Going Home Again - Luke 15:1-3, 11-32 (Sermon from July 12, 2015)
Thomas Wolfe wrote You Can’t Go Home Again. Evidently Mr. Wolfe was riding with me this
past Christmas when I drove to the family gathering with my parents and sister
and her family. I’m actually surprised
that the story has not gotten out any further from my family with regard to
your directionally challenged pastor. My
parents still live on the street I grew up on.
They still live in the house that we moved into when I was five or six
years old…so for you mathematically challenged folks, that is like 40
years. This past Christmas we drove to
their house. We turned on the right
street, drove up the street, pulled into the driveway, and got out of the car,
as I told everyone that the odd vehicle must be my sisters van. It was only after getting some of the
presents out of the trunk and starting toward the front porch that I realized,
“this isn’t my parents’ house.” I had
turned in the wrong driveway…two houses early.
Evidently I was having difficulty finding my way back to my father’s
house.
Alongside the Parable of
the Good Samaritan, our Scripture reading today of the Prodigal Son, is
probably one of the best known parables, or stories, of Jesus. The story is so familiar that there may be a
temptation to tune out when reading it or listening to it, or even thinking
about it. Preachers, like myself, have
tried to recapture some of the freshness of the parable over the years by
trying to get us to consider it from a different perspective—like placing
ourselves as the older brother or even the dad.
Reading the first three verses of the chapter remind us that Jesus is
addressing this story to those who grumbled that He was hanging out with
sinners. This morning, though, I want us
to revert to how many of us have looked at it over the years, and that is in
identifying with the younger brother…for we all are the younger brother…we all
are the Prodigal Son…as Paul tells us, “we have all sinned and fallen short of
the glory of God.”[1]
Traditionally we have
looked at this story that Jesus told in this way. The prodigal son is the one who has lived a
life of sin, and suddenly decides to repent and comes home to his father, who
we understand is God, who is ready to welcome that sinner home. The older brother in the story is often
depicted, as would be expected, as those self-righteous religious leaders who
were complaining about Him eating with the tax collectors, prostitutes, and
other sinners. He tells the three
parables about throwing a party for finding the lost with the parable of the lost
sheep, the lost coin, and today’s story of the Prodigal Son.
Reading it from that
perspective, we definitely need to make sure that we are never counted among
the self-righteous hypocrites who look down upon someone and decide because of
their past, their sins, that no one who is a follower of God should be found in
their company. We can’t be among those
who say, look that girl was a drug addict who stole from her parents what’s
Jesus doing talking with her? We can’t
say, look we know that guy has multiple DWI’s, what is Jesus doing hanging out
with him? We can’t say, hey, we know
that is a same-sex couple or those folks were sleeping together and she is
married to someone else, what’s Jesus doing having a meal with them? Why can’t we do that? Because, again, we are all the prodigal
son—we are among the “all” in, “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory
of God.”
Here’s where some new
insight came into play for me as I was reflecting on this passage. This story is about a family. It is about a father and his two sons. It is the younger brother, the younger
sibling, who comes and demands that he be given his share of the inheritance.
He, then, takes that money and wastes it on dissolute living. It was not someone from outside the family
that came in and asked for the money, it was a family member—it was someone who
was already in a relationship with the father.
That struck me in a completely new way as I read this familiar
parable. The younger brother is not the dealer
out on the corner who has never heard of Jesus…the younger brother is not the death
row inmate who was never reached with the message of God’s grace…the younger
brother is not Muslim terrorist that has chosen to not be part of the family. Jesus tells us how to deal with them later
when He talks about going into all the world making disciples. This story, though, is about those who are
already part of the family…this story is about you and me…and the ways that we demand our inheritance and walk
away from the family, when we walk away from our Father and Older Brother, and
waste our inheritance on sinful living.
This is the story about
how we have been given the inheritance of time, talents, wealth, and creation
itself and rather than cherish those gifts, investing them wisely in revealing the
Father’s Kingdom to the world, we take them and run. We may literally use them
up on prostitutes and porn, drugs and partying, living the wild life of Jesus’
prodigal. We may simply use them up on
ourselves without thought of how others around us are impacted—arguing that we
earned it, we deserve it. We may devote
as much time as we can to careers, biological family, and fun, while begrudgingly
offering our Father an hour or two every Sunday morning or five minutes for a
daily devotion. We may use or abuse the natural resources around us, without
considering how our actions deplete or harm the precious gift we have been
given to faithfully steward. We may
prostitute those around us, not considering how the activities we enjoy or the
products we use, may feed into the trafficking or enslaving of humans as if
they were nothing. In every case, we
waste the inheritance our Father has given us, spending it on dissolute living.
This story is about how
we have been given the inheritance of love and forgiveness and rather than
relish those gifts we don’t just squander them away, we throw them in the trash. We choose to live our lives filled with judgment,
bitterness and hatred. We look at those
who are living in sin, and rather than hold them accountable in love, rather
than reaching out to them and seeking to lift them up, we judge and condemn
them. We look at those who don’t look
like us, act like us, talk like us, or think like us and we despise them,
refused to be near them, or simply look down on them as less than us. We consider those who have wronged us,
betrayed us, or offended us, and we are just angry…we won’t be near them, we
won’t talk with them, we see them and we let our blood begin to boil. We squander away our inheritance in
dissolute living.
We are all the prodigal
son. The question is what will be our
pig slop? What will it take to see that
all of what we are doing leads further and further from our Father’s Home? What will it take for us realize that we need
to turn around and go back home? Will it
be bankruptcy or failed health? Will it
be abandonment by family and friends?
Will it be places we consider beautiful are no more because they have
been used up or covered in what we have thrown out? Will it be when we find ourselves judged by
the same standards we have used to judge others? Will it be when our hearts are left empty and
we are alone as bitterness and hatred have driven everyone out of our lives?
The good news is that
when we get to that point, all is not lost; we can go home again. We can repent, we can turn around and go home
once more. We can come back to the
Father, and as we turn around and head down the road, we will find that He is not
running up the road to greet us, He is there wrapping His arms about us as we
make that turn. We may have walked away
from the family, but God has never walked away from us. He is ready to restore us…placing the ring of
grace on our finger and the robe of Christ’s righteousness about our
shoulders. He will let us walk off on
our own, but if we choose to return, He is ready to sweep us up in His arms and
carry us Home.
That was the good
news…here is the great news.
There will be no older brother complaining to the Father. We are all the prodigal, and we have but one
older brother…that older brother is Christ Himself. He will not complain to the Father that we
have come home…He paved the way. He
offered up His own life so that the Father would welcome us back. With His flesh and blood, He set the Table
and prepared the Banquet. We won’t get lost.
There is no wrong driveway too pull into. He has shown us the way. He is the way. He has
made things ready, and wants to get the party started. Are we ready to go home
again?
In the Name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
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