Lent 4C
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Ah,
the Prodigal Son. Ralph Waldo Emerson called this story the best
story ever written, in the Bible or out of it. Indeed it is well-loved and
well-known, rich in meaning, and continually challenging. What makes it so
well-loved, I think, is that it is easy for us to place ourselves in the story.
Many of us have been the younger son, eager to get out and take risks, to try
our hand at the world, even if it may mean leaving behind those who are
important to us. And of course, whether or not we ever went as far as the
younger son in the parable, who of us has not longed to be welcomed back, to
return home to an open and forgiving embrace. We’ve all made mistakes, and we
all have wanted to put those mistakes behind us – we all hunger for
forgiveness.
Maybe
you’ve seen yourself in the place of the father – as someone who has been hurt
or wronged by someone you love, and who longs to have that loved one come back
to you and be in your life again. You’ve put past wrongs and hurt behind you,
and you’re ready to move on, to share in the deep love you still feel, and to
offer forgiveness. This hunger for forgiveness is different – it is a hunger to
forgive, rather than to be forgiven.
I suspect many of us have felt that as well.
But
perhaps the most compelling character of all is the older brother – and he,
too, is certainly one to whom we can relate. We talked about this parable in
confirmation class a few weeks ago. Both students in the class are older
sisters, and they immediately identified with the older brother in the story.
“That’s exactly what it’s like being the older sibling,” they agreed, where
your younger brother or sister can do no wrong, and you ask for one little
thing and you get nothing. They both had several stories to prove the point!
The older brother in this story did everything right: he was responsible and
obedient, he stayed home, he helped his father, he waited for the proper time
to collect his inheritance rather than asking for it in advance, and now that
his irresponsible little brother is back, and getting the royal treatment no
less, he is resentful because he has never gotten any sort of special treatment
for his righteous behavior. It isn’t fair, he feels (and I think most of us
would agree!).
You
know, even though this parable is famously named for the younger, “prodigal”
son, it’s really about both sons, isn’t it? Jesus could have left it at, “The
son came back and there was much rejoicing,” but he goes on, goes on to tell about the response of the older son,
thus urging us to consider both.
So if we’re going to consider both sons, let’s ask:
what is each son’s issue? The sins of the younger son are easy to identify – he
took his father’s money that should not have been his until his father’s death,
he went and squandered it on who knows what, and he ended up in the most
disgusting of jobs, feeding and cleaning up after pigs, hungry and without a
soul to care about him. Having made his mistakes, he hits rock bottom, realizes
where he is, repents, and returns. Happy story, easy to get a hold of. He did
wrong, he realized it, he made it right. Yay.
On the other hand, the elder son is without sin – at
least in his own eyes. He stayed home and did everything he was supposed to, he
was obedient and hard-working, he was probably admired and respected by their
friends and neighbors, even a model son. On the outside, he was flawless. But
is it true? Has he really done no wrong? Look at the state of his heart. When
he witnesses his father’s joy at the return of the younger son, he is filled
with resentment. Suddenly, his self-righteousness boils to the surface, and
instead of the model son, we see a prideful, selfish man. He is unable to
forgive his foolish yet repentant younger brother. He is unable to join in the
joy his father feels for having found something he thought to be lost and dead.
He is unable to get outside of his own belly button – rather than gratitude, he
feels resentment that he has never had any special treatment. And because he is
so stuck on his self-righteousness, he is also unable to see that he, too,
needs forgiveness, just as much as the younger son.
We are not so different from the older son sometimes,
are we? But how much harder it is for him and for us to see our own hunger for
forgiveness when we can only see ourselves as a victim, or, as the one who
stuck around and did the right thing while other people did wrong. Henri Nouwen writes about this story,
“Both [sons] needed healing and forgiveness. Both needed to come home. Both
needed the embrace of a forgiving father. But from the story itself… it is
clear that the hardest conversion to go through is the conversion of the one
who stayed home.” When you think you are the righteous one, you see, it becomes
difficult to see any need for your own forgiveness.
I was recently able to attend worship at my home
congregation in CA for my dad’s final worship service as the pastor of that
church before he retired. As a part of a pastor leaving, there is a sort of
rite of release you can do. In one part of it, my dad, the pastor, asks for
forgiveness for any way that he has wronged anyone in the congregation, known
or unknown. The congregation forgives him. And then the congregation says the
same words back to him, asking him for forgiveness for any way that they have
wronged him. And the pastor also says, “I forgive you.” What a humbling and
beautiful way to part ways, having mutually admitted to sins known and unknown,
and been granted forgiveness enough to cover the last 29 years!
Those of you who have been Lutherans for a while may have
noticed that the confession we used this morning is a tweaked version of the
LBW. This is what I grew up with, and I know it by heart. But through the lens
of this story, I hear it with new ears. “If we say we have no sin, we deceive
ourselves, and the truth is not in us. But if we confess our sins, God who is
faithful and just will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all
unrighteousness” – or for the “elder sons” among us, cleanse us from all
self-righteousness. Cleanse us from believing that we are without fault, that
we contributed nothing to this or that problem, that we have nothing we need to
confess or apologize for.
And then that prayer of confession, inscribed on so
many of our hearts: “We confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word,
and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” As I said, I
prayed this prayer every week as a kid, and one day, I asked my dad, “What does
that even mean? Why would I have to confess something I didn’t do?” – things
left undone. His answer was appropriate for his studious daughter: “Sometimes
we don’t do things that we should,” he said, “like your homework.” I, of
course, always did my homework… which is why I understood the magnitude of
this! So what did the elder son in this famous story leave undone? For what
might he need forgiveness?
And more importantly, what about for us? What about
for the “elder sons” among us? What was a time in your life when you felt the
other was in the wrong? Was there something in that situation that you “left
undone”? Perhaps you didn’t take a moment to step into the other person’s
shoes, to honestly and non-judgmentally see the situation from their
perspective. Or, you didn’t try to notice that you might have done something to
provoke their anger. Or, when they tried to apologize, you didn’t accept it.
“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and
the truth is not in us.” Hard words to swallow. But among the many things the
Parable of the Prodigal Son shows us is that even when we believe we are
righteous, we still need to do some self-reflection, take some inventory on the
state of our hearts. Because righteousness can quickly turn to
self-righteousness, obedience can quickly turn to harbored resentment, and
diligent work can quickly turn to selfish navel-gazing.
And this is why we all seek the loving, forgiving embrace of the Father.
This is why we ask for God to “forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those
who trespass against us.” This is why we hunger for those words of forgiveness
that we hear each week in worship. It isn’t fair that God should forgive us,
just as it isn’t really fair that the younger son should get a celebration when
the older son has never gotten even a young goat. It also isn’t fair that Jesus
should have been beaten and hung on a cross because of our sins. It isn’t fair…
but it IS grace. Like the father in the story, God repeatedly offers us
abundant and even totally nonsensical grace, so that we won’t ever be stuck in
the muck with a bunch of dirty pigs, but instead are able to come home to love,
no matter what we’ve done. That’s the gospel, friends. That’s God’s good news
for us. It doesn’t make sense. It isn’t comfortable. It isn’t fair. But it is grace, over and over again.
Let us pray. Our Father in heaven, forgive us our
sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Help us to see the state of our
hearts, even and especially when we feel we are the ones who have been wronged.
Help us to seek forgiveness for things done and things left undone. Save us
from the need to be right, so that instead, we can be in right relationship –
with you and with our neighbors. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and
the Holy Spirit. Amen
** Rembrandt's famous "Return of the Prodigal Son." Check out Henri Nouwen's book by the same title, a lovely reflection on this famous story through the lens of this painting.
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