Pre:
One
of the things that people do in the summer, at the Shore and elsewhere, is get
together with family. Summer is a
great time for a family reunion. Have
you had yours yet?
Do
you like family reunions? They can
bring out the best, the worst, and the strangest.
My father was the middle child in a family with seven children, so my
extended family is pretty big. Some
of my cousins are a lot older than me, and when I was a kid they seemed ancient.
Some seemed a little strange. My
oldest three cousins were brothers: Elwood,
Darwin and Marlin. If you have ever
listened to Garrison Keillor’s Lake Woebegone, these three were the epitome of
the Norwegian Bachelor Farmers—still are, but they are a lot older now.
Sometimes at a family reunion, I learned things about my family that I
did not know. Since I was one of
the younger cousins, I often felt like I had come in on the third act of a play.
Some facts had just simply escaped me.
I had no clue why certain relatives were a part of the family one year,
and the next year, nobody talked about them.
I had no clue that I had a step-cousin, because he never showed up
either. In my late teens I learned
that my uncles’ wife had an illegitimate child.
My uncle raised him along with his kids, but I never met him! It turns
out he was a “bad boy.” He had spent some time in jail for rape.
So, nobody in the family talked about him.
Enough
of my family’s dysfunctions.
The focus of our Bible story is a family reunion.
Listen to the story with that in mind.
Summer at the Shore: Family Reunion
There was a young man who had a burning desire to become a great writer.
He wanted to tell stories that would move people.
He said, “I want to write material that the entire world will read,
things that will touch people at a deep emotional level, writings that will
evoke the emotions of pain, pathos, and fear, things that will make people
cry.” He kept looking for the
perfect place to put his passion to work. He
finally gave up writing stories and found his place.
He now writes computer technical manuals.
(parables, 21.3.3)
Telling a story is an art. Nobody
tells a story better than Jesus. His
stories hold people’s attention, they engage the emotions, and they challenge
the mind.
Today’s story is about a family reunion.
And depending on your perspective, it’s a party that went the wrong way
altogether, or turned out better than your wildest dreams.
The story is usually called the prodigal son, and it is his story that we
really know the best. Perhaps we
can relate to him, because we have seen bad boys before, or we have had a
prodigal life ourselves. The
prodigal son is the rebel. The one
who cares nothing for the family. All
he wants is to get out of there, take the money that’s owed him, and make his
way in the world. That’s his
perspective: the family owes me a
living, and I am going to take it and run.
And that’s what he does. He
takes the considerable sum of money his father gives him and heads right for
Atlantic City, Las Vegas and anywhere else there are bright lights, beautiful
women and ways to spend money. To
say it kindly, he is not a good financial manager.
He blows it all. Finally, he ends up like Mike Tyson. Have you heard about Mike Tyson’s financial debacle? In
the past 20 years, he has made about $400 million, and he has squandered it all.
In a recent spending spree, Tyson walked into a Las Vegas jewelry store
and picked up a diamond studded gold chain worth $173,706.
He paid nothing for the piece of jewelry, because the storeowner knew
him, and presumed that he was good for the money.
Now that purchase is listed in Tyson’s Chapter 11 petition that he
filed in Manhattan. Tyson owes back
taxes to the IRS as well as British tax authorities and the states of Georgia
and Michigan. He owes money to law
firms and financial managers and trainers.
And he no longer has the sharp athletic edge that used to help him
command $30 million for a night’s work.
Our friend the prodigal does not have a bankruptcy court to help him out,
so he goes to work for a pig farmer, the lowest of the low places for a good
Kosher Jewish boy to go to work. One
day he wakes up to reality. He
realizes that there is no lower that he can go.
He is kind of like the Airman who was stationed at Thule Air Base in
Greenland. A C-141 cargo plane was
preparing for departure, and they were waiting for the Airman to arrive with the
truck to pump sewage out of the holding tank.
The truck was late, the commander was in a hurry, and the Airman was slow
in getting the job done. The
commander berated the Airman for his slowness and promised punishment.
The Airman simply said, “Sir, I have no stripes, it is twenty below
zero, I’m stationed in Thule, and I am pumping sewage out of airplanes.
What could you possibly do to punish me?”
(parables, 22.10.4)
That’s the prodigal, in the middle of the pigpen.
The way he sees it is this: My
life stinks and it’s my own fault. The
slaves in my parent’s house are better treated than this.
I will cast aside any pride I have left, I will go and confess my sins to
my father. I will not ask to be
treated as family, but will ask to be taken on as a slave.
That is good enough. I
don’t deserve any better. Now,
that’s a big attitude change, isn’t it?
For him, then, the family reunion turns out better than his wildest
dreams, because his father races out to greet him, gives him gifts that say he
is loved and valued. And then
throws a big party. Having
started the story with an indifferent, selfish perspective, he has now become
very realistic about himself, and he is astounded by the love of his father.
The elder brother’s perspective is quite a bit different, isn’t it?
In fact, the only one who has a worse time at the family reunion than the
elder brother is the fatted calf. From
his perspective, this is a party that should never have happened.
He is so angry with his father he could spit.
“If anyone should get a party, it should be me.
I’m the good kid. While this rebel son of yours went off spending money on
prostitutes, I was here slaving away. I’ve
always obeyed you, always been here, and you’ve done nothing for me.” You
can hardly blame the older brother, can you? It’s not fair! It’s
not fair.
Reading
between the lines of the story, we might imagine the elder brother on the day
the prodigal left home: “Good
riddance to bad rubbish, he says. Now
I have mom and dad all to myself.” I
don’t envision the elder brother spending a lot of time worrying about his
younger brother, or praying for his safety.
He has his own life to live. He
is self-sufficient. Mature.
As different as these two brothers are in personality and perspective,
there is one attitude that they share in common.
Both of them believe that their relationship with their father is based
on performance. If I’m a good
kid, my father will love me and I will continue to be a valued member of the
family. If I’m bad, forget it.
I’m out of here.
And here’s where the father’s perspective throws everything into
disarray. Because that’s not the
way he sees it at all. For him
it’s all about relationship: about
being together, about the family, about love and reconciliation, about getting
back the one who was lost.
The story is called the Prodigal Son, but we need to look closely at the
father, because he is a prodigal in his own right.
He simply doesn’t behave the way a father should, at least not in that
time and place. He does not have to
give the prodigal the money he asks for. This
is the son’s inheritance money, and the father is not dead yet!
In fact there was specific advice in Judaism that said don’t
do it! Don’t give your goods
away while you are still alive, or you may end up destitute yourself. You’re throwing your money away!
Yet the father does it anyway, surprising everybody.
The second surprise comes when the prodigal returns.
Normally in that culture, the father would wait for the son to come and
address him, waiting specifically for some indication of respect.
But this father does not wait. This
father sees the son at a distance and runs to embrace him—so full of joy that
he does not care what anyone else thinks. He
loves his son, he worried about his son while he was gone, and now all that
matters is that he’s back. He’s
back.
It’s a great story. The
characters seem real and the story line is easy to follow.
The best part about the story is the ending. It’s a cliffhanger. It
ends with the father and his elder son in a hot debate, the son challenging the
father’s behavior, and the father angrily defending what he’s done.
We are left with the question of what the elder son will do.
The prodigal and his father have been reconciled.
Will the brothers come together as well?
It really depends on the elder brother, doesn’t it? It depends on his attitude, whether he will welcome the
little rebel back home, or not.
The cliffhanger ending is quite intentional and is a part of Jesus’
skill in story telling. It drives
us to ask why did Jesus tell this story,
and to whom is it addressed?
Somebody needs to finish the story.
Who is it?
The answer is simple, but you have to go back to the beginning of Luke 15 to get it. At the beginning of the chapter Luke says that the Pharisees and the teachers of the law were complaining that Jesus was not acting the way a religious leader ought to act. He was welcoming all kinds of low life drug addicts and people on welfare and AIDS patients. Illegal aliens and all kinds of bad actors. Of course, he was welcoming the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, too, but they sort of stood off to one side, always judging, always analyzing, critiquing, staying away from the riffraff, so as not to get contaminated.
So, the story of the prodigal son is told for their benefit.
They are the elder brother, and
the lowlifes that Jesus is hanging out with are the younger brother who has come
home. God is the parent who allows
people to go their own way and make their owns mistakes, and then welcomes the
sinner home with a big party. The Pharisees and the teachers of the law, the
good kids, need to decide where they are going to be in God’s family reunion.
On the outside, or on the inside. That’s
an interesting reversal, isn’t it? Because certainly the religious leaders
would have said that they were on the inside of God’s kingdom.
Yet, by their behavior and their attitudes, they were shutting themselves
out.
The story is for them, but it is for us, too, of course. Every time we come together for worship, it’s like God is
having a family reunion. Some of us
have spent some time in the far country along with the prodigal son.
Others have remained at home. There
are both rebels and Pharisees among us. But
we are all part of the same family. God’s
family. God welcomes us all.
The
question is, are we going to welcome each other?