Sermon delivered Sunday, March 6, 2016 (4th Sunday in Lent, Year C) at St. Cuthbert’s Episcopal Church, Oakland, CA, where I am serving as long-term supply priest. Audio only (not video) available below.
(2 Corinthians 5:16-21, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32)
Jesus is at it again in today’s Gospel reading: answering those self-righteous Pharisees with a parable that gets ‘em right in the gut. “So you’re worried about the fact that I’m eating with ‘sinners,’ are you? Well chew on THIS one for a while!” – and out comes the Prodigal Son, a story that has spoken deeply to the human soul throughout the centuries.
At face value, the message of the parable of the Prodigal Son seems simple, and completely appropriate for the season of Lent: The son repents, the father forgives him. Voila! The God-human relationship illustrated. As the son has sinned and left the father, so we have sinned and left God. As the son realizes the error of his ways and returns to his father, so should we repent and return to God in order to be forgiven of our sins.
But wait just a minute. If we look carefully at the story, it’s not actually that simple. Does the son actually repent? The story tells us that the son “came to himself.” But it’s not entirely clear what that means; whether he actually had a change of heart, or whether the “coming to himself” was him having an “ah ha” moment realizing another way he could continue to continue to make sure he was taken care of at his father’s expense. “How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!” he thinks. “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.’” Is this expression of humility genuine, or is he just trying to figure out a way to get himself back in the door in a place where he assumes he will be unwelcome? It’s not like he becomes successful and wealthy and goes home to share the bounty with his father – as is so often the case with children and their parents (and with human beings and God!), he only turns back to the father when he needs something, when he seeks to gain from reestablishing the relationship.
So, we’ve got the problem of whether the son’s repentance is genuine or not, and then the story gets further complicated when the son returns home. The parable tells us that “while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.” The father runs to him while he was still far off. The son doesn’t even have a chance to make his confession, to grovel before his father and ask for forgiveness, before the father sweeps him into his arms with hugs and kisses. The son hasn’t said a word yet that would indicate that he is repentant, that he is sorry for what he’s done. For all the father knows, the son could be returning home to ask for more money – which, in fact, is sort of what he is doing, since he’s asking for his father to again provide for his needs in the form of food and shelter. But the father still runs toward him and embraces him. He doesn’t stand back, eyeing his son skeptically and asking him a bunch of questions about what he’s done and where he’s been and what has happened to all the money he gave him. He doesn’t lecture him on respect for one’s elders or demand an apology before he extends his hand in peace. His love for his son overtakes any feelings of resentment or being wronged. His love is unconditional, offered without any action required on the part of the son outside of just showing up.
“Now hold on there,” our inner sense of justice cries out. “That’s now how the story’s supposed to go! The sinner is supposed to show sufficient remorse and contrition before forgiveness is granted! God forgives the repentant, but the unrepentant he will burn with unquenchable fire… or something like that, right? I mean, there has to be some consequences for this guy’s actions! How can the father throw a party for this guy after what he’s done? Isn’t that like condoning his actions?”
Conventional religious thinking, in the Judaism of Jesus’s time and in many other religions in various times and contexts, tends to think of God as a just judge, concerned with impartially enforcing the law. In this way of thinking, God is ultimately concerned with “fairness,” with making sure that each person gets what they “deserve.” If they are good, they deserve a reward. If they are bad, they deserve punishment. Our relationship with God becomes some kind of balancing scale where we hope that, at the end, our good deeds outweigh our bad and we get in to heaven by virtue of how the accounting works out in some kind of divine judgment book. The elder son in the parable represents this kind of conventional religious thinking, as do the Pharisees who are so concerned about who Jesus is eating with and spending time with.
But Jesus constantly challenged the notion of God as an impartial calculator, crunching the numbers to determine our fate. Jesus emphasized the image of God as a loving parent, like the father in today’s parable, who is overcome with love for his or her children. That love guides his response to them, that love colors and influences her judgment, that love makes allowances for her children’s shortcomings.
When this kind of love expresses itself, it may not look “fair” to those who are keeping the great accounting sheet of rights and wrongs. It may mean that some people get celebrations and parties and forgiveness and acceptance that they don’t seem to deserve. But Jesus’s message is that God’s love and mercy is not something we can earn by doing or saying or believing the right things. None of us “deserve” God’s love or forgiveness based on our actions, however “good” we might think we have been! God’s acceptance and forgiveness of us is a gift freely given – out of a relationship based in unconditional love, a love that will not leave us if we screw up or disappoint or “squander our inheritance in dissolute living.”
This kind of love is more concerned with transformation than with fairness. This kind of love is willing to break all the rules if it means helping one soul to know they are loved and valued.
Can this kind of love be taken advantage of? Could the forgiven and loved prodigal son, after enjoying the fatted calf at his reunion party, have ripped his father off, stolen his valuables, and pawned them for money? Of course he could have. This kind of love is risky. It makes us vulnerable. It opens us to the possibility of being deeply wronged, or even physically harmed, in certain circumstances. But it also has the power to transform.
The main character of Les Misérables, that great novel by Victor Hugo that has been cinematized numerous times and made into a stage musical, is an example of a kind of “prodigal son” who is transformed by this kind of love.
Jean Valjean is released from prison after serving 19 years for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his family. He has become cynical, hardened, and trusts no one. He has nothing to his name and is let out on the streets with no resources and nowhere to turn for help. As he goes door to door begging, he happens to knock on the local bishop’s door. The bishop takes him in and feeds him and gives him a place to stay. That night, Valjean sneaks out in the middle of the night, stealing the silver place settings from the table. When he is caught and the police drag him to the bishop’s door, they tell the bishop that Valjean has told them that the bishop gave him the silver. The bishop surprises everyone, Valjean most of all, when he confirms Valjean’s story. “That is right,” he tells the police. In the poetic wording of the stage play, he responds, “But my friend, you left so early / surely something slipped your mind / You forgot I gave these also / Would you leave the best behind?” – and proceeds to give Valjean the two silver candlesticks from his fireplace mantle.
According to the law, the right and “fair” thing for the bishop to do would have been to press charges, and for Valjean to go back to prison. But the bishop was more concerned with the transformative power of love than the fair application of the law.
The bishop took a risk by following Jesus’s teachings in Matthew 5:39-40: “Do not resist an evildoer… if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well.” Valjean could have betrayed his trust once again after this incident, or gone on to do harm to others as well. The bishop had no way of knowing what the outcome would be, but he chose trust over fear. He chose forgiveness over retribution. And it changed a man’s life. This risky act of generosity and forgiveness by the bishop transforms Valjean. His hardened shell falls away and reveals a kind, tender man with a heart of compassion, who goes about doing good for the rest of the story. The bishop responded to Valjean’s behavior not by “giving him what he deserved,” but by giving him a second chance.
As much as Lent gets a bad rep as a depressing season where we are told how bad we are, Lent is actually the season of second chances. It’s the season where we are reminded not just of our sins, but of God’s mercy. The joy of the father in the parable of the prodigal son at seeing his son return home is a metaphor for the joy God feels every time we return to him, no matter what we’ve done and no matter what is in our hearts when we do. God welcomes us home not for a stern scolding, but for a great celebration.
And we are called to do the same. If we are truly transformed by the love and forgiveness God has shown to us, we will offer forgiveness as freely as the father in the parable and the bishop in Les Misérables. As Paul reminds us in 2 Corinthians, God has “entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. We are ambassadors for Christ.” We are the ones carrying God’s message to the world, the message that God is ready to throw you a party if you would but show up: no questions asked, no explanations needed. Just come, join us, and feast at that banquet prepared before the foundation of the world. If we are doing our job as Christians, it will also be said of us, “Those folks welcome sinners and eat with them!” Amen.
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