Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
When our son…Jason…was in fourth grade…I dropped him off 15 minutes early for school.
- I had never done that before…but Susan was teaching at another school and I had to make it to a meeting…
- And the school did allow students to be dropped off early.
Two hours later…I was in a meeting…when the school called asking why Jason was absent.
- My heart dropped into my stomach…and my body took over in a hyper-ventilating mess of a way.
- My mind raced thinking that someone had scooped my child into a van…
- Remembering that I had dropped him off early.
- Breathing became impossible and I started to hyperventilate.
- My child was gone.
Fortunately…Jason was not taken…and was totally fine.
- It was just the day of the Scholastic book fair…and he had lost track of time…
- Looking at books and had not been around when they took attendance.
- He was not in danger.
- He was in a book fair.
I have no idea what kind of soul-crushing pain one must experience when a child is really gone.
- But the few minutes I experienced a glimpse of it…
- An experience shared by many when they cannot find their child at a carnival…
- Or a shopping mall or when they do not get off the school bus one afternoon…
- Are the most heart-breaking moments of our lives.
Because…when it comes down to it…it is vulnerable to have a child.
- To create or adopt a child is to leave yourself vulnerable to a broken heart in the way nothing else can.
- Which is why I started wondering this week about the vulnerability of God.
The Lord be with you…
There is much talk about the strength of God and the mightiness of God and the awesomeness of God.
- But what of the vulnerability of God?
- That God would breathe into dust… and create us in his own image…
- That God would bring humanity into being as his own beloved children…
- Was to leave himself vulnerable to a broken heart in a way nothing else could have.
- What a risk God took creating us.
- Giving us enough freedom to be creators and destroyers.
- Giving us enough freedom for us to make a mess of everything and act as our own gods…
- And to also trust in God and love each other.
I wonder if this is what Jesus is telling us about in the parable of the Prodigal Son.
- I confess to you that early on in my ministry I thought the word prodigal meant returning…
- And having repented of your wrongs.
- Or at least I thought prodigal meant coming home after having been independent and stupid for a while.
- I am sure you already know this…
- That the word prodigal means spending resources freely and recklessly.
- Being wastefully extravagant.
I have always heard this parable…one of the most famous stories in the Gospel…titled the Parable of the Prodigal son.
- But out of everything we could say this story is about…
- Why do we say it is about the wasteful extravagance of the younger son?
- Why is that the focus when it is not even that interesting?
What I mean is this:
- It is common for young people to leave home…waste their lives and their money for a while…
- Until they have no other option…but to come home to the parents they did not treat very well…when they were leaving in the first place.
I think we make this a story about the wasteful stupidity of the younger son…
- Because it is a story we are more familiar with…
- Than the alternative…which is this:
- If the word prodigal means wasteful extravagance…
- Then is it not really the story of the prodigal father?
Is it not wastefully extravagant for the Father to give his children so much freedom?
- Is it not wastefully extravagant for the Father to discard his dignity…
- And run into the street toward a foolish and immature son who squandered their fortune?
- Is it not wasteful for the father to throw such an extravagant party for this kind of wayward son?
But…I love that kind of grace.
- I love that Jesus tells this story of the prodigal father…
- In response to the Pharisee’s irritation that Jesus would eat with tax collectors and prostitutes…
- Because…when it comes down to it…we are a church filled with saints and sinners…
- Not a church filled only with pious pharisees.
Some of us might find the grace the father shows to the younger son bordering on offensive.
- But the thing that really gets my attention…in this story…is how wastefully extravagant the father is toward the older
- The son who never left him.
- The one who has always done everything right.
- The son who is clean cut and went to college right out of high school…
- And came back to work in his father’s business.
- The child who always signs up to do jobs at synagogue…
- But resentfully notices all the slackers who show up and never help at all.
- The child who feels entitled.
- The child who cannot stomach going into a party to celebrate the return of his screw-up of a brother.
I cannot stand that older brother…even as I cringe at the ways I am like him.
- It is wastefully extravagant that the father says to that kid:
- All that is mine is yours.
What risk God takes on us.
- Children who waste everything in dissolute living.
- Children who begrudge grace being extended to people who so clearly do not deserve it.
- But this is a risk born of love.
- God risks so much by loving us…
- Which is why I prefer calling this the Parable of the Prodigal Father.
Because it is here…we see that our relationship to God…is not defined by our bad decisions…or our squandering of resources.
- It is not determined by our virtue.
- It is not determined by being nice or being good.
- Our relationship to God is simply determined by the wastefully extravagant love of God.
- A God who takes no account of risk.
- But…runs toward us no matter what.
- Saying…all that is mine is yours.