The Art Gallery of Alberta (AGA) held the grand opening of its hip new $88 million building in January. Were you invited to this black tie event? Neither was I. Then again I didn’t give a million dollars for the construction of the Gallery nor am I a friend of the mayor. Gallery openings are only for the rich and well connected.
You may not have been invited to the AGA’s grand opening but many of you have come here to join in a celebration of another kind, Holy Communion. While this event is not just for the rich and influential it isn’t open to everybody. Only those who are properly prepared should receive Holy Communion. What’s the proper way to prepare for this celebration? The 16th Century reformer, Martin Luther, wrote: “Fasting and other outward preparations may serve a good purpose, but he is properly prepared who believes these words: ‘Given and poured out for you for the forgiveness of sins.’ ...the words ‘for you’ require nothing but hearts that believe.” We’re going to learn tonight that Holy Communion is a “humble pie” not “black tie” event.
Any visitor tonight should have no difficulty seeing that we don’t enforce a dress code for Communion. Of course because of what Jesus offers here, his body and blood for the forgiveness of sins, I always encourage my confirmands to dress up for the sacrament. But just as it’s more important to tune your car’s engine before a road trip than ensuring a perfect wax finish on the hood, it’s more critical to prepare our hearts rather than our hair for Communion. How does God want us to do this? Through humble faith, as Luther pointed out. The Parable of the Prodigal Son will illustrate such a faith. (Read Luke 15:11-24.)
This parable opens with a shocking demand. A young man asks his father for his share of the inheritance. This is not Junior angling for a $5 increase to his allowance; this is Junior saying, “Dad, I want right now the inheritance you intend to give me when you die.” He might as well have declared: “Dad, I’m tired of living under your roof by your rules. Why don’t you die already so I can get my hands on the inheritance to do what I want?” The young man didn’t break any rules by asking for his inheritance. He did something much worse. He broke his father’s heart.
Do you see yourself in the young man? Are you a bratty child who has said to the heavenly Father, “It’s my life. Why do you make it so difficult with your rules? Honor my parents? Why should I? They don’t deserve my respect. Spend time in your Word? To tell you the truth, I can’t wait for these midweek services to be done so I can have my Wednesday nights back again. Love those who hate me? Are you kidding? I’m not going to let others walk all over me!” We may have never verbalized the wish for God to drop dead but we have thought him a “meddlesome” presence. We have broken God’s commands and in so doing we have broken the Father’s heart.
While our heavenly Father does demand our obedience he does not force it. Likewise the father in the parable did not confine his son to his bedroom; he gave him his share of the inheritance which the young man quickly converted into cash and moved as far away from his father as he could. But the young man soon found out that life without the father wasn’t all that great. Just after he burned through the last of his money a famine hit forcing him to get a job. But the only job available was feeding pigs, animals that were unclean for Jews. But that wasn’t the most humiliating part. The pay was so poor that he was still hungry all the time. So hungry he would have eaten pig slop if his boss had let him.
But that famine was a blessing. It made the young man ask: “What am I doing here starving and wallowing in this mud when hired servants on Dad’s estate have more than enough to eat? Why don’t I go back and ask Dad to take me in as one of those hired servants?” While the son didn’t whip out his cell phone and ask Dad to wire him more money, promising to pay him back when he got back on his feet, he might as well have. By wanting to be taken back as a hired servant and not a slave, the son thought that the worse damage he had done was squander part of his father’s estate. And so by paying it back he thought he could make up for what he had done and earn his way back into his father’s good graces. But of course his father didn’t want what his son’s hands could produce, he wanted his son’s heart.
We need a reminder of this truth don’t we? So often we look to repair the damage our sin has done without getting to the heart of the matter. We say things like, “I’m sorry you were offended by my words,” but what we really mean is “I’m sorry you’re such a baby and can’t take a little joke.” Or we yell to our parents, “I’m sorry I didn’t clean my room. I’ll do it right now…just get off my back!” Are we really sorry? Sorry that we got into trouble, but not sorry that we have selfishly put our wants before our parents’ needs.
What does true repentance look like? Let’s go back to the parable. It must have been difficult for the son to head home. As miserable as he was he must have imagined that things would get worse before they could get better. I mean at the least he could expect a lecture from his dad, at worst his dad would have nothing to do with him. But again the father of this parable proves to be surprising. Jesus said: “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him” (Luke 15:20b). Incredible! Before the son has even had the chance to spit out his rehearsed confession, the father runs, no races to his son’s side. As a rule Middle Eastern landowners don’t run. To do so they had to hike up their tunics exposing their pasty bare legs. That was humiliating – like being asked to unbuckle your belt for a pat-down search in the middle of the airport concourse. But bare legs were only part of the humiliation the father willingly suffered. Everyone in town knew what the son had done. As they saw him approach you can bet they were thinking of insults to hurl his way and imagining what they would do to him if he was their son. But the father did not want his son to be exposed to such scorn. And so not caring that his neighbors would think him soft, the father ran to his son and threw his arms around him. Who would dare insult the boy now?
Do you see Jesus in the parable? Like the father, Jesus raced to our side - not just shamelessly baring his legs but his back as well, and his palms and feet too. He let these be whipped and then stretched out on the cross, clad in nothing more than a loincloth. He suffered a humiliating death to save us from Satan’s taunts that we are sinners bound for hell. He did this all before we even had the chance to repent of our sins.
Does this truth move you? It moved the prodigal son. Now he could only stammer: “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son” (Luke 15:21b). No excuse is given for his sin. No one else is blamed. Nor is a bargain offered to get back in his father’s good graces. The son finally realizes that he has nothing to offer his father but a handful of rags. That’s true repentance.
It’s with this attitude that we are to prepare for Holy Communion. We come not because we are saints but because we are sinners. Remember, Holy Communion is a “humble pie” not “black tie” event. And so we prepare for this meal by taking responsibility for our sins, not blaming anyone else but ourselves for our outbursts and sullen silences.
The father, however, wasn’t done. He called for the best robe and put it on his son. The best robe, by the way, would have been one of the father’s own robes. What a beautiful picture of baptism. In baptism Jesus clothes us with his own righteousness (Galatians 3:27)! But that wasn’t all. The father then called for a banquet to celebrate his son’s return. What an insult it would have been had the son responded, “Dad, I’m tired. I think I’ll head up to my old room, play some video games, and call it a night. You go on and celebrate without me.” What? The banquet wasn’t for the father’s benefit but for the son’s! The whole town would be invited to see firsthand that the son had indeed been forgiven. The banquet would also solidify the son’s standing in the family. He was no longer prodigal but protégé basking in the love of a gracious father.
In the same way Jesus did not institute Holy Communion for his benefit but for ours. He provides us with this meal to assure us of forgiveness and to be reminded that, as members of his family, we have a glorious inheritance. How then can we take this meal so casually? Why do we nonchalanty skip opportunities to receive what God offers here? Could it be that we don’t think we have a need for such intimate forgiveness? Or do we fear that we will wear out our welcome? No. God is excited by your presence at his table. He never says, “Oh, it’s you again.” Every time we come to Holy Communion Jesus races to our side and throws his arms around us in a spiritual hug.
You may not have come to a sparkling new $88 million art gallery tonight, but you have come to the banquet. What you are about to receive, bread and wine, Jesus’ body and blood, is more precious than anything the AGA has to offer. For Holy Communion assures us of this: God found and forgave us; the past is past. Let the party begin (Preach the Word – September/October 2007, p. 3). Amen.
