Year C
\u00a0Joshua 5:9-12
\u00a0Psalm 32
\u00a02 Corinthians 5:16-21
\u00a0Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32<\/p>\n\n\n\n
May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n
We’ve all heard this parable before\u2026 at least I think so\u2026 and depending on who’s preached on it\u2026 some of this may not be news\u2026 though as you’ll see\u2026 it all remains Good News\u2026 but I wonder how many of us know that this parable really doesn’t have a title\u2026 at least not one given by Luke\u2026 The Prodigal Son… or The Return of the Prodigal Son\u2026 is an add-on\u2026 though this story is also known as The Parable of the Two Brothers\u2026 of the Lost Son\u2026 of the Loving Father\u2026 and of the Forgiving Father\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Daniel Esparza writes that Jesus\u2019 audience would immediately recognize the opening words of the parable as they appear in Luke (15:11-32)\u2026 There was a man who had two sons<\/em>\u2026 as belonging to a very specific tradition\u2026 the very same one to which the stories of Cain and Abel\u2026 Ishmael and Isaac\u2026 and Esau and Jacob belong\u2026 and they would also be familiar with the pattern we find in all three\u2026 that the younger brother is always the righteous one\u2026 Cain being a murderer\u2026 Ishmael being denied his inheritance by Sarah (Gen. 21:10-12)\u2026 and Esau willing to give up on his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew\u2026 however\u2026 as is often the case in Jesus\u2019 speeches\u2026 there is an original twist in this one\u2026 here\u2026 the younger son is not the righteous Abel\u2026 the obedient Isaac\u2026 or the clever Jacob\u2026 in this case\u2026 the younger one is a “prodigal” son\u2026 and those listening to the parable\u2026 surely might not have seen that one coming\u2026 as it indicates an inversion of these classic biblical narratives\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n And in Jesus’ audience\u2026 the tax collectors and sinners who were coming to listen to Jesus\u2026 were those who are outside of the law\u2026 and the Pharisees and scribes who grumbled\u2026 are those who are inside the law\u2026 and there is grumbling because Jesus is welcoming and accepting people whose behavior puts them outside the law\u2026 and in doing this\u2026 the Pharisees and scribes fear he is approving of them and sanctioning their behavior\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And this story is atypical in another way\u2026 by asking for his inheritance now\u2026 the younger son is effectively saying that he wished his father dead\u2026 but instead of responding with indignity or an offended honor\u2026 this atypical father simply divides his property equally\u2026 and gives half to each son\u2026 not to mention that according to Deuteronomy 21:17\u2026 the older son would get two-thirds of the father’s estate and the younger son only one-third\u2026] the story says nothing about how the older son reacts\u2026 though later on\u2026 there’s a slight disconnect\u2026 because he claims that his father has never given him as much as a young goat\u2026 ] but it is because the younger son receives this inheritance that he is able to become prodigal\u2026 and I wonder how many of us know what prodigal means\u2026 [ may I have a show of hands\u2026 ]\n\n\n\n I used to think it meant singular or special\u2026 but it actually means\u2026 to spend money or resources freely and recklessly\u2026 to be rashly or wastefully extravagant<\/em>\u2026 and while the text is brief\u2026 he qualifies since it lets us know that he squandered his property in dissolute living\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n John Shea writes that it’s doubtful whether Jesus ever ate with a sinner\u2026 or argued with a Pharisee or scribe\u2026 instead\u2026 he shared food with lost sons and daughters\u2026 and had conversations with other lost sons and daughters\u2026 and in today’s parable… the younger lost son represents the sinners and tax collectors\u2026 the older lost son represents the Pharisees and scribes\u2026 and although these two groups see themselves as diametrically opposed to one another\u2026 Jesus sees them as sharing a common malady\u2026 namely\u2026 the failure to rejoice\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We’re told that after the younger son has spent everything he had\u2026 there’s a severe famine\u2026 and so he hires himself out to feed ritually unclean pigs\u2026 and figuratively becomes one himself\u2026 wanting to eat the food they eat\u2026 a detail that would not be lost on Luke’s Jewish listeners\u2026 but for now\u2026 he’s a hired hand who’s eating nothing\u2026 perhaps he can be one of his father’s hired hands who eats well\u2026 so he prepares a script to get back into the House of Food\u2026 ] and he makes the first move\u2026 he repents\u2026 he turns and moves towards his home\u2026 towards his father\u2026 the humiliation of his sin and the fierceness of his need drive each step\u2026 and yet\u2026 this is all he needed to do\u2026 because his father has been keeping vigil\u2026 waiting\u2026 and watching\u2026 and he sees his son while he is still far off\u2026 and at this sight\u2026 Shea continues\u2026 the father’s heartfelt compassion covers the distance between them\u2026 before his body covers the ground between them\u2026 and in this moment\u2026 the father\u2026 who has also been prodigal\u2026 recklessly\u2026 rashly and wastefully\u2026 lavishes gifts\u2026 welcome\u2026 and forgiveness on his son\u2026 because he knows how to rejoice\u2026 his son who was lost has been found\u2026 who was dead has come back to life\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now his older brother was in the field\u2026 he was a worker\u2026 perhaps fulfilling the works righteousness he believed necessary to maintain his father’s favor\u2026 as he approaches the house\u2026 he hears the unfamiliar sounds of music and celebration\u2026 and when he finds out what’s going on\u2026 he became angry\u2026 and refused to go in\u2026 <\/em>when he sees his father lavishly bestowing forgiveness and grace on his brother\u2026 perhaps\u2026 because he himself was determining who is worthy of what\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Perhaps\u2026 as Presbyterian Minister Mihee Kim-Kort writes\u2026 he represents the established religious order\u2026 and his story becomes a moral lesson for us all to be wary of resentment\u2026 perhaps even indignation and jealousy\u2026 a subtle word directed at those grumblers around Jesus\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n And his refusal to go in\u2026\u00a0 to accept hospitality\u2026\u00a0 is from the father’s point of view\u2026 an insult as well\u2026\u00a0 the important thing is that they have always been together\u2026\u00a0 and the father has never held anything back from him\u2026\u00a0 even half of his estate\u2026\u00a0 but the older son has imagined a demanding father who withholds love from the one who deserves it\u2026\u00a0 while giving love to the one who he believes does not deserve it\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n In Archbishop Desmond Tutu\u2019s book\u2026 The Book of Forgiving\u2026 he wrote about reconciliation from the perspective of one who lived the struggle of trying to welcome back a whole country that was lost\u2026 he wrote\u2026 a person is a person through other persons… none of us comes into the world fully formed\u2026 we would not know how to think\u2026 or walk\u2026 or speak\u2026 or behave as human beings\u2026 unless we learned it from other human beings\u2026 we need other human beings in order to be human\u2026 I am\u2026 <\/em>he wrote\u2026 because other people are<\/em>\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n We are living through an extended season of valleys being raised up\u2026\u00a0 and mountains and hills being made low\u2026\u00a0 we are finding our way through this rocky terrain individually\u2026\u00a0 and collectively\u2026\u00a0 we’re learning how to move from laws written into the civil code and into church polity\u2026\u00a0 to laws written on our hearts\u2026 and corporations and religious institutions are trying to figure out how to fit the diversity of God’s creation\u2026\u00a0 into expressions of fairness and justice\u2026\u00a0 and into the vows we made or that were made on our behalf\u2026\u00a0 at our baptisms\u2026\u00a0 of treating others the way we would have them treat us\u2026\u00a0 so that all injustice and ignorance would be burned away\u2026\u00a0 and so we experience ourselves as\u2026\u00a0 I AM WHO I AM BECOMING\u2026 today is Laetare Sunday\u2026\u00a0 and laetare<\/em> means\u2026\u00a0 to rejoice\u2026\u00a0 and we rejoice in the sacrament of Christ\u2019s presence\u2026\u00a0 in the forgiveness of sins\u2026\u00a0 and in all other benefits of Christ\u2019s passion\u2026\u00a0 we rejoice because\u2026 God welcomes the least\u2026\u00a0 the lost\u2026\u00a0 the last\u2026\u00a0 and the first\u2026\u00a0 because God welcomes those who keep God’s law\u2026\u00a0 as much as God welcomes those who do not\u2026\u00a0 because God keeps constant vigil\u2026\u00a0 waiting for us to turn ’round and take just the first step\u2026\u00a0 to breathe the first breath which seeks God’s forgiveness\u2026\u00a0 because in that moment\u2026\u00a0 God’s heartfelt compassion and saving grace has already covered the distance between us\u2026\u00a0 is already ours\u2026\u00a0 and for all this\u2026\u00a0 we rejoice\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Year C\u00a0Joshua 5:9-12\u00a0Psalm 32\u00a02 Corinthians 5:16-21\u00a0Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 May the words of my mouth O God\u2026 speak your truth\u2026 We’ve all heard this parable before\u2026 at least I think so\u2026 and depending on who’s preached on it\u2026 some of this may not be news\u2026 though as you’ll see\u2026 it all remains Good News\u2026 but I wonder how many of us know that this parable really doesn’t have a title\u2026 at least not one given by Luke\u2026 The Prodigal Son… or The Return of the Prodigal Son\u2026 is an add-on\u2026 though this story is also known as The Parable of the Two Brothers\u2026 of the Lost Son\u2026 of the Loving Father\u2026 and of the Forgiving Father\u2026 And Daniel Esparza writes that Jesus\u2019 audience would immediately recognize the opening words of the parable as they appear in Luke (15:11-32)\u2026 There was a man who had two sons\u2026 as belonging to a very specific tradition\u2026 the very same one to which the stories of Cain and Abel\u2026 Ishmael and Isaac\u2026 and Esau and Jacob belong\u2026 and they would also be familiar with the pattern we find in all three\u2026 that the younger brother is always the righteous one\u2026 Cain being a murderer\u2026 Ishmael being denied his inheritance by Sarah (Gen. 21:10-12)\u2026 and Esau willing to give up on his birthright for a bowl of lentil stew\u2026 however\u2026 as is often the case in Jesus\u2019 speeches\u2026 there is an original twist in this one\u2026 here\u2026 the younger son is not the righteous Abel\u2026 the obedient Isaac\u2026 or the clever Jacob\u2026 in this case\u2026 the younger one is a “prodigal” son\u2026 and those listening to the parable\u2026 surely might not have seen that one coming\u2026 as it indicates an inversion of these classic biblical narratives\u2026 And in Jesus’ audience\u2026 the tax collectors and sinners who were coming to listen to Jesus\u2026 were those who are outside of the law\u2026 and the Pharisees and scribes who grumbled\u2026 are those who are inside the law\u2026 and there is grumbling because Jesus is welcoming and accepting people whose behavior puts them outside the law\u2026 and in doing this\u2026 the Pharisees and scribes fear he is approving of them and sanctioning their behavior\u2026 And this story is atypical in another way\u2026 by asking for his inheritance now\u2026 the younger son is effectively saying that he wished his father dead\u2026 but instead of responding with indignity or an offended honor\u2026 this atypical father simply divides his property equally\u2026 and gives half to each son\u2026 not to mention that according to Deuteronomy 21:17\u2026 the older son would get two-thirds of the father’s estate and the younger son only one-third\u2026] the story says nothing about how the older son reacts\u2026 though later on\u2026 there’s a slight disconnect\u2026 because he claims that his father has never given him as much as a young goat\u2026 ] but it is because the younger son receives this inheritance that he is able to become prodigal\u2026 and I wonder how many of us know what prodigal means\u2026 [ may I have a show of hands\u2026 ] I used to think it meant singular or special\u2026 but it actually means\u2026 to spend money or resources freely and recklessly\u2026 to be rashly or wastefully extravagant\u2026 and while the text is brief\u2026 he qualifies since it lets us know that he squandered his property in dissolute living\u2026 John Shea writes that it’s doubtful whether Jesus ever ate with a sinner\u2026 or argued with a Pharisee or scribe\u2026 instead\u2026 he shared food with lost sons and daughters\u2026 and had conversations with other lost sons and daughters\u2026 and in today’s parable… the younger lost son represents the sinners and tax collectors\u2026 the older lost son represents the Pharisees and scribes\u2026 and although these two groups see themselves as diametrically opposed to one another\u2026 Jesus sees them as sharing a common malady\u2026 namely\u2026 the failure to rejoice\u2026 We’re told that after the younger son has spent everything he had\u2026 there’s a severe famine\u2026 and so he hires himself out to feed ritually unclean pigs\u2026 and figuratively becomes one himself\u2026 wanting to eat the food they eat\u2026 a detail that would not be lost on Luke’s Jewish listeners\u2026 but for now\u2026 he’s a hired hand who’s eating nothing\u2026 perhaps he can be one of his father’s hired hands who eats well\u2026 so he prepares a script to get back into the House of Food\u2026 ] and he makes the first move\u2026 he repents\u2026 he turns and moves towards his home\u2026 towards his father\u2026 the humiliation of his sin and the fierceness of his need drive each step\u2026 and yet\u2026 this is all he needed to do\u2026 because his father has been keeping vigil\u2026 waiting\u2026 and watching\u2026 and he sees his son while he is still far off\u2026 and at this sight\u2026 Shea continues\u2026 the father’s heartfelt compassion covers the distance between them\u2026 before his body covers the ground between them\u2026 and in this moment\u2026 the father\u2026 who has also been prodigal\u2026 recklessly\u2026 rashly and wastefully\u2026 lavishes gifts\u2026 welcome\u2026 and forgiveness on his son\u2026 because he knows how to rejoice\u2026 his son who was lost has been found\u2026 who was dead has come back to life\u2026 Now his older brother was in the field\u2026 he was a worker\u2026 perhaps fulfilling the works righteousness he believed necessary to maintain his father’s favor\u2026 as he approaches the house\u2026 he hears the unfamiliar sounds of music and celebration\u2026 and when he finds out what’s going on\u2026 he became angry\u2026 and refused to go in\u2026 when he sees his father lavishly bestowing forgiveness and grace on his brother\u2026 perhaps\u2026 because he himself was determining who is worthy of what\u2026 Perhaps\u2026 as Presbyterian Minister Mihee Kim-Kort writes\u2026 he represents the established religious order\u2026 and his story becomes a moral lesson for us all to be wary of resentment\u2026 perhaps even indignation and jealousy\u2026 a subtle word directed at those grumblers around Jesus\u2026 And his refusal to go in\u2026\u00a0 to accept hospitality\u2026\u00a0 is from the father’s point of view\u2026 an insult […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[106,103,90,105,104],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons","tag-god-welcomes-the-lost","tag-laetare-sunday","tag-lent","tag-prodigal-son","tag-rejoice"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1559,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions\/1559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}