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Do you think that God is nuts? The Pharisees did. Actually, they thought that they way Jesus acted was nuts and Jesus is the one who blamed his nutty actions on God. The Pharisees were questioning why Jesus would eat meals with tax collectors and sinners. Why would anyone want to associate with people like that, much less share meals with them? Jesus answered that question with several stories about God's seeming nuttiness in how he treated the lost. The first story is about someone who has a hundred sheep and has lost one of them. He hunts for the sheep until he finds it and then rejoices with friends and neighbors when the lost sheep is found. Jesus goes on to say that the rejoicing in heaven will be even greater at the repentance of one sinner. The next story is about a woman who has ten coins and loses one. She lights a lamp and cleans the house until she finds the coin. Then she calls friends and neighbors to rejoice with her. The third story is the one we heard today - the Prodigal Son. When the son is found, the father calls for a celebration that all might come and rejoice with him. You begin to get a picture of God rejoicing every time something that has been separated is put back in place. That's not too bad, but Jesus goes even further in the story of the Prodigal Son by saying that even when great wrong has been done, God will forgive and celebrate the return of the lost. In its simplest form, the story might be symbolic of the situation that Jesus is dealing with. The tax collectors are played by the youngest son, the Pharisees are played by the oldest son and Jesus is played by the father, with the actions of Jesus portrayed as what God himself would do. But even in this simple form there are layers of meaning for the characters and as many questions as there are answers. We have all known the younger son, the prodigal son, in this story. The prodigal may be man or woman, boy or girl, young or old, rich or poor. The prodigal is out to get what he or she wants, notwithstanding the cost to self or others. After all, as long as I get what I want, what does it matter what others have to pay for it? Many of us have even been the prodigal and have returned to find grace upon grace and God's blessed forgiveness at the hands of those we have betrayed. The Prodigal is portrayed as someone who is bound up by lust and greed, someone who lives a life devoid of meaning except what little meaning that can be found in gratuitous pleasure and indolence. But primarily the Prodigal is any one who is more concerned with getting what they want in life without concern for how it might affect others. The Prodigal is self-centered and chiefly concerned with self-satisfaction. We all know the older son as well. The older son, too, may be man or woman, boy or girl, young or old, rich or poor. The older son is out to get what he deserves at whatever cost others must pay. His deserving trumps all other considerations. If I have been faithful and followed all the rules then I should be the favorite one and get all the rewards due someone who has led such an exemplary life. Many of us have been the older son, demanding that we get what we deserve no matter the cost to others, only to have been lovingly shown that we are given more than we could ever ask for or deserve. Henri Nouwen, author of The Return of the Prodigal Son, says that the older son is bound up in jealousy, anger and resentment. If the Prodigal is concerned about getting what he wants, then the older son is primarily concerned with being the favorite, the winner, the best, just as he deserves. Above all, he wants to look good, but more than that; he wants to look better than everyone else. He can't win unless someone loses. The self-centeredness of the older son is focused on the pride of being better than anyone else. Nouwen does a wonderful job of describing the complex relationships that are happening between all of these characters. He continues, like most commentators, to focus on the redeeming quality of the love shown by the father. The father goes out to each son and offers him love, acceptance and more than the son had asked for. To the Prodigal the father offers a robe, a ring to signify that he is still part of the family and a feast to welcome him home. To the older son he clearly says, "all that I have is yours." There is no hesitation in loving either son. There is also no competition for who is the best or the favorite. The Prodigal is the favorite because he has come home. The eldest is the favorite because he never left. They are both the "favorite" to the father. The father's love can only be called extravagant. But here is where the story can be sentimentalized into nothingness for us if we look only into the two brothers and identify our lives with theirs. Certainly we must identify with one, or perhaps even both of them, and take on the message of forgiveness and acceptance by God. That is a clear meaning of the parable. Nouwen calls us to a deeper identification, identification with the father. It is only when we decide to step further into the picture and realize that we, too, are called to be the extravagant lover, the one who forgives before forgiveness is asked for, the father who would give all to those he loves -- it is only when we step into that demanding role that we can truly see the depth of this parable. Jesus doesn't simply call us to be forgiven; he calls us to forgive. "Be compassionate as my Father is compassionate", he tells his followers. Here is where the challenge of the parable is for us. And here is where the Pharisees thought Jesus' actions with the tax collectors and sinners were questionable. The father forgives the Prodigal before he even asks for forgiveness. The father doesn't even know what the son is going to say. All the father knows is that his homeless son has returned. Does he take him in under conditions? Does he make him beg to come back? Does he demand that the son will observe certain behaviors before putting and robe and ring on him? None of this happens in our part of the parable, although what happens later after the feast we are never told. The father may very well ask the son to follow certain rules, but that gets ahead of the point. That point being that God's joy in our turning to Him has no conditions, God's love for us is not based on our merit or anything we deserve, but on God's choice to be loving and merciful. And God is already there waiting for us when we turn to him. We are never first. God is always first. Many people describe forgiveness that comes "too early" as cheap grace. I don't believe that there is such a thing as cheap grace. Grace is God's gift because God has suffered the indignity of being treated by the creatures He created as unimportant and less than nothing to them. There is nothing cheap about suffering at the hands of another. We may rightly say that our forgiveness costs us nothing, since God paid the price for it by giving it to us freely, but that still leaves the cost being paid by someone. In fact, the only one who can ever pay the cost of forgiveness is the one who forgives. Retribution and revenge are not forgiveness. Neither is asking someone to "pay the price" for the wrong they have done to us. If I hurt someone, sin against them, and then pay the cost that is asked of me for my wrongdoing then I have earned the right to be in relationship again with them. That's not forgiveness, that's creating a transaction that determines the right to be in relationship. Creating transactions to determine relationships may be our way, but it is clearly not God's way. It apparently was not Jesus' way either, as he hung dying on the cross and asking that God forgive those who were killing him. They hadn't asked for forgiveness. They hadn't even repented or recognized that they had done anything wrong. Before they turned back to him, before they recognized their crime, before they repented, Jesus forgave them. It's the same with us; before we turned back to him, before we recognized our crime, before we repented, Jesus forgave us. Paul understood this as well. We read how he talks to the Christians in Corinth about reconciliation. "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God." (2 Corinthians 5 :17-20)Jesus asks us to forgive each other. Not after some satisfactory payment has been rendered or an apology has been made. Not after the wrong has been made right, but as soon as we are able to give up whatever revenge we feel that we deserve for the wrong done to us we are to "let go" or forgive the person. That is what forgiveness means, letting go of something. You see it is we who carry the sin, not the sinner, if we choose not to forgive it. To the sinner it is a stumbling block to relationships, but a stumbling block that can be removed only by the one who was offended. To the one who is harmed, it is a load that must be carried until it is let go. I can carry hatred all my life if I choose and no one can take it from me. Only I can choose to let go of the harms that have been done to me. Not even God can take them away if I choose to keep them. But where will that lead me? Who will be harmed as I carry all my hurts around? Myself, surely, and all those who would try to love me will be kept at a distance proportionate to the load I carry. The father of the Prodigal knew that he had to let go of the burden he was carrying or it would remain between him and his son. That is why the father is said to have seen the son a long way off. He had forgiven the son and continued to be in pain for the son until he could know that the son was free and safe. He was watching so that he could run to the son and let him know that all was forgiven. He chose to carry love rather than a burden of sin. We are given the choice to forgive or not, to carry the burden of sins and hurts or to let them go. We are forgiven by God out of His love. He calls us to forgive out of love as well. Be reconciled to God. Be reconciled also to each other. Forgive as Christ forgives us. Be compassionate, as God is compassionate. Then go and celebrate new life, a life that was lost and is found. |