Joel D. Kline
March 21, 2004
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
The Fourth Sunday in Lent
(Lenten Theme: Journey Toward Jerusalem)
A recent movie tells the story of Antwonne Fisher, a young African-American man in the Navy who, because he frequently finds himself responding in anger and getting in skirmishes with his fellow soldiers, is required to meet with the psychiatrist at the Navy base. Originally hostile and resistant to sharing his personal story, Antwonne eventually begins to communicate with the doctor, and a significant relationship unfolds. We learn that Antwonne never knew his natural parents, that he had been born while his birth mother was in prison and that his natural father, who never knew of the pregnancy, was killed before Antwonne was born. Subsequently, Antwonne was raised in a foster home where he was repeatedly abused—verbally, physically, and sexually.
As Antwonne’s relationship with the psychiatrist deepens, we discover that underneath Antwonne’s intense anger and hurt and shame, there is a tender strength, and we see that side of Antwonne unfolding in the course of the film. The psychiatrist encourages Antwonne to work at finding his family as a critical component of the experience of healing, and eventually Antwonne finds the courage to begin the search. Finally Antwonne locates his natural father’s family, none of whom had even known that Antwonne existed. Yet the family gathers, and as Antwonne enters his aunt’s home, he is greeted by an overflowing roomful of cousins and aunts and uncles, all eager to meet him. And then Antwonne is ushered into the dining room, where a feast is spread before him. But first an elderly woman, Antwonne’s grandmother, silently motions for him to come and sit across from her. The grandmother offers her hands to Antwonne, then after a few moments tenderly caresses his face, and finally she speaks just one word. “Welcome,” the grandmother says, and the feast begins.
Who among us, deep within our soul, does not yearn to know the kind of welcoming and loving embrace Antwonne experienced? It is an experience that captures something of the essence of this well-known and much-loved parable of Jesus, the tale we label the prodigal son story, in which the wayward son receives the forgiving embrace of the father. And yet, as powerful as is this welcoming embrace, there is much more to the story that, in our familiarity with it, we may well overlook.
Jesus, we are told in Luke 9, has “set his face to go to Jerusalem” (v. 51). In the midst of this journey to Jerusalem, Jesus repeatedly offers instructions to the disciples about the meaning of life on the road—life in which we make the transition, the transformation, from conventional wisdom—the life of propriety, worrying about image and status and success—to the wisdom of God’s Spirit—life in which we embrace a new center, a new set of priorities. This is what the apostle Paul has in mind when asserting that “it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Galatians 2:20). It is a matter of learning to live as citizens of God’s kingdom—this realm of life in which we put on the compassion and kindness, the servanthood and self-giving love of Jesus.
Along the way, it comes as little surprise that Jesus would raise the suspicion, and even hostility, of those with a counter perspective. The scribes and Pharisees, religious leaders of that day deeply focused upon purity, are appalled that Jesus would so readily welcome the outcast and the broken, the poor and the neglected, the lost and the sinful. Recognizing their hostility, Jesus tells a number of parables that underscore his conviction that any limits upon the abundant, astonishing, overflowing, inexhaustible love of God—such limits are imposed not by God, but by human-made strictures. And Jesus makes it apparent that he will have none of it!
Biblical scholar N. T. Wright, in his book The Original Jesus, urges us to consider the power of the stories Jesus tells. Hear these words of Professor Wright:
In our modern culture we sometimes imagine that stories are kids’ stuff: little illustrations, while abstract ideas are the real thing.
So Jesus’ stories, people say, were just ‘earthly stories with heavenly meaning.” But that’s rubbish! Stories are far more powerful than that. Stories create worlds. Tell the story differently, and you change the world. And that’s what Jesus aimed to do.
As vividly as any story Jesus tells, this tale of the prodigal son underscores the revolutionary message Jesus comes to proclaim. Something markedly new is happening, and business as usual will no longer do. In his book about this parable Henri Nouwen reminds us that Jesus’ whole life and preaching had only one aim and that is “to reveal this inexhaustible, unlimited motherly and fatherly love of God and to show the way to let that love guide every part of our daily lives.”
Look with me more closely at this upside-down story, which puts us in touch with the very nature of God. The younger of two sons comes demanding that the father provide his portion of the inheritance, while the father is yet living. In effect the son is saying to the father, “I wish you were dead.” Indeed, the request is an act of thoroughgoing rejection of the father and of family connections; equally so, it is a rejection of community and faith standards. Should such a thing have happened in the culture of that day, the most likely response would have been for the father to beat the son mercilessly. But in a radical act of love, the father absorbs the son’s humiliating rejection and grants him freedom, and off goes the son to the far country, squandering the inheritance in self-gratification and wasteful indulgence.
You remember what happens. Just as the funds are drying up, a famine arises. Rather than seeking assistance from the nearest Jewish community of faith, the younger son forces himself on the generosity of a wealthy Gentile landowner who tries to brush him off by offering a job that he knew no respectable Jew of that day would consider—caring for the farmer’s pigs.
Finally, the story tells us, the son comes to his senses, remembering that even the lowest of his father’s laborers are better off than is he. And so, rehearsing a properly contrite speech, the son heads for home. But he is little prepared for the reaction of his father who, seeing him at a distance, does what no dignified elder of that day would do; he runs and embraces the son. He doesn’t make the son grovel in the dirt. He doesn’t question him to make certain he’s learned his lesson. And he doesn’t say, “I knew this would happen…I could have told you this would happen.” Instead, he throws arms around the son and showers him with kisses. For the son’s lost dignity, the father bestows a robe of honor; for his son’s bare feet, he provides new sandals. For the hand that squandered an entire inheritance, the father gives a signet ring reinstating the son’s authority in the family business. For an empty stomach, he hosts a feast fit for a king, reintroducing the lost son back into the community.
Symbols not just of welcoming forgiveness, but even more, symbols of restoration. Hearers of this story in first century Palestine would have recalled a similar story—the story of Israel going into exile, and then at last coming home! Those hearers would have understood that Jesus is speaking of just such a return from exile. And that’s precisely why the religious leaders are so disturbed with Jesus, for they understand that he is reinterpreting stories central to Israel’s history. Jesus is announcing that the kingdom of God is now at hand, that the real homecoming is now unfolding, and that the only proper response is to party and celebrate.
Those critical religious leaders would also have understood that they were very much like the older son in the story—the one who simply could not conceive of an extravagant, undeserved, abundant, inexhaustible love being lavished upon the sinful, the broken and the lost. If there is to be a party at all, the religious leaders want it reserved only for those who measure up.
Elizabeth O’Connor, frequent writer on the spiritual life, asserts that the sin many of us need to confess is “the sin of withholding ourselves.” Our pride, our self-righteousness, our judgmental sense of propriety, our inflated sense of self-importance which says that everything depends on me and me alone—these keep us from responding whole-heartedly to the wondrous invitation of God to join the party, to embrace life in the kingdom of God.
The elder son withholds himself. Nevertheless, true to form, the father takes the initiative in the relationship, seeking out the older son and pleading with him. “You are always with me, and all that is mine is yours,” he reminds the older son. And then, attempting to help the older son grasp the reason for his extravagant, apparently undignified behavior, the father says simply, “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.”
N.T. Wright asserts that this story helps explain why Jesus has been acting in ways that those concerned with propriety and image would consider shameless, why Jesus has been offering a welcoming embrace to all manner of people. Says Wright,
[Jesus] is bringing about the kingdom of God; he is bringing about the real homecoming, the real return from exile. So of course there has to be a party. Of course you have to celebrate. Who cares about dignity when the kingdom of God is arriving? The most striking prophetic picture of the return from exile had been Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones, all coming to life: when Israel is restored after exile, it will be like the resurrection of the dead.
Yes, says Jesus: this my son, your brother, was dead and is alive again…. This is the restoration you have been waiting for.
So what about the elder brother in the story? The elder brother stands for the people who don’t want Jesus’ version of the kingdom-story. They want to keep their own version intact…. Jesus wants them all, including the grumblers, to join in the party. But will they?
And what about us? Will we throw caution to the wind and enter fully into this new story Jesus would tell, the story of a new world unfolding among us and around us, a world with an extravagantly gracious God at its center?
As a congregation here at Highland Avenue, we stand at a time of new beginnings. To call a second pastor is a step that involves throwing some caution to the wind; it is an act of faith, trusting that the God who embraces us in love has yet much more in store for us, that the challenges of this unfolding new world—of deepening faith, proclaiming peace, embracing community, welcoming others, serving our neighbor—that these challenges demand heightened commitment, quality leadership, and an openness to new growth. On our Lenten journey, the pace is quickening, as we draw near to Jerusalem. And in our congregational life, the pace quickens, as we seek to respond in faith to the God who, even now, is creating a new world within us and around us.
O God of extravagant mercy and grace, you who lived and dwelt among us in the person of Jesus Christ, willingly pouring out your life and love for the sake of each of us and of all creation, we praise you. We seek to embrace your ways of living, to walk in paths of peace and compassion and right living.
Loving God, hear us now as individually we pray for a fresh embrace of your mercy…
Holy God, healer of every ill, source of light and promise, Creator, Redeemer,
and Sustainer, we come, seeking your Spirit of comfort for the living of these
days. Whether in times of pain or times of joy, we pray for a sense of the
peace that is stronger than our fears and inhibitions, for a hope for life
abundant and everlasting. Hear us now, O God, as we pray your healing touch
upon ourselves and upon each concern lifted this day by members of the congregation…
God of abundant living, on this weekend of the first anniversary of the beginning
of bombing in Iraq, we pray for peace. We yearn, O God, to know peace, to
practice peace, to embrace peace, to work for peace, to sing peace, to pray
peace, both with our feet and with our hearts. We pray for the leaders of
our nation and of all nations, that together they might be in the business
of turning swords into plowshares, weapons of destruction into instruments
of justice and compassion and hope.
Hear us now, O God, as individually we pray for the coming of your kingdom among us, for the extension of your reign of peace and new life…
Thanks be to you, O God, who created us in love, and to Jesus, the One who came among us to redeem us and open us to new ways of living, and to the Holy Spirit, who sustains us for service as the people of God. Amen.