Lent 4

We all know today’s Gospel story by heart, the story of a father and his two sons.  One was a plowboy, who stayed home, behaved himself and enjoyed the good life.  The other was a playboy, who sought for himself the good life and ended up in a pigpen.  Reduced to misery, the playboy swallowed his pride and came home, to be welcomed by a great celebration of joy.  But the plowboy was angry with his father and jealous of his brother, so he boycotted the party. 

            Thank God that the plowboy and the playboy are not the only two characters in the story.  There is also the loving father, the father who loved his sons with a deep, abiding love.  And in spite of the great joy he had over the return of his long-lost son, he would not let it eclipse his love for the elder brother.  The father came out and reminded his son of the good life they enjoyed together.  The father left the warmth of the celebration and went into the cold night of the plowboy son’s self-imposed pity.

            What an amazing story, this parable of the prodigal son.  For there’s more to it than just the story of a runaway boy.  It is the story of our lives as well.  Runaway or rebellious – who cannot remember a time when we were at odds with parents, distanced from God or just away from home where we knew we ought not to be? 

Or disciplined and disgruntled – who cannot remember a time when doing right, fulfilling the expectations, and staying at home seemed overlooked and unappreciated?  This story of the playboy and the plowboy puts us in our places and shows us the Father.

            The parable is about a playboy who goes to his father and demands his inheritance. A kid with his hand out isn’t an unusual picture, as any parent knows, but in this case it’s a particularly shocking one given the cultural conventions of the time. Jewish law dictated that when the father passed away, the eldest son would get two-thirds of the estate (a “double portion”) and the next youngest son one-third. But, as Jesus tells it, Dad was still alive and well. So the younger son commits an egregious gaffe by basically saying, “Pop, I wish you were already dead. Forget the family business and, for that matter, the whole family. I’m outta here.”

The father gives the son his share and the boy goes off and squanders it.  When he returns, the father welcomes him home.  In that sense, the story is about a God who loves us enough to let go and welcome us home in forgiveness when we return.

            But it is also a story of a God who provides in abundance, whose love and care surround us each day.  For it is also about a plowboy and a father who loves him with a constant love.  The story tells us that sometimes the good life can become commonplace.  The thousands of times the plowboy sat at his father’s table had taken the edge off the blessing.  It was no longer the father’s providing that he enjoyed, but the wages he had earned for the work he had done.  The plowboy’s problem was that in his resentment over the fatted calf roasting on the spit, he had forgotten the deep freezer full of provisions that he constantly enjoyed. 

            The story tells us that sometimes God’s blessings can become commonplace and when they do, it is easy for us to miss the ordinary because we’re only looking for the spectacular.  For if we’re not careful, we, like the plowboy, have a tendency to see the Father’s blessings at only the high points of our lives and forget the millions of bite-sized blessings we enjoy continually throughout our lives.

            The plowboy’s perspective was distorted by ingratitude.  When he saw the incredible generosity of his father, he was enraged.  The plowboy said, “When this son of yours (notice that he would not even identify him as his brother), “when this son of yours came back, who had devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him.” 

            What the plowboy said was certainly true.  He had a problem, not with facts, but with perspective.  It was a problem of attitude.  In his self-conceived pity, he could not see the same love and forgiveness.  He refused to acknowledge that the same welcome that meant the father had found a long lost son also meant that he had received a long lost brother.  So the father said, “We had to celebrate and rejoice because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life.”

            Two siblings who were both wrong: the younger who turned his back on his father and the elder who turned his back on his brother.  And neither is worse than the other.

            Back in 1893 there was a group of four sisters, the Cherry Sisters.  For three years, these would-be actresses performed throughout the Midwest.  Folks packed the theaters to see if these women were as bad as they had heard.  Their unbelievably atrocious acting enraged critics and provoked the audience to throw vegetables at the girls.  The sisters traveled with an iron screen that they would erect in front of the stage in self-defense.

            Amazingly, in 1896 the girls were invited to perform on Broadway – not because they were so good, but because they were so bad.  Seven years later, after earning a tidy fortune, the Cherry Sisters retired from the stage.  Oddly enough, these Broadway ‘stars’ remained convinced to the end that they were the most talented actresses ever to grace the American stage.  They never had a clue as to how bad they truly were!         

Today’s Gospel is a story about God, our God, who loves us with an everlasting love and accepts us, playboy and plowboy alike.  It is a story of us.  You and I know many elder brothers in this world.  In fact, we are often them!  Like the Cherry Sisters, we manage to convince ourselves that we occupy the higher ground.  And we have trouble accepting those whom God accepts, forgiving those whom God forgives, and loving those whom God loves.  Writer Ernest Campbell once said that the biggest problem with American Christianity is that we have a Loving Father Gospel in an Elder Brother Church. Think about that.

            Perhaps you have seen the old comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes.  Calvin is a little boy with an overactive imagination and a stuffed tiger, Hobbes, who comes to life as his imaginary friend.  In one cartoon, Calvin turns to Hobbes and says, “I feel bad I called Susie names and hurt her feelings.  I’m sorry I did that.”  Hobbes replies, “Maybe you should apologize to her.”  Calvin thinks about it for a moment and then responds, “I keep hoping there’s a less obvious solution.”

We have trouble accepting those whom God accepts because we take God’s acceptance for granted and God’s forgiveness as our right.

            We are much like the elder brother who preferred justice to mercy.  We have worked for what we have (or so we think), and it’s unfair that everyone else should not have to do the same.  We have earned God’s favor (or so we think) by staying at home.  We have merited His acceptance by the good life that we live (or so we think).  So how dare God accept the playboy who returns with repentance?

            We forget that the reason Jesus told this story to begin with was to remind those for whom God’s favor had become commonplace that God’s love encompasses everyone.  God’s forgiveness and welcome are open to all.

            God treats all differently, but loves all the same.  It is an everlasting love that forgives the wayward and welcomes the prodigal, as well as continually blesses those at home.  Some of us may identify with the prodigal.  We can acknowledge that there are things in our lives that we regret, times when we let others down, broken promises, failed actions, and things of which we are not proud.  The story tells us that there is a place at God’s table for us.

            Some of us may identify with the elder brother.  For even a quick review of our lives shows us times when we passed judgment on others, times when we looked down on others, exalted ourselves in our righteousness, and despised the sinner who did not measure up.  The story tells us that there is a place at God’s table for us as well. 

Playboy or plowboy – God’s welcome awaits us.  His forgiveness is real and His love eternal.  So let the celebration begin.