Delivered at Travelers Rest United Methodist Church in Travelers Rest, South Carolina on February 17, 2019
I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Comments are always welcomed.
If you find these thoughts helpful, please share.
The Lost One
Audio Version
Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, ‘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.”’ So he set off and went to his father. But 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. Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘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.’”
Luke 15:11-32 (NRSV)
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘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.’”
Luke 15:11-32 (NRSV)
Hello, it's Me
I couldn't sleep
I was just counting sheep
And I'm missing you
From “Bring You Back” by Paul Alan
If you know me, you might not suspect that sometimes I have trouble managing my anger. I've had this problem for a while. On one evening over ten years ago, I lost my temper over something I can no longer remember, and I broke the mouse I was using with my laptop computer. I drove to a nearby Wal-Mart and shelled out twenty dollars to buy a new one. I headed back home, feeling utterly disgusted with myself and wondering if there was any hope for me at all. At that time, I had a bad habit of flipping through the presets on my car radio as I drove. I pressed one of the preset buttons, which happened to be for the local Christian rock station, and, at that very moment, I heard these lyrics:
I left the ninety-nine to find the one
And you’re the one
I walked a thousand miles in the desert sun
Only to bring you back
These lyrics are the chorus of the song “Bring You Back” by Paul Alan. They are, of course, based on Jesus' Parable of the Lost Sheep, but, at that moment, I felt that they were directed right at me, as if I was the lost sheep for whom the Good Shepherd was searching.
There are times in our lives when we are made aware of our “lostness,” and at these times we need to be reminded that, no matter how lost we might be, God wants us back.
Of the four Gospels, my favorite is the Gospel of Luke. I love good stories, and, in my humble opinion, St. Luke is the best storyteller among the four Gospel writers. Luke's Gospel also happens to contain some of the most memorable of Jesus' parables, including the Parable of the Prodigal Son, which we heard just a few minutes ago. I would wager a guess that, if you took a poll, asking people which of Jesus' parables is their favorite, you would probably find that this parable is either the most popular or a close second. What's amazing about this parable – and many of Jesus' parables – is that, no matter how deeply we've dug into it, there are always more riches to be found.
As the young man neared his home, most likely rehearsing what he was going to say, his father saw him from a distance and ran out to embrace him. The son tried to make his spiel, but his father didn't listen to him because he was too busy planning a welcome-home party.
So often, when we study the Bible, we zoom in on one particular passage at a time. I've found that it can be helpful to zoom out and get a bird's-eye view. The Parable of the Prodigal Son is actually the third in a trilogy of parables which are perhaps meant to be read together. I've heard some preachers refer to these parables as Jesus' “Lost Parables” because each one features something important that is lost.
Jesus had a reputation for associating with the types of people who were generally ostracized by the good, upstanding religious folk of the day. One day, while He was teaching a crowd, some of His critics began expressing their disapproval of the company He kept.1 No doubt they had heard about the time Jesus enjoyed dinner with a group of traitorous, thieving tax collectors. Perhaps they had even heard that He had chosen a tax collector to be one of His disciples.2 Maybe they had heard about an incident that took place when Jesus was invited to the home of one of the religious leaders. During dinner, a woman of ill repute barged into the house and made a very awkward scene. Crying, she knelt down at Jesus' feet, washed them with her tears, dried them with her hair, and started kissing them. Instead of telling the woman to get lost, Jesus defended her to everyone who was looking down on her, and He told her that her sins were forgiven and that her faith had saved her.3
When Jesus overheard His critics grumble about His associating with so-called “sinners,” He started telling His “Lost Parables.” First, He told a story about a shepherd who had one hundred sheep in his charge. One day, this shepherd noticed that one of the sheep was missing, so he left the ninety-nine where they were and headed out to look for the missing one. When he finally found the missing sheep, he picked it up, placed it on his shoulders, and carried it back home. Overjoyed, he invited his friends and neighbors to celebrate with him.4 Next, Jesus told a story about a woman who had saved up ten coins, each of which was worth a day's wages. One day, the woman noticed that one of her coins was missing, so she started cleaning her house in search of it. When she finally found it, she invited her friends and neighbors to celebrate with her.5
These two parables establish a pattern:
- Somebody realizes that something important to him or her is missing.
- He or she searches for it until it is found.
- Full of joy, the searcher celebrates the recovery of what was lost.6
So why didn't the father go out and search for his lost son? Was he not concerned about him?
I would like to suggest that maybe the father did not go out and search for his son because his son was not lost in the same way that the sheep and the coin were lost. Maybe the father understood that his son was just going through a rebellious phase and that he would eventually find his way back home on his own. All the time, sons and daughters forsake their upbringing and choose to live their lives on their own terms. Eventually, when they've had enough of getting their own way, they come to their senses and realize how foolish they've been, and they get their lives back on track. For many of us, making big mistakes and learning hard lessons is just a part of growing up. Though we might look back on our mistakes and wish we had made better choices, we cannot deny that we grew wiser and more compassionate as we learned from them. In the words of Julian of Norwich, “First the fall, and then the recovery from the fall, and both are the mercy of God.”
The father allowed his son to make his own decisions in life, and he gave him the space to realize how good he had it at home. Perhaps the younger son's time away from home was not unlike what the Amish call Rumspringa. The Amish are known for their separation from modern society, simplistic lifestyle, and strict religiosity, but they tend to go easy on their teenage children. The enforcement of the Amish community's rules is relaxed for adolescents, and a certain amount of misbehavior on their part is expected and even overlooked. Some youths are even allowed to leave their communities so that they can see what life on the outside is like. Basically, the Amish allow their youths to make an informed choice about how they will live their lives. Most choose to remain within their communities.7
The younger son in Jesus' parable might have been lost, but he was not so lost that he could not find his way back home. He didn't need a search party; he needed to grow up. Of course, he also needed to know that his father loved him unconditionally and that he was welcome back home.
There is a second part to the parable and a character we have yet to meet.
While the younger son was out having fun, the older son was at home, working hard for his father. As he headed back to the house after working in the field, he heard music and dancing, so he asked one of the household servants what was going on. The servant told him that his brother had returned and that his father had thrown him a welcome-home party. The older son was enraged. He had never given his father any grief whatsoever and had even spent years working hard for him, yet the old man never gave him the slightest recognition. His worthless brother, on the other hand, disrespected their father by asking for his inheritance and then left home to squander it all doing God knows what, and then, when he had the nerve to show his face at home, he was treated like a king. He did nothing but party and then came home to yet another party. Where's my party? the older son wondered.
At some point, the father noticed that his older son was absent from the party, so he went out to look for him. When he found his son, he started pleading with him to join the celebration. The son unloaded on his father, comparing himself to a slave and calling his father out for showing him no appreciation and for showing favoritism toward his brother. The father replied, “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.”
It is at this point that the Parable of the Prodigal Son begins to resemble the other two parables.8 “There was a man who had two sons.” One day, when he threw a welcome-home party for his younger son, he noticed that his older son was nowhere to be found, so he left the party and went out to look for him. In The Lord of the Rings novels, J.R.R. Tolkien teaches us that “not all who wander are lost.” In the Parable of the Prodigal Son, Jesus teaches us the converse, that not all who are lost wander.
I think that maybe one reason people love the Parable of the Prodigal Son so much is that it is so easy for us to find ourselves in the story. Some people identify with the younger son, because they have made big mistakes in life and have learned hard lessons from them, and they experienced God's grace in the midst of it all. Some people identify with the older son, because they've tried to do what is right their whole lives, and they feel that their faithfulness has never been celebrated but only expected. Some people identify with the father, because they wish that the people they love would just get along with each other.
Twice the father remarks that his younger son “was lost and is found.” That said, I want to ask, Who do you think is the lost son in this story? Was the lost son the problem child who ran away from home, made a big mess of his life, and ultimately found his way back? Or was the lost son the good boy who stayed at home, did everything he was supposed to do, and silently grew resentful? Truth be told, each of the two sons was lost in his own way, but the father only found it necessary to go out and search for one of them. The younger son made some very costly mistakes, but he knew the way home, and he knew that his father was gracious. If he was wrong about anything, it was that he underestimated how gracious his father really was. The older son, on the other hand, seemed to think his father would rather have a slave than a son. Maybe he thought that his father had unreasonable expectations of him, or maybe he was trying to earn his father's approval, which ironically he already had.
This parable confronts us with our “lostness,” and it shows us how God extends grace to us in the midst of it.
According to the standard interpretation of this parable, the father represents God; the wayward younger son represents the so-called “sinners” who were drawn to Jesus and experienced God's grace through Him; and the resentful older son represents the good, upstanding religious folk who were looking on with disapproval. In another Gospel, Jesus told the religious leaders, “The tax collectors and the prostitutes are going into the kingdom of God ahead of you.”9 On another occasion, Jesus remarked that, though the religious leaders honored God with their lips, their hearts were actually far from God.10 I think that maybe Jesus used the Parable of the Prodigal Son to subtly tell his critics that they were the ones who were still lost and that they were the ones who needed to turn back to God and receive God's grace.
Of course, the older son in Jesus' parable represents not only the graceless religious folk of Jesus' day, but also the graceless religious folk of our day.
For a few weeks in early 2009, advertisements funded by atheist groups appeared on the sides of buses in London. These ads, which were posted in response to similar ads funded by Christian organizations, read, “There's probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life.” Since then, similar advertisements appeared in other countries.11
It's easy to dismiss messages like this, assuming that some people just don't want to believe that they're accountable to a higher power. Personally, I think that we Christians are at least partially to blame for such messages. We have been entrusted by Jesus to share the Gospel with the world, the Good News that God so loved the world that God sent God's Son, not to condemn the world but to save the world.12 We claim that “God is love,”13 but the messages posted as part of the Atheist Bus Campaign seem to suggest that people have gotten the idea that the existence of God is a reason to be worried and a reason to not enjoy life. I'm not sure we have done a very good job of sharing the Good News. I know that, for much of my life, I heard a lot more bad news than good news from my fellow Christians.
It seems to me that people have caught on to the reality that there are a lot of unhappy, graceless Christians in the world.
Consider what the older son said when he angrily unloaded on his father. He said, “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you...” If the older son considered himself a slave, he obviously did not enjoy his life very much. At the risk of reading a little too much into the parable, I wonder if maybe, beneath his rage, he was envious because his brother actually had the opportunity to leave home and enjoy his life for a while. Maybe he too would have liked to stop worrying and enjoy his life.
Personally, I can see myself in both of the two sons in Jesus' parable. My first job as a professional computer programmer was with a company in the gambling industry, which, in my experience, was not too dissimilar to a pig sty. While I worked for this company, I grew to regret the lack of intentionality that led me there. At one point, I felt that I had squandered my college education by choosing my field of study based on what would help me pay the bills. I felt that I had let a world of opportunities slip right through my fingers. That said, I tend to identify with the older son. I've made some mistakes in my life, but, for the most part, I've managed to stay out of serious trouble thus far. Most people would consider me a decent person, but my life hasn't felt like much of a party.
My job in the gambling industry is actually what motivated me to get more involved in the Church. I sought in my faith the sense of purpose that eluded me at work. I even started to hope that God would lead me down a different path in life. Over time, though, what I perceived to be people's expectations of me began to weigh on me. I did things I didn't really want to do and ended up in situations that were not ideal for me, because I figured that what people wanted from me was also what God wanted from me. To borrow a couple of expressions from Jesus, that “easy yoke” and “light burden” I was promised started to feel more like a “millstone about my neck.” I found myself envying the seemingly carefree people in the world who simply enjoyed their lives.
The older son did not seem to understand his father's grace, nor did he realize where he stood with his father. Consider what the father said when his son compared himself to a slave. He said, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.” These are hardly the words of a slave driver.
Some of us grow up in the faith, leave it behind, and then return to it when we're older and wiser. Some of us have never left the faith, and secretly we aren't very happy. Deep down, we envy people who just enjoy their lives, and we mask our envy with judgment. Some of us sit in the same church pews week after week, still as lost as Easter eggs because God's grace has not truly become real to us. The Parable of the Prodigal Son teaches us that we all need God's grace, whether or not we've trainwrecked our lives like the younger son, and it warns us that, if we don't receive God's grace, we will become graceless toward others, like the older son. Grace takes different forms at different times. Sometimes grace assures us that we are forgiven for the mistakes we make, and sometimes grace assures us that we have nothing to earn and nothing to prove. Grace is there for us when we mess up, and it is there for us when we try a little too hard to not mess up. For me, receiving God's grace has meant learning to be less concerned about what people want from me and learning to trust that God loves me not for what I do but for who I am as one of God's children.
If you want a good example of an unhappy, graceless Christian, you need to look no further than the founder of Methodism, John Wesley. In early 1736, Wesley arrived in the British colony of Georgia with the pretense of serving as a spiritual leader for the colonists and as a missionary to the natives. In reality, he was trying to save his own soul. Wesley had been an ordained priest for five years and a Christian for even longer, yet the grace of God had not become a reality to him. This void in his faith led to graceless behavior toward others. When his ship landed in Georgia he destroyed the rum with which the other passengers were planning to celebrate the end of their long voyage. He held prayer services at five o'clock in the morning and barred anyone who didn't attend from receiving Holy Communion. He placed unreasonable expectations on his parishioners and ended up alienating himself from them. At the end of the year, after being charged with defamation of character by a former love interest – long story – he fled back to England as an utter failure, unsure he had any faith left in him.14
A year and a half later, on the evening of May 24, 1738, Wesley was dragged to a Bible study on Aldersgate Street in London. As he sat, listening to someone read Martin Luther's commentary on the Letter to the Romans, God's grace suddenly became real to him. He believed that God really had saved him and forgiven his sins.15 He finally realized that he had nothing to earn from God and nothing to prove to God.
John Wesley looked back on his experience that evening on Aldersgate Street and wrote in his journal that he felt that his heart was “strangely warmed.” Theologian Paul Tillich would have said that Wesley was “struck by grace” that evening. According to Tillich, grace strikes us when life seems meaningless, when we've hurt people we love, when we're disgusted with ourselves, or when we've fought the same sins for years with little to no progress. He writes,
Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying: “You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!”
Tillich suggests that, when we are struck by grace, everything changes for us, even though our circumstances might not be any different.16
The Parable of the Prodigal Son is a story about a lot of things. It is a story about lost children. It is a story about rebellion and resentment. Most of all, it is a story about God's grace. Grace meets us when we've lost our way and when we mistakenly think we have something to prove. Grace urges us, wherever we are, to accept that we are accepted by God. Grace assures us there is nothing bad we can do to make God love us less and that there is nothing good we can do to make God love us more. Grace allows us to stop worrying and enjoy the lives God gave us.
Has God's grace become a reality to you?
Amen.
Notes:
- Luke 15:1-2
- Luke 5:27-32
- Luke 7:36-50
- Luke 15:3-7
- Luke 15:8-10
- Kent Dobson. “Parables: Prodigal Son.” Mars Hill Bible Church, 06/21/2015.
- Wikipedia: “Rumspringa”
- Dobson, “Parables: Prodigal Son”
- Matthew 21:31 (NRSV)
- Matthew 15:7-8
- Wikipedia: “Atheist Bus Campaign”
- John 3:16-17
- 1 John 4:8
- Adam Hamilton. Revival: Faith as Wesley Lived It. 2014, Abingdon Press. pp. 62-67
- http://www.ccel.org/ccel/wesley/journal.vi.ii.xvi.html
- Paul Tillich. The Shaking of the Foundations. ch. 19
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