The Ven. Richard I Cluett
March 18, 2007
Joshua 5:9-12 + 2 Corinthians 5:16-21 + Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
It has been said that a parable is like an icon, it invites us into it. And we enter it from whatever life situation or circumstance we are experiencing.
It has also been said that a parable is like a Rorschach test, “You see what you see.” There is no right or wrong, you get from the parable what you get from the parable.
This is the longest parable in Jesus repertoire, at least as we have them in scripture. So the thought is that it must have been important to Jesus, to take such care in the telling. If you read Luke carefully, you can see that this parable reflects the theological center of Luke’s gospel, the core message of the redemption of the lost, the reconciliation of all the beloved of God by God.
Today’s parable is best known as the parable of the prodigal son. It has also been called the parable of the elder brother or the parable of the beloved sons or the parable of the loving father or the parable of… you get the idea. There is no one message here, but there is a message here for each one of us. What is it for you?
This year I have personally focused on the father (I wonder why). The brothers are written or told about in a rather obvious way; their portraits are painted with rather broad bright strokes. They are both prodigal. They both insult their father and they both reject their father, just at different times and in different ways.
But the father seems to me to be more subtly drawn. In the beginning he seems like kind of a wimp of a father; being pushed to and fro by his children. He gives in to outrageous demands. He accepts their lack of respect for his person and his fatherhood. They both reject his love and their relationship with him. He is, in his own way, also lost.
They are all lost. There is an abundance of lost in this story: the prodigal son who not only lost his relationship with his father and his inheritance, but he also lost himself. The elder brother who feels that he has lost his place in line, first place, to his younger brother, and is ready to lose his relationship with his father. And the father himself, who seems to have lost not one son, but two. A fatherhood rejected. And he is lost as well.
But he loves them still, and he will do whatever he can to be reconciled with them. We are shown that in the story when we hear, “While he (the younger son) was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.”
Now consider that the father was a man of some substance, some standing in the community, a man of wealth and stature and position, who sees his son, lifts up the skirts of his garment so that his legs are exposed for all to see, and runs to meet his son, probably shouting aloud all the way, making a public and undignified spectacle of himself, all for the over-flowing love of him. And that leads in to the fatted calf and the party and all.
Then we hear that the elder brother “became angry and refused to go in. His father came out” to meet him as well.
This father who would take the first step and the last step to regain the relationships with his beloved children.
Perhaps the key phrase here is “This brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.” By the end of the story, each of them who was lost has been found.
What was it we heard from the apostle Paul in the letter to the church in Corinth? “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself…”
Frederick Buechner, one of my most favorite authors, has a wonderful novel about a man named Godric, which is also the title of the novel. Godric is a lot like the prodigal son in that his life covered a lot of territory both geographic and behavioral. He was, for much of his life, lost, but in the end has found God and been found by God, as the familiar prayer petition goes.
At the end of his life and at the end of the novel, Godric sums everything up when he says, “All’s lost; all’s found”. Now is that the central message of the Incarnation? Is that the reason for the birth, life, passion, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ? Thanks be to God, YES!
This season of Lent is a time when God asks us, “Where are you?” Are we the younger son off in a country far from God? Do we believe that we have been so bad, that God would not run to embrace us?
Are we the elder brother? Do we think that we are so insignificant to the heart of God, that God would not be moved to go to any length to restore us? Yes, at times, most of us have felt that way.
Or the father who has lost those he loves.
God's love for us is an unremitting, unrelenting grace-filled mercy that God holds out to us and in which would enfold us.
There is a statue in which God, as a Father, is holding Adam tenderly on his lap. Adam is asleep with his knees tucked up underneath his chin, as if he were in the womb. God is looking at him with deep love, caring and compassion, as though he longed for his grace to waken Adam, so that Adam could know who was holding him, how he was being held, and how much he was loved.
One of the messages today is about who is holding us, how we are being held, and how much we are loved, and how far God will go to bring us back.
There is also an invitation to share that news with others, because the apostle Paul tells us that we have been entrusted with the message of love and reconciliation, so that all can say with Godric, “All’s lost; all’s found.”
Thanks be to God. Amen.
