Pericope Study - Fourth Sunday in Lent- March 21 2004

THE FOURTH SUNDAY IN LENT

MARCH 21, 2004

LUKE 15:1-3, 11-32

1)Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him 2)And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them”

11)Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12)The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me. So he divided his property between them. 13)A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14)When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15)So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16)He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17)But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18)I will get up and go to my father and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, 19)I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” 20)So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21)Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son. 22)But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one – and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23)And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24)for this son of min was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25)”Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26)He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27)He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28)Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29)But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30)But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31)Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32)But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Is there any significance in the fact that the churches today are criticized not so much for whom they want to include as whom they must shut out? Were the critics of Jesus not aware or were they forgetting that when Jesus included tax collectors he also told them that they should no longer cheat anyone. And his word to sinners was to sin no more. Acceptance was not approval but, as with every other sinner he contacted, it was a call to repentance, to metanoia, to change. Jesus insisted that they needed to alter their way of thinking.

His problem with religious leaders was that they could not understand why his call to them was the same, to change their way of thinking. It is a summons to every person still today. The expression of sin, opposing God, may differ but it is the same sinfulness that is being expressed. When Jesus accepts the invitation of sinners to eat with them he does not come to approve of them and their sin but it is to call them to change. When he invites us to come and eat his food his purpose is to change us by his forgiveness. He accepts the invitations of sinners any time; he extends his invitation when people are ready and can grasp what he is offering to them. His parables were invitations to eat with Jesus and receive his food, and those who were not ready heard but did not understand (Seeing they may see and not understand).

Most religions in the world are attempts to find God and their basic fallacy is the idea that God is off in another way of life, in another set of principles. (Deus absconditus) It is also based on the principle that God will have to be persuaded to give us what we need, i.e., what we want. Both the boys in the story had the feeling that they were not getting what would really make life worth living, but, like many older and younger children, they differed in their ideas of how to get it. They seem to be so different and yet their aims are so much alike, to get what they want out of their father. The older boy figured that if he acted according to his father’s dreams he would get what he wanted, and a party with his friends was only part of the dream. Don’t make waves and you may get it all. And if your father sees how much better you are than your troublesome brother you may get it all. It is a simple religion, involving God and you only. The rest can go to hell. Who cares about them?

The dream of the other brother seems so different but it is really the same. And like many a younger child he does not see any value in putting it off. You do not live for what you can get in the future but what you can get now and enjoy today; worry about tomorrow when it gets here. Didn’t God say, “Take no thought for the morrow, for the morrow will take thought for the things of itself? Sufficient unto the day is the good thereof”? But he too is interested in himself and when he sells his father on the idea of giving him his inheritance now he goes off to where he can run his own life and do what he wants.

As brothers and sisters we too may see things in a different way but basically our aim is the same, to get what we want. How do you work this world, how do you manage God so that you can do what he demands or even ignore his demands? In our day we think we have made it possible for us to do what God wants by altering his demands into requirements that do not exceed our abilities or even our desires. So we make God into what we want him to be by leaving out the descriptions and stories of God that make no sense to us and constructing something that looks like God to us. We may see him as someone who will always do what we want and then we are discouraged when things do not happen according to our dreams. We see him as a God of rules and order and then we are dismayed when things fall apart. We live in a world that is falling apart – we do not say but we believe the president has done nearly everything right or he has done nearly everything wrong. A religion which has so many things wrong is having such success. A country which has so many things right is falling apart and we look for reasons – taking prayer out of schools, rejecting the display of the commandments, making the union of same sex couples equivalent to the union of different sexes. If we can make the right choice in these areas maybe things will straighten out.

The two boys in the story find that things fall apart in their lives. One finds himself envying hogs and the other finds his crazy brother welcomed home with a celebration that the sensible brother never had. It’s a messed up world in which you can’t count on things. There is no order that is reliable.

And it is a crazy world to us, unless there is a father who loves his children. He loves them as children who must learn how to handle the freedom he is giving them. He does more than insist that they must do things in the right way. He gives them the freedom to find out the right way for themselves, the way that really works, the way of God finding you rather than your finding God.

The hopes of both boys were so much less than what the father had in store for them. The boy who hoped to find a good life by getting his inheritance and leaving found he was starving in a famine. But out of it also came the idea of going back to his father and being a slave. But before he can broach the idea to his father his father has another idea – Let’s celebrate my son who has come back smarter than he went away. Maybe he is ready to trust his father rather than be independent. His father has a better idea then being a slave – how about being a son again? And the father has a better idea than the older boy too. Instead of merely having a party, how about living your life as a celebration. Not merely a celebration of what you have but a celebration of the life I am giving to your brother and also the life I am giving to you.

We celebrate the things that are happening in our lives. We celebrate the forgiveness God gives to you and the forgiveness he gives to many others. Don’t envy those brothers and sisters who get to have so much fun sinning before they came to forgiveness but celebrate that God found them and celebrate that God found us also.