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Rev. Dr. John Rickard prodigal son Luke 15.11b-32 Lent 2C (off lectionary—Reconciliation series) 28 February 2010 I am the youngest of two sons. One day, I went to my father and said to him, “Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” So he divided all his property between my brother and me. A few days later I gathered up everything I had and traveled to a distant country, and there I lived the life I’d always dreamed…and also squandered all my property doing whatever I wanted whenever I wanted. When I had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and I began to be in need. So I went and got a job, hiring myself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent me to his fields to feed the pigs. I was so hungry, I would gladly have eaten even the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave me anything. But when I came to myself I said to the dirty pigs around me, “How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’ ” So I left that place and walked the road toward home. I had finally reached the neighborhood of my father’s house—I could just make it out on the horizon—when I saw my father running down the road. When he came near, he put his arms around me and kissed me on the cheek! Then I began the apology speech I had prepared, saying, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” But he wasn’t really listening because he was saying to his slaves, “Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” And he took me home and we all began to celebrate. My older brother was still out in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard the music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. The servant replied, “Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.” Then my brother became angry and refused to come in. My father went out of the house again and began to plead with him. But my brother said to him, “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!” Then my father reminded him, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found. Please, come and celebrate with us.” **************************************************** My name isn’t recorded in Scripture, but I am the younger son. The one you have come to call the “prodigal son.” I am not sure why, I never wanted that title, it means “someone with a single evil quality– but I am not a bad person. What’s wrong with wanting what is rightfully yours eventually now anyway? What’s wrong with having enough ambition to want to make more of your life than what you will inherit from your father? What’s wrong with having enough pride and confidence in oneself to know that if you had it now you could be a player in this world? To be totally honest with you– I just wanted my father to die so that I could get on with living my life, the way I wanted to, because I didn’t believe that the old man knew what was best for me. But he wasn’t sick so I had to come up with plan B which wasn’t all that simple. Let me share a little bit about the customs of our village which complicated things. If I had simply asked the old man for my “inheritance” I would have had to use the property to build up the family’s wealth, take part in family matters, represent the family in village events, and my father would still have had veto power over keeping the land. I didn’t want all those additional responsibilities of helping take care of everyone else, I didn’t want to represent the family, I wanted out. So instead of asking for my inheritance, I asked for the share of the property that belonged to me. And the old man agreed, which meant I had control over the disposition of the property, which I immediately sold and I got out of there. Pretty clever huh? Of course, my doing this was not without consequence or risk. It meant I was breaking my relationship with my village, with my family and particularly my father. Meaning, even if I did make good they might not welcome me back. And, if I lost any of it, I certainly could never go back. In fact, as I was leaving the village I overheard various demeaning insults, calling me “ungrateful”, “betrayer”, “unworthy of my name”, that I had broken my father’s heart. But I had my plan and I didn’t care. Well, as you all know, the plan didn’t work out so well. It did for awhile. I was impressing some pretty important people. Lot’s of people looked up to me, or so it seemed. But then this famine hit. And, it wasn’t long before I ran out of money to buy what scarce food there was. Every morning there would be more and more people found dead. I discovered that all the friends I thought I had were just fair weather friends and they wouldn’t help me. I couldn’t get a job, because people were only giving jobs to their family members to take care of them. Finally, I hooked up with this wealthy guy. Although, I am not sure he wanted me around- since he knew I was a Jew and gave me a job feeding pigs– but he did give me a job, which barely fed me. Even the pigs ate better than I did. For awhile I wouldn’t let myself even think about going home. It would have at the least have been embarrassing, admitting that I had lost all that had been given me. That my plan for my life didn’t work and that I had squandered my inheritance. And worse, I would have had to face the wrath of the village and this interesting little ceremony they have for people who lose their money among the Gentiles. It is called “kazazah.” If they see you coming the elders bring out a pot and break it in front of you declaring that you are cut off from the community. In essence, you no longer exist to them. No one will welcome you, help you, or take you in. That would include your family. The children would yell insults at you and perhaps throw stones you. The adults might even join in. You are made to feel very, very unwelcome and you are not safe. But I began to realize that my best bet for surviving was to risk these things, and if I could get to my father, I could probably persuade him to at least hire me on as a servant so I could earn back at least some of what I lost. Thus, I began to hatch plan C. If I admit to having sinned against heaven and him for having lost the money, show some humility by saying I am not worthy to be called his son, but suggest a way for me to earn back the money by being hired as a servant, maybe he might go for it, and what did I have to lose anyway. As I approached the village, what I expected started to emerge. The children, encouraged by adults, gathered stones and began throwing them, though they were still far away, the ones that hit, hurt more than I thought they would. The jeers and insults began next. And the crowd began to converge on the road at the entrance to the village with that, silly, symbolic, pot to be thrown down and broken as a sign of my breaking covenant with them. And therefore, denying me entrance into the village and my way back to my old man. Probably to protect him from me. Yeah, those stones hurt more than I thought. And the insults, they hurt more too– they didn’t get it. All I wanted to do was make my own way in the world, with my plan. Prove that I could make it myself, that I was worthy of respect. I wasn’t lost or dead. All I needed was a little understanding and a little time. Darn, those insults hurt almost worse than the stones. And then I heard him, running, panting on the road toward me. He pushed his way past the village elders— something his position in the community said he should never do– he should have sent his servants, but it was him. He shoved aside the pot that was to be broken showing my brokenness with the community– again something he should never have done, he was violating the customs of the community that kept order. I began to think that maybe he wanted to do declare me dead to the village himself, and tell me himself the insult I caused him because I lost the money. But there was something in his eyes that said that was not what was going on. He kept coming taking some of hits from the stones that were meant for me. Yet, another embarrassment to someone of his stature. This man was humiliating himself. He was demeaning himself. He was being a fool. I could have taken those hits, I would have survived the insults and stones, and I had this plan. It was going to work. But this fool of an old man, whose heart I had broken came running for me and gave me this huge bear hug. I was about to give him my speech- “father, I have sinned against heaven and you and I am not worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants” but he kept hugging me saying something like “my son who was dead and is alive again, lost and is found let’s party.” Well, I don’t know exactly what happened, except I couldn’t get all of my speech out of my mouth., my plan was clearly inadequate, and I suddenly realized it wasn’t necessary. I kind of became aware of the community surrounding us, the stoning had stopped and the children were dropping the stones by their sides- the jeering and insults had become a shocked silence and the practice of excluding someone who had sinned against the community had been declared void. There we stood, tears in his eyes as he draped the robe around me, and I became fully aware of my sin- I had tried to destroy the bond of trust that made us family and he had suffered that agony but would not break trust with me. I had been totally ungrateful for the blessings that had come to me, and he had suffered that rejection but would not reject me. I thought I could save myself and I broke off a relationship to try and prove it and he suffered that pain and reached out to reconcile our relationship. And even when I persisted in my foolishness, he humiliated and demeaned himself before his world. I had no more plans, I had no more speeches, there was nothing I could or needed to do, because at that moment I knew he had saved me. The gospel according to Jesus Christ. |