Full service can be viewed HERE. Gospel reading begins at about 36 min.
Lent 4C
March 27, 2022
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
INTRODUCTION
Last week, we talked about “ground zero,” those places of loss and devastation, and God’s presence in it. This week, the lectionary brings us to a very different place – readings all about reconciliation, homecoming, and even a party! Let’s look at some context.
First, Joshua. You may remember that at this point in the story, the Israelites have been wandering in the wilderness for 40 years, a journey that began right after their Exodus from slavery in Egypt. This was a period of divine punishment for their faithlessness – faithlessness even though God had dramatically freed them from slavery! But now, they have arrived once again in the land promised to Abraham and his descendants. It is a joyous return, and there they celebrate the Passover feast for the very first time in their home. You might say, they are home for the holidays! They call the place “Gilgal” which refers to how God has “rolled away” the disgrace of their unfaithfulness, and kept his promise.
Speaking of disgrace, and rolling it away, we will also hear the story of the Prodigal Son, about a wayward son who brings shame on his family, but then returns and is restored. You’ll notice there are some missing verses – we’ll start by naming the diverse crowd there to listen to Jesus (which includes both notorious sinners and rule-abiding Pharisees), then we’ll skip over two parables. Those two parables are the lost sheep (the one about leaving the 99 to find the one) and the lost coin (where a woman searches everywhere for her one lost coin). In both of those stories, and the one we will hear about a lost son, the story ends with a lavish party, which will echo the celebration happening in heaven when one who was lost has been found.
These readings are about arriving home, to be sure, but we cannot appreciate that fact unless we also remember what came before. So as you listen, recall some time when you found yourself in a transitional period, and the feeling of joy you felt upon finally arriving. Let’s listen.
[READ]
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| By Otto S., age 9 1/2 |
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
This year we solicited some of the kids of the congregation to provide us with art for our bulletin covers and the livestream. I’m always delighted when we’ve done this to see what the kids come up with, what part of the story sparks their interest enough to recreate it with their wonderful kid imagination. When I received the art for today’s story, the Prodigal Son, I had to smile, because young Otto decided to depict the moment in the pig pen, and that is the very same moment to which I was drawn this year. So much art based on this story is centered on the reunion, the happy homecoming when the father embraces his wayward son – and I can see why! That’s the moment of lavish grace, the home that we all crave in our lives.
Yet as I think about the different places in this story, and which place to focus on this week, I find myself drawn not to home, but to the many in-between places. The moments of transition. The liminal places where things are no longer as they were, but they aren’t yet how they will be. Like, the father daily scanning the horizon for his son. The years of wondering if he is okay. At the other end of the story, the conversation between the father and the older son, where the older son is not yet willing to cross the threshold to join the party. And yes, that moment in the pig pen, when the younger son realizes that something has got to change.
Our lives are full of these moments, right? In fact, I can think of very few moments when I really felt across the board like I had arrived. Much more often, I am in the midst of some transition or another. Even when I have arrived at a dream or hoped-for destination – I am thinking of the first time I held my daughter, for example, or the first time I presided over communion after my ordination – there was still a sense of being in-between. Like, I have arrived at my lifelong dream of motherhood, but… now what the heck am I supposed to do this beautiful, crying thing in my arms? Who am I, now that I am also “Mom”? Or, mere days after that glorious moment of presiding at the table for the first time, I was planning a cross-country move, and figuring out how to live into my new role as pastor. How quickly we move from “here!” back into transition!
So that is the place I am drawn to this week: the liminal place, the in-between place. Because such spaces are constantly all around us: As we anxiously watch news from Eastern Europe. As we anticipate beginning a new job, or engage in a hiring process. As we enjoy this period of being mask-free, even as we watch Covid numbers rising again. As we work our tails off to heal, or to forgive, or to restore, or to find equilibrium. So much liminality.
Maybe it would help if we better understood what happens in these liminal places. What do we know about them? We know it is a space between times, or even between two physical places (like the Israelites, wandering between Egypt and the Promised Land, or like the younger son, traveling from pig pen to home). It is a place of tension, already and not yet. And perhaps it is because of that tension, that it becomes a place where transformation can happen. So when you look back on these times, you may remember them as terribly difficult, but also necessary, and when someone asks you, “Was it good or bad? Was God faithful or unfaithful? If you could go back, would you do it again?” – we don’t know how to answer. Because we come out of these liminal times different people than we entered them, right? You can be sure the younger son was changed by his time in the pig pen, by his “dissolute living” and the wretched realization of where his choices have brought him. You can be sure the Israelites were changed for their 40 years in the wilderness. But would they have traded that time if they also had to trade the transformation they brought about? I doubt it! I sure wouldn’t trade any of my own experiences that brought upon meaningful transformation!
And that is how we know, that even in those liminal places – the pig pens and wildernesses and long roads home that we experience – that’s how we know that God is there. Because God is undoubtedly in the business of transformation. As Paul exclaims to the fledgling church in Corinth, “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!” You see, God never intends for us to stay the same. God is always doing a new thing. So if we see a new thing happening in our lives – that is a good sign that God is up to something!
But it’s exhausting, right? I know (believe me, I know!) that the liminal time that results from God doing a new thing is so wearing. We all know that, from living through 2 years of a pandemic, and all its fear and uncertainty, a communal place between “how things were” and whatever new reality will exist as a result of it. It’s exhausting. Liminal places are supposed to be between two places, not our permanent location, because we cannot endure for too long in the in-between. At some point, we need to find our new home, the location of that new thing God is doing. So, what can the parable of the Prodigal Son teach us about surviving in the in-between, until we once again arrive home?
Let’s look at the title of our Lenten theme: You Are Here. God is here. Yes, even in the liminal space, even in the pig pen, even on that long walk between two places, God is here. And as long as God is there, there is reason to celebrate. Sometimes it is hard to see, hard to coax ourselves out of the discomfort of liminality to do something joyful. But what this story can teach us, is that sometimes, we may have to seek out the reasons to celebrate. Sometimes we have to put aside the insistent sense of transitioning, and carve out a place to sit, or even better, a place to dance – to dance and celebrate that God is with us all along the way, transforming us from death to life. “Strike up the band!” says the father to his servants. “Light up the grill! Put on your dancing shoes, because it is time for a celebration! I know, there is much to be dealt with tomorrow. I know that this son of mine won’t slip unnoticed back into our daily patterns, and this arrival home will mean some reordering of our routine. I know that the relationships in this family have taken a hit, and that especially my two beloved sons have some work to do to renew trust. I know all that. But tonight – tonight we celebrate. Because my son was lost, and now is found. He was dead – and he is alive! So party on!”
This is a lesson I know I need to hear! I can get so bogged down by all the things going wrong, all the fatigue liminality brings, all the weariness of uncertainty. All the pig poo I’m having to shovel. But if God is there – and God is! – then there is always something to celebrate. And just as surely as God will meet us in the pig poo, and run out to meet us on the road, God will be with us in those celebrations, bringing along the angels in heaven as guests, and even urging us to join the party. And so, my siblings in Christ, party on!
Let us pray… God in the pig pen, God on the road, God in all our transitions and liminal places: you meet us wherever we are. When we are overcome with fatigue for all the in-between places in which we are living, open our eyes to find there something to celebrate. And then crank up the music, Lord, and keep urging us to party on. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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