worthy to be welcomed. We join the older son when we fail to perceive the grace, love and goodness that God has extended to us. Perhaps we join the older son when we criticize and reject the gifts offered by others in the house of God. When we live like that in the house of God, we contribute to a loss of joy.

In what sense is there a loss of joy when we live like either the younger or older son? Or perhaps, the question is better asked, who loses joy when we live like this in the house of God? I think the answer is that everyone who is involved in the house of God loses joy. That begins with God himself. At least, I believe that if God can be depicted as rejoicing, then it is possible for God to not rejoice as well. I believe that when we reject God or fail to recognize his grace and love, God experiences a loss of joy. And then, when we develop spirits similar to either the younger or older son, we experience loss of joy ourselves and we contribute to loss of joy in the entire house of God. I think the parable calls us to revel in the boundless love and grace of God and develop spirits of gratitude and responsiveness to God to such an extent that joy rules in the house of God.

Now we can’t leave this story just looking at ourselves. I think Jesus told the story to get the Pharisees and teachers of the law to examine their own attitudes of religious exclusion so we do well to look at our own attitudes in the light of this story. But the father is a very important character, perhaps the most important character, in the story and we can’t leave him out of it as we apply the story. It’s clear, I believe, that the father in the story represents God. Jesus almost certainly intended to communicate to the Pharisees and tax collectors that they had misunderstood God. So the story calls us to examine our assumptions and understandings about God. The story reveals a God who passionately loves the people he has created. The story reveals a God who sets his people free and eagerly receives them into his love. The story reveals a God who celebrates and rejoices and feasts. This is not a severe, condemning God ready to bring down the hammer on his people. This is a God brimming full of grace, love and joy and waiting to celebrate as his people respond to his love.

The story doesn’t resolve everything in the end. The story ends with the father throwing a party for the younger son and rebuking the older son. We know what the father does at the end of the story. We don’t know what either son does in response to the father’s love, grace and joy. In that, this story is like the movies some of us hate where we are left with many unresolved questions. In this story, we wonder if the younger son truly changed his attitude toward his father and remained in the grace and love of his father? Did the older son respond to his father’s correction and develop a greater sense of joy, gratitude and grace? I suppose no story ever truly has an end, but perhaps Jesus leaves the final responses of the two sons out of the story because the story is left for us to finish. When God offers us his lavish, passionate love will we respond with love for God, with gratitude to God, with grace offered to others, and with joy in our hearts? Will we truly come home?