Delivered March 18, 2007
by Pastor Marilyn Henderson
The word of God has been given to us primarily in story form. One of the most well-known Bible stories is that which we know of as the story of the Prodigal Son. There are those who now prefer to think of it as the story of the Lost Sons or the Loving Father. Each title helps us think about the story in a different way.
Clarence Jordan, a pastor in Georgia for many years, translated the New Testament into a work entitled The Cotton Patch Version of the New Testament. The text Eric just read and from which I've worked this week are taken from this translation.
As I tell this wonderful story this morning, I want you to know that I've done some paraphrasing in hopes that we will hear this story in a new way this morning.
Now all the politicians, rich people and movie stars - you know, people who smoked, drank, did drugs, had tattoos, wild hair, multiple body piercings and who spent tremendous amounts of money on frivolous and selfish things - were coming from all around to listen to what Jesus had to say. And the church people and Sunday School teachers, who had sacrificed a lot by giving to missions generously, volunteering in local outreach programs, living simply and serving their congregations in many ways, were whispering about Jesus, saying, "This guy hangs out with politicians, rich people and MOVIE STARS? Huh. I guess we know which theological box he goes in - and it certainly isn't Anabaptist!!"
So Jesus gave them this comparison:
A couple had two daughters. The younger one was pretty and liked to have fun, but she didn't enjoy her farm chores or life on the farm. And she had a good singing voice - such a good voice, in fact, that her choir teacher and all her friends encouraged her to try out the next time "American Idol" had auditions in New York City.
So the parents pulled together enough money to send their younger daughter to New York City where, against all odds, their daughter won a chance to go to Hollywood. This required even more money, so they took out a second mortgage on their small farm.
Their daughter did well in the "American Idol" contest, but eventually was voted out in the next to the last round. However, a small recording company liked the daughter's voice and gave her a contract with a large cash advance. The daughter chose to stay in Hollywood and "pursue her dream." The cost of living in Los Angeles was very expensive - along with the new car and several large parties she threw - and the next thing the youngest daughter knew, she was almost out of money. The recording company executive wouldn't advance any money to her because she wouldn't go home with him.
She found herself living in her car in the Wal-Mart parking lot, existing on cheap soda crackers and milk and trying to figure out how to make some money. She finally found a job as a dishwasher in a swanky restaurant making minimum wage, but the money she was saving for a deposit and first month's rent on a room was stolen from her locker at work. She had been sneaking some of the food from the plates she was washing because she was so hungry. Nobody seemed to notice or care.
One day, after she had been reprimanded for eating food off of the dirty plates, she began thinking about Sunday dinners at home with home-raised chicken and mashed potatoes and gravy and garden peas and homemade bread and strawberry jam. As she envisioned this homemade feast, she saw her mom and dad and sister sitting around the table and suddenly understood that she wanted to go home. More than anything, she wanted to go home where she would gladly do everyone's chores if they would only let her stay there. The love she had for her mom and dad and sister was stronger than she had ever felt before and she longed to tell them so in person. And she began to realize just what they had sacrificed so that she could "follow her dream."
So she continued washing dishes and finally saved enough money for gas and food and began the long drive home. When she turned into the long lane leading up to her parents' farmhouse, her dad saw her from the tractor in the field where he had been harvesting soybeans. Her mom saw her driving down the lane from the kitchen window where she'd been putting up tomato juice. Both of them left what they had been doing and ran to meet her. They hugged her and kissed her and welcomed her home. They were all weeping for joy!
When she could speak, the young woman began to apologize to her parents. "Mom and Dad, I'm so sorry! I realize now how selfish I've been and how I've taken you for granted - " But her father interrupted her to talk to his wife. "If we call right now, we can keep that pig I took in this morning to the meat processor from being frozen. Then let's call our families and neighbors and church friends and have a pig roast tonight with all the trimmings. I'll have the guys call their friend who wants work to help with the soybeans and you and I can work together. Our daughter is home again, Praise God!" They called a friend to call square dances and a fiddle band for the music, swept the main barn floor and set up tables for food. By 7:30 that evening the yard was full of cars and the party was in full swing.
Meanwhile, the elder daughter had been attending her classes at the community college all day and then went to volunteer at the soup kitchen in town without taking time for supper. She couldn't drive to the house when she got home because there were vehicles parked all along the lane. So she shouldered her heavy book bag and trekked up the lane where she found a party in full swing and the mouth-watering scents of pork barbeque floating on the breeze.
She stood in the yard, watching people eating and talking, and dancing in the barn. "What's going on?" she asked the neighbors standing near the back porch. "Haven't you heard? Your sister's back from Hollywood to stay! She got fed up with it all and came home. Say, you should try this pork. Your dad is quite a hand with the barbeque sauce!"
"Thanks," she muttered. Good grief. Now we've got to put up with the prima donna again. Well, I've got studying to do for tomorrow and they can just get along without me. I've had it with all her shenanigans. And she angrily banged her way through the house and up to her room where her parents found her shortly.
They asked her to join the party and help them celebrate, but the elder daughter blew up. "Ever since I was little I've always done what you've asked me to do, tried to make good choices and be responsible. I do everything I can to help out around here and try never to cross you. Not once have you ever given me a party that even came close to this party you're throwing for someone who has treated you horribly. My sister took what she wanted, left and wasted everything. Who knows how many "movie stars" she slept with in Hollywood while she was throwing away the money you mortgaged this place for? And yet you put on a pig roast - the pig meant for the MCC relief sale pig roast - for her when she decides to show up again!"
As they embraced her stiff body, her parents responded, "Dear daughter - you are our dearly-loved daughter! You have given us so much joy! We are so sorry you have carried these hard feelings of unworthiness and desire for recognition for so long. All you ever had to do was ask ... We are always glad to give our treasured daughters what they not only desire but what we want to give them.
"We hope you can see things from our point of view. We thought we had lost your sister, the daughter to whom we gave birth, whom we loved and raised and prayed for and cried over. We didn't know if we would ever see her again or if she would want to see us again. So many things can happen - she could have died before we were able to see her again. But here she is, alive and well and wanting to be with us all. We are so relieved and happy and we can't help wanting to celebrate with everyone her safe return to us."
Jesus does not finish the elder sibling's story, but ends it abruptly. We have no resolution for the elder daughter. How did she respond to the truth that she had never asked for what she wanted or needed as a daughter? That she had expected her parents to intuitively know what she wanted rather than taking responsibility to communicate? Was she able to see how rebellious her own attitude was towards her parents? How demanding? How unloving and sullen and disrespectful? The nasty sexual insinuation she made about her sister reveals quite a lot about her own private desires.
As with all parables, we want to figure out what Jesus was saying to both the people he was speaking to and to me, to us now. Remember, Jesus was talking to the "religious" people of his day, the guardians of the faith, the stalwart, responsible defenders of the Jewish way of life. The church people had definite boundaries around what was "OK" and what was "Not OK". Jesus - God in the flesh - was definitely crossing religious boundaries and placing his reputation as a Sunday School teacher in jeopardy by hanging out with movie stars, rich people and politicians. What we might consider the "younger sibling."
How would we feel, we "church people and Sunday School teachers," if Jesus seemed to prefer being with movie stars and the rich and famous? We've sincerely tried to be responsible with the many gifts God has given us and in doing what God both wants and needs us to do. Is it possible that we have missed something? Frederick Buechner suggests that "To worship God means to serve Him. There are two ways to do it. One way is to do things for Him that He needs to have done - run errands for Him, carry messages for Him, fight on His side, feed His lambs and so on. The other way is to do things for Him that you need to do - sing songs for him, create beautiful things for Him, give things up for Him, tell Him what is on your mind and in your heart, in general rejoice in Him and make a fold of yourself for Him the way lovers have always made fools of themselves for the one they love ... Unless there is an element of joy and foolishness in the proceedings, the time would be better spent doing something useful" (Celtic Daily Prayer).
Is it possible that the older sibling had not discovered the "other" way to serve God? Is it possible that we - the church people and Sunday School teachers - need to learn how to "make a fool" of ourselves because of our love for God? Do we need to lay aside our ideas of "how to do this" and "what that should be like" and "this is the best time" and "this is how to look and dress and behave?" Paul says in 2 Cor. 5:
"That's why, from here on out, we pay absolutely no attention to a person's outward appearance. It is true that we once knew Christ physically, but now we do so no longer. Therefore, if a person is a Christian she is a brand new creation. The old gal is gone: look, a new woman has appeared. This is God's doing all the way through. It is he who, through Christ, bridged the gap between himself and us and who has given us the job of also bridging the gap."
God, our parent, waits for us, too, just as God waits for the younger sibling - with arms outstretched to gather us in. This is God's doing all the way through. It is he who, through Christ, bridged the gap between himself and us and who has given us the job of also bridging the gap. God was in Christ, hugging the world to himself. God no longer keeps track of men's sins, and has planted in us God's concern for getting together.
"God was in Christ, hugging the world to himself ..." God was in Christ, hugging both the younger and older daughters to himself. God's greatest concern is that we all "get together," with each other, with God, with ourselves. One of the elder daughter's biggest problems was her lack of self-awareness, of her emotions, of her wants, of her needs. It was this lack of balanced self-care and self-knowledge that made it impossible for her to have a healthy relationship with either her sister or her parents. So now we represent Christ and it is as though God were pleading through us. In Christ's behalf we urge you to open up to God. For our sakes God put a man who was a stranger to sin into a sinful situation so that in him we might know what God's goodness really is.
For my sake, for your sakes, for the sake of the world, God put a man who had no idea what sin was like into a sinful situation. In other words, Jesus was in a situation similar to what I would be in if someone put a hammer in my hand, a box of nails at my feet and a pile of lumber beside me and said, "Here. Build a house that is up to code and that you would want to live in." Sin was as foreign to Jesus as building a house is to me. Yet he agreed to tough it out just so that I could know him as a friend, as a Savior, as a brother. Jesus deliberately put himself in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar and even dangerous situation just so that I - and you - can know him. This is God's doing all the way through. It is he who, through Christ, bridged the gap between himself and us and who has given us the job of also bridging the gap.
So. Here we are. We are either someone who has fallen away from God in rebellion or someone who needs to "remember what's important." We are either the younger sibling or the elder. And we all need to run to our heavenly Parent who is waiting to hug us in a warm, long embrace. Jesus is hoping that some of the time we'll run to God holding a friend by the hand. Jesus has shown us how to "bridge the gap between himself and us." God has now given us the job of "also bridging the gap."
What is God's invitation in this story? I believe God invites everyone to come home, to join in the celebration of reconciliation between God and us, between you and me and me with myself. We celebrate because we now can keep God's greatest commandment:
"You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength ... and your neighbor as you love yourself."
SOURCES CONSULTED
Petitcodiac Mennonite Church