Many Stories, One Voice

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

            As we read the gospel this morning, you voiced the parts of the two brothers – the younger son, who went away for a time and then returned to the homestead, perhaps only seeking survival, but receiving grace far beyond his imagining;  and the elder son had stuck around and unfailingly persisted in trying to do the right thing, consistently receiving all that he needed all along, but never really appreciating that fact.

I wonder how reading both parts felt to you? Which voice felt most authentic to you – most like your own experience, most like the character you can relate to?

Most of us have probably heard this parable many times. Therefore, the word, “prodigal,” has become part of our lexicon, and it has come to mean something rather specific to us. So, when we hear someone referred to as a prodigal, or even refer to themselves as such, what do we think of? What assumptions do we make about a person who is a “prodigal”?

Very often, the prodigal is one who has turned away from and rejected familial relationships. The prodigal is one who seems to have moved the family system to a place of irrevocable brokenness. (You know the saying, “A mother is only as happy as her least happy child? It goes for the entire system.) We’ve each probably known someone like that at some time in our lives. Perhaps we’ve been that person.

The story of the Prodigal Son may strike some of us uncomfortably close to home, because there is some aspect of the story that we are living out today.  Someone is lost; someone is missing; someone, while still living, is as good as dead.

Sadly, for some who are locked into situations like this, hurts suffered have never healed and now feel beyond healing – a life has ended, and with it opportunity for reconciliation may be passed. Instead, a scar resides deep within.

Prodigals are created  when someone has “fallen from grace” through decisions made, alternative alliances forged, (like falling in with the wrong people), suffering failures of our own making, or abandoning the relationships and norms that surround them.

If you have ever been a part of a prodigal story, regardless of which character you have been, know that it is with sincere empathy for each of the characters here, that we approach this story today.

While it may be easy to place ourselves somewhere in the story, this parable does not stand alone, but is part of a larger narrative in which Jesus responds to those challenging him by telling three stories that center on the experiences of loss and grace.

The situation is this: the Pharisees and scribes were Kvetching about the social activities of Jesus. He has been spending time with, and even eating with tax collectors and sinners. (Imagine that!) He has been hanging out with outcasts and undesirables. (Oh, my!)

It might be really satisfying for us right now if Jesus just set the record straight and put them in their places.

Instead, (this being Jesus) he tells these three parables – stories in which it is unquestionably clear that God loves and behaves differently than we do, and that God values sinners more than we could ever imagine, (which is good news for all of us!).

As Jesus moves from parable to parable, story to story, he barely takes a breath. He begins with a woman who finds a lost coin – just one coin among many she may own – because of its importance to her, and when she finds it celebrates with great joy and wild abandon.

Then he tells about a celebration that goes on when one measly sheep out of an entire flock is found after wandering away and becoming lost.

And finally, he tells about this huge bash given in honor of the most unlikely of recipients: a kid that was not simply lost, hadn’t just wandered away, but has behaved in the most egregious and outrageous manner, demanding an early pay-out on his inheritance, and then abandoning his father and all that connects him to this place.

What makes this story so interesting and how over-the-top all of the characters behave.

• The father, rather than setting his son straight to begin with, gives in to his demands, and hands over the goods.
• The son then squanders everything and finds himself not just in a bad situation, but destitute – literally in a life-threatening condition.
• The place where he now resides goes through a famine and not one person will offer him assistance.
• He finally takes a thoroughly demeaning job but even then isn’t even given so much as the carob pods which he has to feed to the pigs to eat himself. No one there cares anything about him or his welfare.
• Finally he decides to return to his father and appeal to his compassion and hope for at least the same as the very least of his father’s hired hands would receive, which is more than he has now.
• Then, the most ridiculous thing of all happens: before he can even say a word, while he still just a speck on the horizon, his father runs to him, overjoyed, with arms outstretched.

It’s all quite scandalous, really, but only the elder son in the story seems to know that. Of course, he has his own gripe, because not only has the father behaved shamefully weak and gullible, in his overzealous rush to welcome home his boy, the elder son has felt totally disrespected.

Here this brother of his so cruelly and uncaringly cut himself out of the family, yet is given the hero’s welcome, while here he stands, the polar opposite – faithful, dutiful, hard-working, loyal son – the son who has slaved and tried so hard to always do the right thing. He is flabbergasted to see his brother receive what it is he himself has always wanted – recognition, favor, the party!

This, my friends, is a story of extremes. The father’s over-the-top forgiveness and love for his sons is book-ended by their outrageous behavior.

The thing is, in our reading of this story, while the words and actions of one son may have resonated more than the words and actions of the other son today, many of us may have found ourselves in the shoes of both sons at one time or another in our lives.

The point that this parable makes is poignant for whatever your story might be. There is genius in that, because the truth is that God’s grace is every bit as scandalous and ridiculous as the picture we get of the father in our story. And it doesn’t matter which brother’s actions reflect our own, God’s love is big enough and God’s grace sufficient enough for us all.

The story speaks as much to our lives as it did to the lives of both Gentile and Jew, Pharisee and outcast, sinner and rule-follower, prodigal and elder-brother of Jesus’ day. And the point Jesus makes is just as timely for us today as it was for those for whom these stories were originally written.

It boils down to this: in God’s economy, there is plenty of grace to go around, and God spreads it over each of us as we have need. It is God’s desire that none of the sheep who go astray be lost forever; that the coin that found its way into a corner somewhere is just as precious and necessary to God’s kingdom as any other coin in the purse; and that the gospel is for everybody – rule follower and prodigal alike.

That is indeed good news for all of us. For those of us who seemingly hit rock bottom before we realized that we were invited to the great feast, and sometimes still feel like we’re dangerously close to the bottom of the pit, God especially reaches out to you in love and forgiveness. God wants you to know that you are welcome and cherished, and you are, through the mercy of Jesus Christ, forgiven.

For those of us who have been around here for years, and for those who just started attending church or coming to the table yesterday, God’s grace embraces you equally; you belong here and are equally members of the Body of Christ. For those of us who struggle to get through each day and for those who really have ourselves all pulled together, God love and grace are poured out on you in sufficient quantities to for exactly the need you have. For those who can quote scripture chapter and verse and those who have difficulty distinguishing the Old Testament from the New, God knows your hearts in equal measure and has already surrounded you with God’s compassionate love. You belong to him.  

The good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is that it is for everyone. All are invited to the table and in God’s perfect grace it is large enough for us all.

God’s love does not discriminate, it transforms. It doesn’t matter where you have come from or where you are today – in Jesus Christ, God’s grace covers you. The good news of God’s scandalous, ridiculous grace is for those who have always been the straight arrows and for those who have followed the crooked path. And since God’s love enfolds every cherished person, how can our welcome do any less?

God rejoices in the person God has created you to be. It doesn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you speak, or the country from which you or your ancestors derived, your gender, your age, or your sexuality. God’s love enfolds you.

As we read this parable, we acknowledge that we need to die daily to sin and rise to new life in Christ, which is the gift of our baptism. But, only when we are able to let go of our resentment, judgment of the other, bitterness and hatred may we learn what new life and new creation truly mean; it is the radical, scandalous, and ridiculous love of God and God’s eternal and unending grace that we receive through Jesus that will finally, when all is said and done, free us from our own lost paths and need for justification.  

My brothers and sisters in Christ, prodigals all are we. May we live in gratitude that even in his final act from the cross, when he forgave another prodigal, the criminal beside him, Jesus showed us how unfathomably scandalous and huge is the grace of God. Praise be to God! Amen.

Comfort the Afflicted; Afflict the Comfortable

Matthew 3:1-12

            You brood of vipers! It’s not every day you hear a greeting like that, but if you did, I wonder how many of you would flock to hear the preacher who belted out those words, the next week. In our gospel text, John the Baptist indeed blurted out those words, directed at the Pharisees and Sadducees.  He was one of those preachers - the kind who doesn’t mince words. He told it like it was, or at least, like he saw it.

            Perhaps John went to the preaching school with the motto, “comfort the afflicted; afflict the comfortable.” I’m told that this is what all good preachers do. And I confess that all too often I feel unequal to the challenge.

You see, it’s tempting to make the Gospel good news of grace into a one-dimensional message of comfort and reassurance. We all need comfort and reassurance, and when we look at our lives, at the world around us, it seems we need buckets of it.

When we acknowledge the depth of our own brokenness, when we witness the heinous things human beings say and do to one another, we want a word of comfort. As we absorb our losses and pain, we need the comfort and consolation that comes from God. Comforting the afflicted I can do, and I have the good news of the gospel on my side.

But afflict the comfortable? That, I confess I struggle with.

But when John the Baptist burst onto the scene of 1^st century Palestine, he didn’t have my problem. While pointing to the one who is coming, he indeed afflicted the comfortable;

He challenged those who depended on their own righteousness more than they depended on God. The Pharisees fell into that category. They felt they were specially endowed and privileged by virtue of their ancestry. They followed the Laws of Moses, they claimed the patriarch Abraham as their ancestor, and therefore they claimed righteousness as their own.

The problem is, while they claimed to follow the law, they failed to bear the fruit worthy of repentance. In other words, they talked the talk but often failed to walk the walk. They neglected the relational part of the life of the faithful; to live with love, mercy, and compassion for the poor at the core of their being.

All too frequently they ignored the plight of the widow, the orphan and the stranger, they persecuted the foreigner, and the immigrant and they assumed their own importance. They turned a blind eye and became indifferent to the needs of those around them, and in Matthew’s gospel these are the one we consider the least, the last, the lost, the little and the lifeless. They forgot about addressing the injustice around them and caring for those who were disadvantaged and vulnerable. Instead, they stewed in the juices of their own well-being.

Then along came John the Baptist, and he preached a call for repentance out there in the wilderness; and this repentance involves a reorienting of one’s heart, way of thinking, and action. Real repentance, the kind of which John spoke and Jesus taught, brings us in line with godly living, and godly living bears fruit for the kingdom of God. This kind of repentance and attention to the circumstances of those around you, matters deeply to God.

            Repentance in this gospel is about such godly living. We get a glimpse of what that might look like when we consider the characteristics of those Jesus calls “blessed” in the Sermon on the Mount which follows soon after this passage in the Gospel of Matthew.

The Sermon on the Mount describes how God blesses the poor, the humble, those who mourn, those who thirst for justice, those who are meek, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, those persecuted for righteousness sake. Indeed, not only are they – all those - the blessed ones, according to Jesus, but throughout this Gospel they are the ones with whom Jesus hangs out. This is the good news of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. In Christ, the least are raised up, because their lives, their welfare, and their personhood matter.

As John stands in the wilderness, he preaches the good news that the kingdom of heaven has come near, and he bids those who have come out to hear this news to prepare themselves, to prepare their hearts, to receive the one who bears this kingdom to the world. John points to the good news. He points to the one who will deliver and embody kingdom life, Jesus, Our Savior.

It is for this reason that in pieces of art, John the Baptist is almost always painted pointing to Jesus. When Lukas Cranach the Elder painted Martin Luther, he substituted Luther in that pose, with Luther in the pulpit, pointing to Christ on the cross in the tradition of John the Baptist. Pointing toward Jesus, John the Baptist shines the light on the one God sends into the world to redeem it, the one who comes into the world to afflict the comfortable and comfort the afflicted.  

As we come to the manger, we must remember the cross. For it is on the cross that God demonstrates for us how much it matters that Jesus came for the sake of the least in the kingdom.

Late Yale Divinity School preaching professor William Muehl told this story to illustrate what Christ bringing this kingdom into being means:

“One December afternoon…a group of parents stood in the lobby of a nursery school waiting to claim their children after the last pre-Christmas class session. As the youngsters ran from their lockers, each one carried in his hands the “surprise,” the brightly wrapped package on which he had been working diligently for weeks. One small boy, trying to run, put on his coat, and wave to his parents, all at the same time, slipped and fell. The “surprise” flew from his grasp, landed on the floor and broke with an obvious ceramic crash.

The child…began to cry inconsolably. His father, trying to minimize the incident and comfort the boy, patted his head and murmured, “Now, that’s all right son. It doesn’t matter. It really doesn’t matter at all.”

But the boy’s mother, somewhat wiser in such situations, swept the boy into her arms and said, “Oh, but it does matter. It matters a great deal.” And she wept with her son.”[1]

            In Jesus, God becomes the one who, rather than patting us on our head to console us, joins us in our suffering, as did that mother,  because the pain in this world, our pain, does matter – it matters a great deal.

            Our lives do matter to God. Christ’s coming does matter. How we prepare for him does matter. Repentance, that is, opening our hearts, making adjustments to our lives, bringing our lives into communion with God’s purposes in God’s kingdom come, does matter.

John’s cry of repentance is the call to turn away from our indifference to engage, at a life-changing level. The coming kingdom reorders our relationships and priorities. John’s words are words a challenge to us all. Do we care enough to change our lives and the world in which we live?

Do we love enough to get angry about the suffering and plight of other human beings and to declare that broken dreams and broken lives do matter, they matter very much? Are our hearts aligned with God’s enough to declare that this is true for every child of God, even if we’ve never met them?God cares.

That’s why divine wrath, axes, and fire are good news. God loves enough to get angry. The good news is that God is not indifferent. God is not indifferent to creation, nor to the evil and suffering in this world. God is not indifferent to God’s people. God is not indifferent to your life or my life.

God’s concern and love for creation are the source of God’s anger. Anger is not the opposite of love. Indifference is the opposite of love. The last thing we need is more indifference. The last thing we need is to hear from another that our very existence doesn’t matter. And God forbid that we should ever say or act as if another’s very existence is of no consequence to us.

            So, that’s what we’re about this season of Advent.  Our Advent worship, Advent hymns, Advent expectations, and Advent comforts bring us the reminder that John the Baptist makes so clear. We need to prepare. Our Advent activities, prayers and behaviors point to Christ’s coming. They help us focus. They bring about a different emphasis to our lives. They help us open our hearts and prepare room not only for the Christ child to enter in, but for the comfort of all God’s people.

            Comfort the afflicted, afflict the comfortable. Prepare for the one who comes, the one who will make all things new, who will bring about newly formed hearts, who will call us to new understandings to reorient ourselves, to turn from our former ways to change our attitude and perceptions.

            Repentance is about God’s desire to realign us to accord with Christ’s life. Repentance is about God’s power to transform us into Christ’s image, and it is a transformation worth preparing for.  

            And so, John’s wilderness sermon points beyond him and toward God and what God is doing. John the Baptist points to Jesus. Advent points to Jesus’ coming. The texts point to the reality that Jesus is bringing a changed way of living, thinking, understanding, operating.

How do we, in our lives today, do the same? How do our lives point to God and what God, in love for humankind and all of creation, is doing? How does it make a difference?

Whatever our message, our lives, our witness might be, it must point to Jesus. We do not point to the church, but to the gospel. We do not point to what we are doing but to what God is able to do through and despite us.

Our lives must point ever and always to Jesus. Today, as we lit the second candle of the Advent wreath, we sang, “Christ be our light, Shine in our hearts, shine through the darkness….Make us your own, your holy people, light for the world to see….Christ be our light!” May it be so, that in true repentance, our lives might reflect the light and love of God in Christ Jesus, not only in this holy season, but throughout our year and our lives.

Amen.

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[1] William Muehl, Why Preach? Why Listen? (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1986), 82.