Christ Episcopal Church
March 6, 2016
4 Lent C
Several weeks ago, our younger son Caldwell was home from upstate New York for the weekend. Slocomb, our older son, and his wife Leslie were free that Saturday night so we all met at a restaurant part way between Springfield and Cincinnati where Slocomb and Leslie live. We had a lovely dinner, good conversation, heard stories from the past and plans for the future, did lots of laughing, and just enjoyed each other's company. When the children were small, no one told me how much fun grown children would be, nor did they tell me how rarely we would all be together. While neither of my sons are prodigal or lost, as a mother of two sons I can certainly relate to the father's absolute joy in Jesus' parable when his younger son returns home. I am a happy mama when we can all be around a table together. In the case of Jesus' parable, what was lost has been found, and the father now has his two sons home with him. In my case, those who have simply been separated by distance were together again. In both cases, there was great joy and deep gratitude at the reunion.
While I am the mother of two sons, I am also an oldest child with two younger siblings. The oldest child in me does not like our parable this morning nearly as much as the mother in me does. I understand the fury of the older son when the younger son squanders his entire inheritance in dissolute living, returns home in shame, only to have a great banquet thrown for him either as if nothing had ever happen, or worse, in spite of everything that happened. Seriously? What is the father thinking??? As an oldest child, I am a bit skeptical of the whole idea that the younger son actually repented of his errant ways. In the parable, the younger son comes to his senses, not because he realizes he has done wrong and repented, but because he is famished. He is trying to find a way to avoid starvation when he says "'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands." The son just wants some food!
While my skepticism that repentance is involved in the younger son's return may be my inner eldest child speaking, I also believe that Jesus' original audience would have been suspicious of the idea that the younger son actually repented.* Jesus' hearers were steeped in the stories of Genesis and Exodus. When the younger son says "I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you," Jesus' audience was reminded of another story. They would likely have remembered similar words from the story of the Exodus. After the Egyptians experience the plague of blood, the plague of frogs, the plague of gnats, the plague of flies, the plague on all the Egyptian livestock, the plague of boils, and the plague of thunder and hail, Pharaoh says "This time I have sinned; the Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong. Pray to the Lord! Enough of God's thunder and hail! I will let you go; you need stay no longer." Has Pharaoh repented or does he simply want Moses to call off the plaques? My guess is the later, since his heart is then hardened and he will not let the Hebrew people leave Egypt after all.
Our parable this morning is the last in a set of three parables in Luke's gospel about the lost being found. In the parable of the lost sheep, the shepherd leaves 99 sheep in the wilderness to go looking for the one who is found, which seems like rather poor judgement in my opinion, since he could return to find 99 sheep missing. But the parable has a happy ending as the shepherd finds the lost sheep, and his 100 sheep are back together. The shepherd says "Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost." What was broken is now whole. In the parable of the lost coin, the woman takes her house apart to find the one of her 10 silver coins that is missing. When she finds the coin, she calls her friends and says "Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost." Neither a coin nor a sheep are capable of repentance, so these parable are about the lost being found, not repentance. And what does the father say to the servants when his younger son returns? "Let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!" And what does the father say when his eldest son objects to all the frivolity over the return of his younger brother? "Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found." There is no mention of repentance. But there is abundant evidence oft joy when the lost is found.
As a priest, I am duty-bound to tell you that repentance is a good thing, and that the season of Lent calls us to that discipline. But this parable is not about repentance. This parable is about God's overwhelming gratitude and joy when the lost is found and the broken is made whole. What is broken is not just the individual person, or the lost sheep or coin. What is broken when something or someone is missing is the whole body.
This parable calls us to the disciple of gratitude. We don't know how either of the sons in the parable responded to their father's joy. We don't know if the younger son mended his ways or whether the older son came around to rejoicing that his brother was home. We just don't know. What we do know is that the father rejoiced that the lost was found. I believe that the father's deep desire is that both sons will be transformed by his gratitude that they are all together again. God's hope for us is that we, too, are transformed by the knowledge of God's great delight and deep gratitude when the lost are found and the broken is made whole, because we have all come home.
Amen.
*My thanks to Amy-Jill Levine for this idea about Pharaoh and the younger son's "repentance." http://www.christiancentury.org/article/2014-08/parable-and-its-baggage
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