"Father, I've Sinned" given March 6

            Jesus just didn't seem to understand. In this world, we're judged by the company that we keep. Jesus just didn't seem to understand. There's a responsibility that church people have, that clergy persons have, that the faithful have. We're supposed to maintain a certain standard. We're supposed to uphold distinctions between the righteous and the unrighteous. After all, we have to keep our distance from the sinners, lest we be tempted by them or worse, contaminated by their touch-- you know “sinner cooties”. Everyone knows that -- don't they?

            But Jesus didn't seem to. There's Jesus, hanging out again with the great unwashed, the tax collectors and prostitutes and the ordinary people who do not keep the observances. There's Jesus, hanging out with those who are quite obviously already and irredeemably lost. Lost, that is, according to those reputable religious authorities, those arbiters of propriety, the Pharisees.

            "This man welcomes sinners and dines with them!" Shocking!

            For some reason that day, Jesus decided to answer-- rather than to ignore the complaints of the professional religious community. And He did it in a typical fashion. He told them a parable-- about as one commentator puts it, the question of "how lost is lost"? How lost can a sinner be before even God gives up on her? How far is this forgiveness and reconciliation business supposed to go?

            As they listened to the story, the Pharisees were probably nodding to themselves and nudging one another in the ribs with their elbows. "Uh huh. Just the sort of sinner this Jesus like to associate with." They must have been vicariously enjoying this wretched sinner's misery. They must have been mentally anticipating the comeuppance the younger son was getting. Sure, they might admit that even were this sort of horrid sinner to come to his senses, there was room for him to be readmitted to the community—conditionally of course..

            First though, the boy would need to repent. He would have to humbly approach his father and beg for mercy. But he would also have to know that by no means could he ever be fully reinstated to his former position. By no means could he ever again be a true son to his father. He would always be second-class, always be the one who slipped. From that day on, he would always be the one people talked about behind his back and snickered at in the streets.

            And sure enough, it looked as if that was the way that the story would end. Jesus told of the younger son coming to himself. He told of the younger son returning home, drenched in self-loathing and self- pity. In a burst of narrative genius, Jesus even shows us the young man practicing the speech he plans to give to his father, as he begs for crumbs of forgiveness and conditional re-acceptance into the household as a hanger-on, even a servant.

            "Father, I've sinned against heaven and against you. I'm not worthy to be called your son...."

            What a shock when the Pharisees heard Jesus' ending to the story!

            The father running out while the boy was still a long way off. Before the son can even confess, much less do penance, the father embraces him. The father welcomes back with acceptance the son who was lost. Not as a servant, as this wretched excuse for a son deserves. But unconditionally as a son, the father welcomes back the prodigal.

            The father does not see a sinner. The father sees only a son. He robes

him with family honor. He gives him the ring of family authority. He sheds him with family dignity so that he can walk the streets of the community once again. And then, the father offers the wretched sinner who scavenged from the pigs, a fatted calf-- a sacrifice fit for Almighty God.

            You can almost hear the Pharisees wanting to interrupt Jesus at that point.     "Hey, we're always glad when a sinner repents. But the Law requires some repentance. Justice requires some recompense. Nobody goes from swilling pigs one minute to feasting in heaven the next. It's not fair to those who have kept themselves pure. It's not fair to the faithful. It's certainly not fair to the dutiful son."

            And in Act 3 of the parable that's exactly what the older brother said. "It's not fair!" That older brother speaks for the Pharisees in the story. And he speaks for all the responsible people who have stayed home and done their duty. He probably speaks for a lot of us here in this Sanctuary, if the truth be told. He certainly speaks for those loyal, religious people who have lived prudently and modestly and ended up having to sacrifice because of somebody else's wandering, prodigal ways.

            It is, after all, from the older son's share of the inheritance that the father is giving these gifts. The older son's anger is understandable. His anger is justified. His anger is righteous. His anger though, according to Jesus, is wrong.

            But, the son says, he slaved in the fields for the father for all of those years. He was always obedient and dutiful. And yet, he never got a ring. He never got a robe. He never got a party. And Jesus replies, "slaving" isn't the same as living as a son. Never disobeying isn't the same thing as obeying. Being dutiful isn't the same as being faithful.

            The slave works under the threat of the whip. The family member works for the sake of the family. The true disciple follows not from fear of hell, or from duty, but from love. To be truly obedient is to blend our will with the will of the one whom we obey. There is a world of difference between demanding "When do I get my share, Lord?" and praying "Not my will, but thine".

            In his rage, the older brother was as lost as was the younger. In his love, the father once more comes out to a son who is lost. The elder son wants a party for himself, with his friends. And in his resentment he accuses his brother of even more sins than he has committed. In his jealousy, he spits out words that must rip at the father's heart just as much as did the prodigal's demand for the inheritance. Not "my brother", but "this son of yours". With these words he denies his family-- flesh and blood-- father and brother.

            With these words the elder son exiles himself to a far country.,

At this point in the story the Pharisees were probably thinking to themselves that the next thing Jesus was going to do was condemn them for the way that had distanced themselves from the lost, the sinners, even from those who weren't quite as religiously scrupulous as they. But that wasn't Jesus' purpose. That wasn't Jesus' point. Jesus wasn't trying to defend himself from their jibes by attacking them in return. Jesus wasn't trying to make them feel guilty.

            Jesus wanted them-- and all of us to understand a far more profound insight. No one is so far away as to be utterly lost. No one is left un-searched for. No one is beyond the reach of Divine forgiveness. God reaches out with compassion, without counting cost or worrying about past sins, offering reconciliation to all who are lost. And so the father went out in love to meet and try to claim both of his lost sons.

            "My boy, you've always been with me. Everything I have is yours. You can stand outside this house and sulk and I'll come out into the night, searching for you. You can throw up a wall between us, and I'll scale it. You can claim distinctions between the way I treat you and the way I treat him, but they're not true. I ran out to meet him, and now I come out to plead with you.

            Love impels me. Love drives me with a force that I cannot and would not control toward both of you. But think for a moment. How could I not help-- how could you not help but celebrate? Your brother who was dead is alive. My son who was lost is found. Caring for the other is half of love. And. rejoicing with the other is the other half. So you see, your life, my life, our love for one another has been deepened by his return."

            And so the story ends-- with a father's expression of driven, relentless, unique, even prodigal love. The parable proclaims that our God continually acts in surprising ways to produce new and renewed relationships in the changing circumstances of our human life. The younger son came home expecting to determine his own status in the household. The older son protested, attempting to determine his position in the household.

            But the father's radical love cuts through both attempts to determine and control relationships. He creates a totally new situation.  The feast is God's gift of grace that produces new situations, new hope new possibilities, new relationships, new life for God's people, in spite of our efforts to become determiners of our own existence within our Eternal Parent's household of love.

            I was reminded of one of my favorite theological treatises —the movie City Slickers. Do you recall the scene where Daniel Stern’s character, “Phil” comes into tent? He has just tried to confront the drunken cowboys. And something has snapped. He breaks down. His marriage is about to end. He has lost his job.  He has lost his self-respect. He’s almost 40 he bemoans, and his life is a complete failure. He has nothing.

            Billy Crystal’s character reminds Phil of those times when they were growing up together, playing sand lot baseball. Every once in a while the ball would get batted so hard it would fly up and get stuck in the branches of a tree. Then by common consent the kids would cry out that it was a “do over”.

            Billy Crystal’s character tells Phil that his life has now become a “do-over’.  No strikes, no balls. He’s got a chance to start again—a blank slate.  Possibility and hope stretch out before him—if he’ll reach out and grasp them. At the end of the scene, Phil still questions if there are really any “do overs” in this life.

            The parable of the Prodigal Son affirms to us that there really are “do overs” as it invites us—all of us—older brothers, younger brothers, Pharisees, and even unfaithful friends to return home—into the forgiving embrace of the Loving Father.

            And so the parable ends with a question for each of us to answer. Did the elder brother go in and join in the rejoicing? Did he stay outside, pack his bags, and head out the next morning to replay his younger brother's experience? Did he repent or remain in alienation?

            All of us elder brothers and sisters must decide. We each of us, will finish the story for ourselves. We each of us, will live out the end of the parable.

            Do we really believe that there are such things as “do overs” in this life?

Will we ever let go of those self-serving, self-righteous divisions and distinctions we put up between ourselves and others? When we realize that such distinctions only serve to distance us from one another? And from God? Will we ever learn to let go and live joyfully, serve joyfully in God's field, celebrating our common humanity, rejoicing in our shared ministry to the world?

            Will we ever learn to be like our own elder brother, Jesus, who was willing to sit at table with Jews and Greeks, men and women, Pharisees and sinners? Even the one who would betray him-- Jesus feasted with them all. He knew, you see, that as important as are the standards that distinguish the righteous from the unrighteous, God has a higher standard-- the standard of love.

            Helmet Thielecke, the late Lutheran Theologian wrote about this parable.

            "The ultimate theme of this story therefore, is not the prodigal son, but the father who finds us. The ultimate theme is not the foolishness of human beings, but the faithfulness of God. The ultimate secret of this story is this: There is a homecoming for us because there is a home."                                                                                                                                                                                   Amen.