4th Sunday in Lent
March 31, 2019
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
(Or watch here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D6XOBB6kp5c
)
In October 2006, Charlie Roberts locked himself inside an
Amish schoolhouse while school was in session. He shot 10 students, killing
five of them, before turning the gun on himself. It’s a story that has become horrifyingly
common in recent years. Guy goes into a
school, murders a bunch of children, and then doesn’t even have the courage to
face the consequences of his actions – it’s easy to hate someone like
that. It’s easy to make a case that they
deserve such a sentiment. However, if you remember, “in the hours and
days following the shooting a different, an unexpected story developed.”[1]
It became a story about forgiveness. The Amish community, including the parents
of the students, reached out to Charlie’s parents. They went to his funeral,
not in justifiable anger to say he deserved to die but to show love to his
family. “In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish
community didn’t cast blame, they didn’t point fingers, they didn’t hold a
press conference with attorneys at their sides. Instead, they reached out with
grace and compassion toward the [Roberts’] family… [and] expressed forgiveness
toward [Charlie].”[2]
They gave the world a wonderful witness of Christian forgiveness.
After
all, we ask God in the Lord’s Prayer to “forgive us our trespasses as we
forgive those who trespass against us.”[3]
There’s one time when Peter comes to Jesus and asks him how many times he has
to forgive his brother or sister who sins against him, maybe seven times.[4]
Jesus says not seven, but seventy times seven, as in, a whole lot, more than
you can easily count. In addition, we
are to “love our enemies and pray for those who harass us.”[5]
Jesus lays out a law of love and forgiveness, where it’s not just about God
forgiving us but about us forgiving each other. Let’s see how that plays out in
our Gospel reading this morning.
What is often called the parable of the prodigal son is a
very familiar story to many of us. Jesus tells it to an audience with two
groups. There were tax collectors and sinners who were gathering around Jesus
in order to listen to him. And there were Pharisees and teachers of the law
also around Jesus, and they were talking under their breath, grumbling about those other people who were there, too.
“What are they doing here? Why’s Jesus eating with them? Doesn’t he know who
they are?” Jesus, of course, is aware of this dynamic, and tells the Pharisees,
scribes, tax collectors, and sinners a series of three stories about things
that have been lost. First is a flock with 100 sheep and one goes missing. The
shepherd leaves the 99 to go find the one who was missing. When he does, he
invites his friends to come celebrate with him. Now some might say, “What’s so
wonderful? It was only one sheep. You had 99 others.” But the shepherd knows,
“One sheep makes a difference. Without her, something is missing. Now my flock
is complete.”[6] Then
Jesus tells a story about a woman with a set of ten coins. Again, one goes
missing and the woman searches and searches until she finds it. Then she also
throws a party and invites others to come celebrate with her. Some people might
say, “What is so important? It was only one coin.” But the woman knows, “Just
one coin matters. Without it, something is missing. Now my coin collection is
complete.”[7]
Last,
Jesus tells them a story about a man with two sons. The younger son insults his
father by demanding his inheritance early and then runs away and does whatever
he wants. After a while, the younger son “comes to his senses,” recognizes and
acknowledges he’s messed up, and goes back to seek forgiveness from his
father. The father forgives him, seemingly
before the son even says anything, since he was out watching and waiting for
his younger son to return. The father then throws a big party to celebrate. And
the focus of this story is so often on the younger son, the one who ran away, the
one who so obviously screwed up, the one who recognized he no longer deserved
to be called ‘son.’
As
the eldest child myself, I don’t think enough attention is paid to the elder
son. He’s the one who stays home, who helps his father run the farm, who’s
perfectly obedient, who does everything the father ever asked him to do. I
think a lot of us in the church identify with him. We’ve gone to church our
whole lives. We help those in need. We don’t get in trouble. We lead good,
Christian lives. We forgive those who wrong us, mostly. But sometimes we still
feel overlooked and as if all our good deeds don’t count for much. I love how
this “Two Sons” story from the book "Who Counts?" phrases it. The
father says, “I discounted my older son. I didn’t realize that he felt lost.”[8]
The older son didn’t go anywhere. The older son wasn’t disobedient or reckless.
But the older son was lost, too, and that is rarely recognized. And his
reaction to his brother’s return is one of self-righteous, justifiable anger. How
dare his father lavish all this attention on his brother and throw a big party
for him? It’s not fair! Self-righteous
anger is a dangerous thing. Yes, he has every right to be angry and jealous.
And it is hard to be welcoming and gracious and forgiving when you’re feeling
self-righteous. The feeling of self-righteousness puts your focus on you: what you’ve done, the praise and recognition you deserve. That’s where the Pharisees and teachers of the law
were coming from. They had kept the law all their lives. They had done
everything they were supposed to do, arranged their lives around following the
law. The problem is, they focused on it so much that that’s all they saw and
all they knew: the law and what you’re supposed to do. And it heightened their
awareness of those who didn’t keep the law and do what they were supposed to
do. They had become legalistic, focusing on the law rather than on the One who
gave the law.
The
father goes out to find his older son, the one he didn’t know was lost, but had
gotten lost in his anger and self-righteousness and keeping the law to the
point that he felt like a slave to it. The father points out that the older son
is part of the family, too. The family is only complete with both sons. The story isn’t about the
younger son or the older son. The story is about God. I’ve made it a point to
say older son and younger son, rather than older and younger brother. From our
relationship with God flows our relationship with each other. And God calls
each of us home. And every time someone comes home, regardless of where they’ve
traveled, there’s a big celebration. It’s not the prodigal son’s party. It’s the father’s party, and he invites
everyone. The Pharisees are invited and the tax collectors. Those of us who
have been in church our entire lives and those who haven’t. Those who have
gotten in trouble and those of us who obey every letter of the law. We are all
part of God’s family, and without any one of us, something is missing. But with
each one of us, our family is complete.
Will
Pharisees welcome tax collectors to their table and eat with them? Is there any
hope for Pharisees? Yes! There are at least two in the Bible we know by name.
In John 3, there’s Nicodemus, who comes to talk with Jesus because he wants to
know more. Nicodemus, the Pharisee, is the one whom Jesus tells, “God so loved
the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall
not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world
to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.”[9]
And then there is the Apostle Paul, who before he became Paul, was Saul, the
Pharisee. Saul kept every letter of every law, he was the perfectly obedient
Jew. And within the law he persecuted Christians, until he was blinded on the
road to Damascus and underwent a 180 conversion because of it.
Whether
you identify more with the younger son or the older son, there is a place for
you in God’s family. Not only that, there is a space saved for you. The younger
son has obviously messed up and he repents and confesses and the father
forgives him. The older son has harbored bitterness and resentment. The story
ends before we find out whether or not he repented of it. But we know the
father stood ready to forgive him.
The
image in our Old Testament lesson is of our disgrace being rolled away. “The
Lord said to Joshua, ‘Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.’”
We are now three weeks away from Easter, when something even bigger is rolled
away: the stone door to Jesus’ tomb. Jesus died for our sins on the cross, our
sins of running away, our sins of disgrace, our sins of anger and resentment.
And then on the third day it was all rolled away with the stone as Jesus rose
victorious over sin and over death. Our sins are forgiven, whether they’re
younger son sins or older son sins. God offers forgiveness to all of them.
That’s why I like having a weekly prayer of confession during Lent, to remind
us we need forgiving, we need Easter. That’s why there is always a prayer of
confession before communion, to prepare us for coming to the table all
together, acknowledging we’ve all messed up and yet we’re all invited to the
table. The purpose of God’s law is to draw us closer to God, and so all of us
here work on keeping it, while keeping our focus on God, remembering his
prodigal love and mercy, which helps us to extend that love and forgiveness to
our brothers and sisters. Forgiveness is not to pretend it never happened. It’s
not to condone what happened. Instead, it’s to “draw out the sting in the
memory that threatens to poison our entire existence.”[10]
The sting was threatening to poison the older son’s existence. Don’t let it
poison yours. We forgive, we draw out the sting, so that we can move forward
into the future.
If
there is someone this morning whom you have wronged and you need to ask their
forgiveness, do it this week. If there is someone who’s asked your forgiveness
and you’ve withheld it, it’s time to give it. Now, similar to invitations from
last week, you might be rejected. They may not want to forgive you, or for you
to forgive them. Do it, anyway. That’s why Christ came, lived among us, taught
us (especially through stories), gave us the Lord’s Supper for us to all eat
together, and why he died and rose again. For the forgiveness of sins. For new
life. For life together. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, Amen.
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Matthew 6:12
[4]
Matthew 18:21-22
[5]
Matthew 5:44
[6] Who Counts? by Amy-Jill Levine and Sandy
Eisenberg Sasso
[7]
Ibid.
[8]
Ibid.
[9]
John 3:16-17
[10] No Future Without Forgiveness by Desmond
Tutu, p. 271
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