The Reverend Kirk T Berlenbach

Lent IV, Year C

March 14, 2010

We’ve all seen those daytime talk shows- you know the ones that feature all kinds of absurd or pitiful people parading their problems before a hostile studio audience and in front of the gawking eyes of TV millions? Often the guests are a dysfunctional family that is simply unable to get along and so they yell and scream and cry about how insensitive or selfish the others have been. And the show usually ends with the host, who usually knows absolutely nothing about psychology or counseling, giving them some trite piece of advice before sending them on their way. Well today, in the parable of the Prodigal’s Son, we meet just that kind of a family.

Think about it... this trio has all the elements you need to make for a sensational episode…. an overindulgent father, an angry and resentful older brother and of course the centerpiece of the tale- the selfish son who squanders half the family fortune on fast and loose living. Their story has it all- conflict, bitterness, loose women, gambling, wallowing the mud with pigs and eventually, even remorse. It’s safe to say that all the talk show hosts would be lining up to book this crew on their next show.

I can just see it all now. The show would open with the younger son telling of all his exploits and one of the audience members would shout out, “You better check yourself before your wreck yourself!” Then the older brother would tell his side of the story and as he denounced his brother for being a selfish, ungrateful squanderer the audience would cheer him on and call out in support. Finally the father would, with tears in his eyes tell how we welcomed his son who was once lost, back home with an extravagant feast. And while some might be moved at his compassion, the host would, in his most sagacious voice, tell him in no uncertain terms that in fact he was not really helping his son at all. On the contrary, by saving his adult son from the negative consequences of his own bad decision making the father was in fact only enabling the son’s bad behavior.

Such a treatment casts the parable and its characters into a rather different light. Thinking about the father as an enabler clashes dramatically with our traditional understanding of what this story means. From the time we were in Sunday School we were taught that it is about forgiveness and echoes Jesus’ constant theme that, like the father, G-D rejoices whenever any sinner chooses to repent and come back. But, setting aside the absurdity of the talk show setting, might our current understanding of psychology and family dynamics lead us to interpret the father’s actions in a different light?

What do you think? Did the father do the right thing? It’s the nice and the easy thing just to say yes. After all, that’s the answer we know we’re supposed to give. But is it the right one? Perhaps not. You can make a pretty strong argument by welcoming him back with open arms and fully restoring him back to his position of privilege, the father is in fact not doing the best thing for his wayward son. I think that we can all agree that, by ending up in such desperate straits that he was hungry enough to want to eat the food he was giving to the pigs, the younger son was only getting his just desserts. If he is ever going to outgrow his impulsiveness and bad decision making, he needs to learn to live the consequences of his actions- he made his bed and now he needs to lie in it. Those of us who are parents know just how true this is. We all want to shield our children from their mistakes. It is so tempting to want to save them before their decisions cause them to crash and burn. Yet we also know that if we do that, they will never learn to be responsible adults. So again I ask you, did the father make the right choice?

In fact Jesus expected many in his audience to ask these same questions. And like us, many would have felt that the father was being too soft and that if the son wanted to be welcomed back, he should have played by the rules in the first place. But there is one major difference that separates us from the audience of Jesus’ time. We have a radically different understanding of our relationship with G-D. We are so accustomed to the idea that if we sin, all we have to do is to say that we’re sorry and then everything is OK with G-D once again.

But in Jesus’ time people saw things very differently- sin had the power to separate us from G-D and getting rid of that sin was no easy task. Now if you always played by the rules, like the older brother and like the Pharisees and scribes in the audience, then you could manage to stay on top of our sins and deal with them with the appropriate sacrifices and rituals as each one arose. But if you were like the younger brother, or in the case of his audience, like the tax collectors and prostitutes, your sins could pile up so quickly that you could never work your way out from under them. Even if you wanted to get right with G-D, you couldn’t… you were so unclean you weren’t allowed to even go into the temple in order to make the sacrifices necessary to expunge your sins. The burden of your past sins was simply too much to overcome.

It is to people like this that Jesus was really preaching and his story offered a sense of hope that they feared they might never find. Far from being an inducement to live irresponsibly and then at the last minute to come back and repent, this parable offers a chance to return home to those who had become so ashamed of their sin- whose defilement had so estranged them from G-D that they thought they would never have the chance to come back.

When we think about it this way, we come to understand this well know parable has previously unknown levels of depth and power. It is no more just a story of G-D’s forgiveness any more than it is just of a tale of a dysfunctional family. On the contrary, the story of the Prodigal’s Son is a truly radical proposition. It is an offer of hope to the hopeless…it is the possibility of salvation for those who thought they were forever lost… it is nothing short than a completely new way of understanding G-D!

In order to really understand its power, we must remember that the people Jesus was really aiming this parable at were, in fact, very much like the folks who go on the talks shows of today- people who feel so worthless that they are willing to make a sideshow of themselves in order find any sense of value. The prostitutes and tax collectors were utterly marginalized from respectable society- they were folks that most people would have looked upon as being unlovable, as losers, freaks and lost causes. And Jesus not only dared to associate and eat with these people, but he went so far as to tell them something that went completely against the religious doctrine of his time- that G-D, like the father in the parable, was dying to welcome them back, with open arms, longing to see them coming back home.

If you are hearing these words today, then, at least to some extent, you already believe that, regardless of what you’ve done in life, that G-D forgives and accepts you. But there are so many more people outside our walls who do not understand this- who believe that they have become unlovable and that could never again want to have anything to do with them- who don’t feel worthy enough to even come in the doors of our church in order to stand before G-D. It is our job to make sure they know otherwise. That is the Gospel we are to preach- not one of righteous exclusion nor one of cheap grace but of a G-D who years that each and every one of his children who become lost, no matter how far they might have strayed, would choose to come return to him so that he might welcome them with open arms. As Christians, our job is to offer that same kind of forgiveness to those who feel totally and permanently cut off from G-D. We must become what Paul says- instruments of G-D’s reconciliation. We must make sure that everyone, no matter how far they have fallen from the traditional and right path, is made to feel welcome if they step foot into this church. In order to do that our focus must not be on extending the perspective of the elder brother or of our understanding of good parenting but instead offering them the unconditional love and forgiveness that G-D extends to them and indeed to each one of us. In Jesus’ offer of love to the younger brother and all those like him, there is indeed hope for us all.