"Scandalous Grace"
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
What are we to make of this parable?
I think that this parable is the parable that most shows what God is trying to reveal to us in sending Jesus into the world.
In the story Jesus tells, the younger son goes off with his inheritance and blows the whole pile of money on partying, women and fancy clothes until finally he doesn't have two cents left to rub together.
So, he has to get a job and work or starve to death.
And the best job he can find is on a pig farm.
And he keeps working only long enough to figure out that the pigs are getting a better deal than he is.
And so, he decides to go home.
But there is nothing noble about his decision.
There is nothing that speaks about him having any great character or anything.
There is no indication that he even realizes he's made a jerk out of himself and broken his father's heart.
There is no indication that he thinks of his dad as anything more than a meal ticket.
There is really no sign that he is sorry for what he's done or that he's resolved to make amends somehow and do better next time.
It's almost as if he's the kind of person who is only sorry that he robbed a bank because of the fact that he got caught...
...otherwise, he wouldn't be sorry at all.
The young man in Jesus' parable decides to go home for the simple reason that he knows he always got three square meals a day at home, and for a man who is in danger of starving to death, that is reason enough.
So he sets out on the return trip and on the way rehearses the speech he hopes will soften his dad's heart enough so that at least he won't slam the door in his face: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.
I no longer deserve to be called your son."
"That will hit him where he lives if anything will," the boy thinks, and he goes over it again--trying to get the inflection just right and the gestures right...
...and just about the time he thinks he has it down, the old man spots him coming around the corner and starts sprinting toward him like a maniac.
Before the boy has time to get so much as the first word out, he throws his arms around him and all but knocks him off his feet with tears and hugs and incredible laughter.
The boy is back, that's all that matters.
Who cares why he's back.
And the old man doesn't do what almost any other father under heaven would have done.
He doesn't say he hopes he has learned his lesson or "I told you so."
He doesn't say he hopes he is finally ready to settle down for a while and will find some way to make it up to his mother.
He just says, "Quickly, bring out the best robe and put it on him!
Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet!
Fetch the fattened calf and slaughter it.
We must celebrate with feasting!"
And when the boy finally manages to slip his prepared remarks in edgewise, the old man doesn't even hear them--he's so happy.
All he can say is that the boy was dead and is alive again.
The boy was lost and is found.
And then, what Jesus as the teller of the parable says is "They began to celebrate."
Celebrate, of all things?
They turn on the stereo.
They break out the best Scotch.
They roll back the living room carpet and call up the neighbors.
And then, and then, there is the other character in the story.
The word sin is somehow too harsh a word to apply to the reaction of the younger boy's older brother when the sound of the hoedown reaches him out in the pasture among the cow patties...
...and yet in another way it is just the right word because nowhere is the deadliness of sin more deadly than it is in him.
Envy and pride and anger and covetousness, they are all there.
Even sloth might be there as he sits on his inheritance and lets it gain interest for him.
He looks down in judgment on his brother's past.
The older son is a good person in the worst sense of the word.
He really is a caricature of all that is joyless and petty and self-serving about all of us.
The joke of it is that of course his father loves him anyway, and has always loved him and will always love him...
...only the older brother never noticed it because it was never love he was trying for but only what was due him.
The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his, too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them.
"The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the deaf hear, the dead are raised up" even as the younger son was raised up.
In Matthew Chapter 11, Jesus says, "blessed is [the person] who takes no offense at me."
"Blessed is the person who is not offended by My grace."
"Blessed is the person who sees the miracle of it all!!!"
No one is righteous--not one!!!
None of us deserve what we receive from God.
When Jesus brings us to life, it is not because of anything we have done to deserve it.
It's not because of any special insight we have on the nature of sin; it's not about any character traits we have that are better than the character traits of anyone else.
It's not because we are morally superior.
Or are better at repenting.
It's not about us at all.
It's about God.
It's about Who God is and what God is like.
It's about the fact that God is love.
And there is nothing on the earth nor under the earth that can separate us from the love God has for us in Christ Jesus.
There is nothing any of us can do to make God love us more; there is nothing any of us can do to make God love us less.
And it is only when we begin to understand this--just a little bit...
...it is only when we get just a glimmer of a glimpse of the love God has for us and for all humankind...
...it is only when we get just a glimmer of a glimpse that God has this love for us and this love comes at no cost of our own--it is all God's doing--it is all God's gift...
...it is only when this love embraces us--in the midst of our shame...
...and kisses us in the midst of our muck...
...and puts the best robe on us while we are naked in our sin...
...and slips a royal ring on our finger while we are in no way acting as children of the King...
...and throws the most extravagant and outrageous party for us when we are least deserving...
...that we even begin to understand the scandal of it all!!!
And when we just begin to understand the scandal of it all--that is when we start to change because of it.
"For it is while we were yet sinners that Christ died for us."
So, where do you fit into this story?
Where do I fit?
Which role in the story most naturally comes to you?
How can we all move towards being people in whom and through whom resurrection happens?
How can we better become receivers and givers of God's scandalous grace?
How can we celebrate the party of God's love in such a way as to welcome not only the younger brothers who have come back from the dead, but also the older brothers who thought there was nothing wrong with them?
We've all been there, have we not?
And, perhaps, some of us still are.
Where are you?
