2022 03 27 Sermon
Sermon for March 27, 2022 Lent 4 C House of Prayer Lutheran Church
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 Rev. Karl-John N. Stone
A few years ago on vacation in Florida, my family visited NASA. Have any of you been there? I was so impressed by it. The massive rockets and engines. The massive space shuttle on display. The massive buildings for storing the spacecraft. The massive amount of scientific knowledge and engineering skills that go into sending these spacecraft thousands and millions of miles into space. Everything about the place is massive. So what souvenir did we bring home with us? A miniature space shuttle Christmas tree ornament!
There is just something appealing to us as human beings, about looking at things that are so massive, and finding a way to represent them in miniature. I guess it helps us gain a better understanding. Many have called John 3:16 “the gospel in miniature”— “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” But there is another story from the Gospel of Luke that could be called “the whole Bible in miniature”. It’s the story we heard today— The Prodigal Son.
This famous story is a parable in which we find echoes to so many of the themes that occur and re-occur throughout the Bible. We find echoes of every father-son relationship in the Old Testament. We find echoes to God’s relationship with the people of Israel. We find instruction and judgement through God’s Law. We find sin, repentance, and forgiveness. We find the loss of faith, as well as the gift of new faith and new life, new creation. We find the gospel of salvation by grace. We find examples of evangelism, stewardship, and discipleship. Listen close enough, and we’ll even hear echoes of Baptism and Holy Communion, and Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. And the unresolved ending of this parable invites us to apply its message to today. If you’ve ever tried reading through the whole Bible, but haven’t been successful, you might just try reading and meditating on this story every day instead.
“Prodigal” means “wasteful”. We certainly see a lot of waste committed by the younger son, which is where the common title “The Prodigal Son” comes from. But there really is no official title. Jesus didn’t give it one. But the title you would choose would affect how you interpret the message, and because of that people have come up with lots of different titles for this story. So for today let me suggest a title, “The Parable of the Three Prodigals: Two Prodigal Sons and One Prodigal Father”, and let me suggest that the two sons represent us as children of God, and the father represents God.
Both sons become wayward and sinful in their own way, and the father does his best to restore them to a proper relationship. First, the younger son: It’s easy to see how wasteful and disrespectful he is. He asked his father for his share of the inheritance, basically saying “Dad, I wish you were dead, so give me my money now!” Surprisingly, the father agrees! This is one reason why the father is prodigal, too. He lets his younger son waste half the inheritance, when he certainly could have refused
this request. Also, in order to give his son half the inheritance, he had to sell half of his property—meaning that he would lose half the income he would have made for the rest of his life. But he allows his son freedom to make decisions, and to live with the consequences—kind of sounds like when God allowed Israel to have a king. God said, “you really don’t want a king.” But they insisted and he let them do it; most of the kings ended up being bad.
The younger son takes the money, moves far away, and squanders it having a “good ol’ time” in ways that are not considered wholesome—and he reaps what he sows; these choices left him empty in so many ways. Then a famine hits the land where he was living, and since he’s already wasted all his money, he gets desperate. He finds a job feeding the pigs—and remember that he would have been a Jew who is supposed to follow the law of Moses, so he shouldn’t have anything to do with pigs. He’s even willing to eat the pig slop—getting a taste of the consequences of all he’s done. Yet in hitting rock-bottom, he repents. He changes his mind about the life he’s chosen, and turns around to go back to his father’s house. He finally realizes how good he really had it back home, and if he’s going to work by the sweat of his brow, it might as well be for ol’ dad who treats his workers well. The son well knows, even that would be more than he deserves.
But before he gets all the way down the path to the house, his father sees him, runs to him, embraces and kisses him. The son admits he’s done wrong, and throws himself on his father’s mercy: “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Once again we see the father go back to his prodigal, wasteful ways: “Quickly,” he says, “bring out the best robe, the best ring, the best sandals and put them on this son of mine. Get the fatted calf and kill it, so we can eat and celebrate! Junior was dead but is alive again; he was lost and now is found!”
The father in this story reveals the prodigal, wasteful nature of God. God “wastes” (so to speak) massive amounts of forgiveness, mercy, generosity, blessings, and grace upon people who don’t deserve it. The younger son in the story reveals that, for as wasteful as he is, he still had one thing going for him: he was his father’s child. And that was enough. Even when the child gave up his claim on the father, the father never gave up his claim on the child. When the younger son came to his senses and came home, his father was just happy to have him back, find an excuse to get the barbecue going, and invite everyone to celebrate. And all joined the celebration— except for one. The older brother.
Dutiful, responsible older brother. He stayed by his father’s side the whole time his brother was away. Without him their farm wouldn’t be successful, and their whole family would be in trouble. He comes in from a long day working in the fields. He hears music, sees dancing, and asks one of the servants what’s going on? When he hears of the wasteful generosity, the undeserved grace—he gets angry! He refuses to join the party. He’s so angry that he’s willing to waste all the goodness that his father has always had available for him the whole time—but that he never asked to make use of and enjoy.
The ending to this story is left unresolved. Will the younger son remain faithful? Will the older brother choose to join the party? At least they both have the same thing going for them: they are children of the same prodigal and loving father. That’s what we have going for us, too: we are all children of the same loving and prodigal God. Even if you lose your faith, fall into despair, become angry in self-righteousness, cut yourself off from others, refuse to seek forgiveness, find any one of thousands or millions of ways to sin, or feel ashamed of your past—remember that in Christ you will always have a future. God has the robe of Christ’s righteousness given in Baptism ready to cover you; God has the feast of Holy Communion ready to share. You can always change your mind and turn around to God’s amazing grace.
Like the younger son, God is always willing to welcome you home to celebrate whenever you are ready to accept that God’s love is even for you, and start anew. That’s faith. Like the older son, you’re always free to choose to join the party, and rejoice that God welcomes even “someone like me”. That’s grace. Since God loves to go around “wasting” such massive amounts of grace and mercy for all who care to ask, imagine the impact that God’s love can provide for so many more as we ask God to help us represent—even in miniature—his generosity and kindness? Amen.