"Coming Home"
What the story of the prodigal son means to us
Part 2: “God For Us”
By The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, September 21, 2003
Text: Luke 15:22-32
I want to let you all in on something that I only share with my very, very closest friends, so consider yourselves privileged this morning: I have a CD in my car by a group called Def Leppard. Now, anyone who knows Def Leppard knows that they have become the subject of jokes over the last few years. Those who liked music prior to Def Leppard think that they are shallow and superficial. Those who have listened to them and liked music after Def Leppard think they area banal and facile. So whether it is before Def Leppard or after, nobody, except those who listen to them, likes them. Yet, I confess that I have this CD in my car and every now and again, when I get particularly depressed and don't want to listen to good music, I put it on.
There is one song amongst their great cacophony of sounds that I really do like. I like it primarily because the lyrics speak to the heart. The song is titled, (and you must all go home and try to listen to it) When Love and Hate Collide. It is a story of unrequited love. It is the writing of a person who feels that the love that he has for another is not returned. There is one key line: “If only I could change your mind.” An appeal to the heart of the other to understand the love that the singer feels. And like so many songs before it, and so many songs after it, it is characterized by this drama - a dialectic between the lover and the rejected, between the lover and the one who hates, or doesn't even care about the existence of the other.
Have you noticed how in so many great movies and in so many poignant and humorous television programs, the heart of the story that holds you is the theme of unrequited love or love that might never be fulfilled? Is that not what made Frasier such a great show - when Niles and Daphne couldn't come together. And now that they have, somehow all the tension has gone out of the show. (Do you feel that way, or is it just me)?
Isn't that what happens with the great dramas - even in Shakespeare - the uncertainty of whether two parties will come together is what really grabs you?
I would suggest to you that this second sermon in the series on the Prodigal Son is reaching that moment of climax when we ask that very question: How will the son and the father reunite? We reach this moment of tension - it has built up - the Prodigal Son has wandered off and spent his inheritance. He has lived a life of debauchery and excess, but as the story goes (as many of you will recall from last week,) he reaches rock-bottom. He actually eats with the pigs and dines with the slaves.
He decides to go home. What really makes this story so powerful is that is it filled not only with drama, but also with the deepest sentiment imaginable. Helmut Thielecke, the great German theologian, said that when the son wandered away, he acted as if the father was already dead. He claimed his inheritance and whether his father lived or died meant almost nothing to him. As far as the son was concerned, the father might as well be dead, because he already had his money.
The father thinks that the son is dead. He's not aware that he's alive until he sees him on the horizon. So, each thinks the other is dead. This is important, because when the son returns the father is overjoyed for what he thought dead is alive, what he thought lost is found. He is overcome with the emotion of seeing his son. It's as if he has risen from the grave. As for the son, he is returning home and needs to see whether the father is still alive. That is the power of this drama.
I believe that this great parable, as it reaches its climax, causes us to ask three very important questions - all of which have a bearing on every one of our lives, and definitely on the ministry of the Church.
The first question is: “Where is home?” Last week I asked the question: “Where is the foreign land?” Today we ask: “Where is home?” For the son, home must have been a terrifying place. I say that because the younger son comes home as a failure. He has not lived the dream. He has not achieved greatness. On the contrary, he has spent everything on profligate living and come home with nothing. Who of you would like to go home to your parents after a time of separation - having sowed your wild oats - empty-handed and destitute? Who would like to go back to a high school reunion after having spent 20 years living the good life and achieving nothing? Coming home is painful when it seems that you're a failure. Not only that, home for the prodigal was also a place of oppression. It was a place to be feared.
Not long ago, I read an interview by Chris Heath with Brad Pitt in Rolling Stone magazine. I was absolutely on the edge of my seat reading this, because I wondered how astute Brad Pitt really is - and I found out. In this interview, they talk a lot about religion, with Brad Pitt saying that basically he has no time for it. He says the following:
I would call [religion] oppression, because it stifles any kind of personal individual freedom. I dealt with a lot of that and my family would diametrically disagree with me on all of that.
But what really caught my eye was that as the interview progressed, they began to talk about the story of the Prodigal Son, the subject of our sermon this morning. So my radar went up, I thought, “I wonder what bright things Pitt has to say about this?” He said:
It is a story that says if you go out and try and find what works for you, then you're going to be destroyed and you will be humbled and you will not be alive again until you come home to the father's ways.
In other words, Brad Pitt read the first part of the story, but clearly no one told him about the second part. In fact, Brad Pitt is identifying with the prodigal as he's about to come home to what may appear to be a place of oppression. There are many people who turn their backs on religion and Christianity because they think that the story of the prodigal ends with him being destitute and having to crawl back to his father on his hands and knees. But there is more to the story.
You can understand why Luke, when writing this Gospel, also had in mind the story of the exiles during the history of Israel who, when they returned home after having lived in Babylon, came back to the Promised Land only to find out that it wasn't everything they thought it was. Over the years, they had become accustomed to Babylonian rituals and way of life and now they were going to have to adhere to the Law. They had lived a life that had been full of diverse culture and now they're coming back to the rites of the temple and the restrictions of the covenant.
Many exiles came back from the foreign land to find that home appeared to be an oppressive place. For many people, and for many of you in fact, it might be that your vision of home and home life is very much like that of the prodigal. A place of uncertainty and pain, a place that seems to be unforgiving and harsh, a place that seems to relate more to another time than to the present time, and the last thing you want to do is come home if you're a failure. But is that what the prodigal's home really was? No. Not at all.
In fact, it was the absolute opposite to what he must have been thinking. When he prepared his speech and said, “Father, I have sinned against you and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands,” in his wildest dreams he could never have imagined that his father would have been so gracious. In fact, as Tom Wright says, the father in this story is almost reckless in his love. He goes beyond the bounds of what would be normal or even of that which would seem acceptable under the circumstances. He goes to the point of excess, so much so that to show his generosity, he puts a robe over his son's shoulders to show that he is honoured, he puts a ring on his finger to show that he has authority and he does something that you would never do under normal circumstances: Kill a fatted calf and celebrate the return of your son. The reckless love of the father, the reckless and profound generosity - the joy and the forgiveness was so overwhelming the son couldn't believe it. Why? Because that which was dead was now alive again. That which had wandered away and become lost, was found and back home. You see, home is not a place of oppression, home is not a place of failure, home is not a place of rejection. Home is a place of generosity and love in the eyes of God the Father. That's what home is.
There's a second question: Who really measures up to come home? The story goes that a conflict ensues between the father and the elder son. The elder son objects to the fact that the younger son is getting all this preferential treatment. He's angry that his father is being so reckless in spending the money of the estate. Why? Because he is going to inherit it all when his father dies.
When the father looked at these two sons, did he choose one over the other? Did he act preferentially to one over the other? No. It might appear that way, that the one who had wandered off got this greeting, but after all if you are a father and you see a son that you thought was dead are you not going to celebrate his being alive? Of course you are. But the father always loved the elder son as well. The father said to the elder son, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
When you or I read the story, we tend to read it as religious people. We feel sorry for the elder son and think: “If he was a good man and stuck by his father, he should be the one who is given preferential treatment.” After all, good religious people should get the upper hand, or why bother being religious? Or you might say, “No, that's good, he stood by the son who wandered away and lived a life of profligacy. That is love. I favour the younger son who has finally come home.” In your heart and mind, ask yourself if you've every made that decision, which one you liked the best and with whom you identify?
Clearly, when Jesus told the story he knew those who were partial to one over the other. The Pharisees certainly identified with the elder son, and couldn't understand how someone who had gone and lived a Gentile life of excess could possibly come and sit down at the banquet feast of the Lord. Likewise, those who had wandered away from the fold and were now thinking about coming back were certainly wondering whether they would receive the same warm reception. The fact is in the heart of God, and that's what this story is all about, the love was equal. There was no need to measure up.
But so often we do want to measure up. Our religious mentality causes us to try to think in a matter of weights and measures and balances. As one of my friends put it, “When we put a thermometer on the wall about how much money we raised, maybe what we're really thinking is: 'Where are we morally on this scale of measurement?'”
It's like a lovely story that I read sometime ago about a rabbi. A man came to him and said, “Rabbi, I need your wisdom. The problem is that I fail in nearly one-half of everything that I do, and I was wondering whether you could give me some advice as to how I can be more successful.”
And the rabbi said, “I'm sorry, I have nothing to offer you.”
The man said, “Oh, come on rabbi, you're a man of God, surely you can help me deal with all my failures.”
So the rabbi thought about it and said, “Here's what you should do. Go home, get out the New York Times Almanac for 1970 and turn to page 930.”
The man said, “Are you absolutely sure?”
The rabbi responded, “That's what I want you to do.”
So the man went home and got out the New York Times Almanac for 1970 and flipped to page 930. It contained a series of National and American League batting averages. He looked at this and thought, “I think the rabbi has lost his mind.” He made a second appointment with the rabbi, sat down and said, “All right, rabbi, I've had a look at the almanac. What's up?”
The rabbi said, “Well, what did you see?”
He responded, “I saw batting averages. At the top, in bold letters, was the best batting average ever: Ty Cobb, .367.”
And the rabbi said, “Well, there you are, then. There's your answer.”
The man said, “Rabbi, are you out of your mind?”
And the rabbi said, “No. If Ty Cobb can only hit one-third of all the balls that are pitched to him and still be a success, how much better are you if you're successful half of the time?”
He said, “Well, rabbi, this is amazing. This is incredible. I'd never thought about that. But that still doesn't solve my problem. I still get half of it wrong.”
The rabbi said, “No, you don't. Because you had the wisdom to seek the wise answer from God and God says, just like He did to Ty Cobb, 'All right, you're going to miss some things, but if you continue to seek wisdom, I will provide you with answers.'”
The rabbi understood that we are all failures. That all of us to some extent don't measure up to the standard of God. The problem is that we're always comparing ourselves to one another. As one theologian put it, “It's like a bunch of moles trying to figure out which has the highest molehill, when in fact God's standard is the Himalayas.” We're looking as religious people at a standard that we have set, and we try to figure out how we measure up within the Kingdom of God. If we have so many religious credits will we be included in the great banquet in heaven?
The Prodigal Son shows that it doesn't matter how you measure up. Paul put it this way, “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” What really matters is whether we are prepared to go home. And if we are prepared to go home, then God will receive us as the father does in this story.
Which brings me to the last question: Whose side is God really on? Well, God, you see, is on everybody's side. For the Jews and the religious leaders and the Pharisees, God is saying to them, like the oldest son, “I have made a covenant with you and it stands. I'm not going to break it. I'm not going to change it. Everything that I ever had for you is yours.”
God says to the Gentiles, to the wanderers, to those from other lands, to those who have sinned, “It's okay, when you come hone I'll be waiting for you. I don't have any favourites. When I make a covenant with you, it is a covenant of joy and generosity and forgiveness and peace. All any of you have to do is turn towards home.”
There was a very sad ceremony here a week ago Saturday. Dr. Hunnisett gave a beautiful message at the funeral of a two-and-a-half-year-old child. In dealing with this great tragedy, she made the very profound comment that God is not the author of death, but the author of life.
In talking to my family this week about the murder of my cousin's son, I have been trying to say to them that God isn't the one who is the originator of this evil, that someone made a decision to kill somebody. It's not God's doing.
The Father is at home and He says to a lost, broken and suffering world, “Come on home. For if you will only turn and come to me, I will kill the fatted calf for any of you and we will sit down and have a good meal. I will put a robe on your shoulders and a ring on your finger if you'll just turn towards me.”
In a tiny, little Methodist church in a suburb of Cape Town called Athlone, the congregation used to celebrate Communion in the most unusual way I've ever seen. At the front of the church they had a Communion table, and around it would sit the minister and the elders or the deacons. They would gather around this table with 13 chairs. When it came time for Communion, 12 of those chairs would be filled, but the 13th would not. The minister would preside over Communion and the 11 elders would go out and serve the congregation and return to their seats at the Communion table. I asked the chair of the board, after celebrating this communion service, “Why is the 13th chair empty? Did one of the deacons not show up?”
He said, “Oh no, we always leave the 13th chair empty.”
I said, “Does the 13th chair represent Jesus Christ the Risen Lord?”
He said, “Good heavens, no. The minister represents Jesus. [I like that] The 13th place is open for Judas Iscariot, because in the Kingdom of God and the Kingdom of Heaven, we believe that Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost, that the message of the church is that which was dead is now alive, and the hope that that which has wandered away might someday return home. That is what we remember when we celebrate Communion.”
Why? Because the Prodigal Son and the story of the father and the two sons is the story of the Resurrection of Jesus. It is the story of that which was dead living again and having lived, coming to the great banquet feast of heaven, to which you and I and all God's creatures are invited if we will turn toward home. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.