March 27, 2022
Psalm 32
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
I have often read this familiar story we call the “Prodigal Son” and taken comfort in one particular line. It’s the words spoken by the father to the older son toward the end of the passage: “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” “…All that is mine is yours.”
There’s a hint of justice in what the father says here, or at least I’ve heard it that way. It’s like the father is saying, “Yes, your brother is back. Yes, we’re throwing him a party. But, there are still consequences. None of the estate is his. He spent his half. All of this is yours.”
I think I’ve clung in ways to this interpretation because I feel for the older son. What’s happened here isn’t fair, and if he’s feeling angry, hurt, and overlooked, that seems like a pretty reasonable response.
I was glad to see that Debie Thomas is on board with me too. She’s written very moving letters to each brother, which you can read on the “Journey with Jesus” website. To the older one she writes, “I won’t lie; my sympathies are with you. Your story haunts me. Your resentments mirror mine. Whenever I think of you standing — appalled — outside your father’s house, your brother’s easy laughter ringing in your ears, I ache inside. I imagine you sore and sweat-stained after a day in the fields, longing to go inside for a shower, a meal, a bed. Longing for so many legitimate things — only to be thwarted by a robe, a ring, and a fatted calf. Not intended for you.
Theologians tell me I’m supposed to look at you and see self-righteousness, arrogance, and unholy spite. But I don’t; I look at you and see pain.
I’m an oldest kid, too. I’m used to being responsible, staying home, and getting things done. By temperament, I’m careful, I like order, and I don’t mind work. But I’m a stickler about fairness. I care about fairness a lot.
I am also a seether. I don’t confront; I seethe. Just like you.”[1]
It’s understandable that the older brother would seethe. And, it’s understandable that we would want some provisions made for him in this story. Don’t you think?
I asked my lectionary group for their thoughts about the father’s words. “Is he saying what a part of me wants him to be saying? Is he hinting at consequences for the younger son?”
One colleague looked at me horrified that I had missed the point of the entire message. The other graciously said, “That is the human response.”
And, I think they are right. I think we’re meant to identify the human response and to take note of the fact that the divine response is very different. If the father, who symbolizes God in the story, were really worried about limited resources and preserving the older son’s inheritance he wouldn’t be giving out his very best rings and robes and livestock for the party.
There’s a complete extravagance to the father’s behavior that is absolutely unconcerned with conventional norms of fairness, the need to balance scales, or even the preservation of his own ego. Throughout the younger son’s absence he must have been keeping watch, because while the boy is “still far off” the father goes running out to embrace him. And as the boy offers his repentance and gives up his sonship the father isn’t having any of it. It’s like the forgiveness is assumed; only the party needs to be planned. As a colleague announced, “this is the story of Easter running out to greet you.”
This is a story of the limitless grace of God and God’s tenacious will to pour it out. “All that is mine is yours” the father says to the older son because the father is not diminished by what he gives away. The father, like God, isn’t operating from a position of scarcity. He’s operating from abundance and he’s showing us a divine economy that works, in contrast to human ways, according to a rule of extravagant generosity.
The image is in stark contrast to one that was shared with me by my mega-church-going friend the other day. He took a picture of the church stage with its massive screen. Against the backdrop of radiant purples and blues were the words, “Hell lost another one. I am free. I am free. I am free.” Coincidently, shortly after getting his text, I found mail in my office from an anonymous sender who first contacted me in opposition to our ONA declaration. As with their previous mailing, the envelope contained tracks in it explaining how not to go to hell when you die. Essentially, the only way to avoid it is to repent of your sins and confess Jesus as your personal Lord and savior. But, what I get from this brand of faith is an utterly un-compelling kind of God, a God who is perfectly fine with the majority of human kind spending an eternity in a torturous hell simply because we didn’t say some magic words. The starting point for all of us with this God is punishment. There’s a stinginess to this God – a very human kind of God – who seems to offer grace only when it’s earned, and I’m not sure how anyone actually comes to love a God who is like that.
No doubt there is some human agency in this journey with Jesus that we’re all on. The younger brother turns back to his father, and just like him there’s a turning and a re-turning that’s a part of what we do in the life of faith. There’s an opening of the gift – an opening to the gift – that we must do in order to experience what God is offering. Yet, that little comment that the son is still “far off” is a really important one. The prodigal son hasn’t “arrived.” He’s not sufficiently reformed. He simply realized that he wanted something better, and so he turned. The action in the story really belongs to the Father. It’s the father who runs out. It’s the father who determines whether he’ll be servant or son. It’s the father who forgives and embraces. And, it’s the father who throws the party.
Just like with the father, it is God to whom the action belongs. It is God who grants us our best and truest selves. And to do that, which is always God’s will, God doesn’t need a ton from us. God sees even our slightest most far-away turnings as an opportunity to come running out and offering an embrace.
The truth of the matter is that the real problem with God is not that God is too stingy; it’s the opposite. God is too generous with God’s grace. It goes places where we think it shouldn’t. It goes to even the worst offenders. It goes to people who deserve the worst.
How all that works for a God who is both loving and just, I’m not exactly sure. What I know is that God is more than I can imagine. What I know, Chris Staecker illustrated so well in last week’s lecture as he talked about the Hubbell telescope zeroing in on a completely dark patch of space and finding upon closer look that that little area was packed not with stars but with distant galaxies even bigger than our own. The point being not just the complexity behind what might seem apparent or plain, but also the magnitude of a God who holds such vastness within Godself. I don’t know how God can stand to offer grace to those who deserve its opposite, but I know that within the many mysteries of God that answer lies. And I know that to love God is also to love God’s ways – to trust in them – even when those ways aren’t humanely possible.
The father says to the older son, “We have to celebrate and rejoice,” which to me means embracing grace for both the best and the worst of us and letting God work out the details.
Here’s where we find Debie Thomas concluding her letter to that older son. “This is your father’s final word to you as you stand out in the cold, your arms crossed, your fists clenched, your heart bleeding. Did you know that, dutiful firstborn? Did you know you have to celebrate? Did you know that joy is a must in your father’s house? That partying is a duty?
How astonishing that you lived within arm’s reach of your father all these years, and never glimpsed the merriment that is at his core. “We have to celebrate and rejoice.” He insists. But there you stand, lover of justice. One hundred percent right — and one hundred percent alone.
What will it take for you to lean into celebration as a teacher? To try out mercy as a balm? Some lessons can only be learned as you laugh and dance. Some hearts will only be healed at the feast.
Here’s your vindication, yours and mine: the power in this story is the older child’s. It’s yours. Your brother has gone inside; he’s done breaking hearts for the time being. Now your father stands in the doorway, waiting for you. Waiting for you to stop being lost. Waiting for you to come home. Waiting for you to take hold at last of the inheritance that has always been yours.
Did you know that your choices are so powerful? You get to write this ending. You get to write this ending.
It’s getting cold outside. The sun is setting, and the party beckons. What will you do, as the music grows sweeter? What will we choose, you and I?”
[1] https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=3352