Readings for Lent 4C:
Joshua 5:9-12, 2 Corinthians 5:17-21, Luke 15:11-32
March 18, 2007
The Rev. Dawn Teuthorn
St. Jude the Apostle Episcopal Church, Cupertino, CA
What does the word home mean to you? A cozy place to return to after a hard day’s work? A sanctuary in times of trouble? Or the earth itself? How about this for a definition of home — any place where we are welcomed and nurtured. Lent is the time for coming home. In the ancient church it was the season for reconciling lapsed Christians to the community of the faithful. Today's readings provide images of homecoming — Israel's entry into the land of promise, a prodigal son who returned to his waiting father.
Ps. 32: Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill
Blessed is each one whose wrongdoings have been forgiven, whose shame has been forgotten.
Blessed is each one in whom Love Divine finds a home, and whose spirit radiates truth.
Joshua 5:9-12
By celebrating the Passover and eating the produce of the promised land instead of the miraculous manna that had sustained them in the desert, the Israelites symbolically bring their forty years of wilderness wandering to an end at Gilgal, which sounds like the Hebrew word ‘removed’ relating to the fact that it is here that God has ‘removed’ the disgrace of slavery from the people, who now celebrate their freedom.
The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." And so that place is called Gilgal to this day. While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover … and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
In Jesus' death on the cross, God works to persuade us of divine love so that we might be reconciled to God. As part of God's new creation, we are challenged to share with others the good news of our reconciled relationship to go as ambassadors of God’s grace in a ministry of reconciliation.
Gospel of St. Luke chapter 15 (1-3, 11-32)
Jesus tells a story about a son who discovers his father's love only when he walks away from it. But the father's grace is also a crisis for an older brother, who thought that by his obedience he had earned a place in the father's home.
I’m going to retell the story of a father who loves his two sons. It’s a crazy love — one that goes beyond reason, convention, and propriety. To have the audacity to love like this … well, I know of only One Father who can so consistently and willingly love like this. It is this One revealed to us in Jesus who all the tax collectors and sinners keep crowding around so they can hear him — sinners, outcast, the marginalized listen to Jesus. But Luke 15 begins, the Pharisees and scribes are grumbling, saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’ i.e. How dare he embrace, dwell with, dine with the sinner. They grumble diagogguzo, like Luke claims of the people grumbled when Jesus goes to Zacchaeus’ house or the house of Levi, tax collector — Jesus hospitable to those on the outside, those considered unclean, contemptible, low status, treating them as though they were acceptable, as though they were his own kin. The Pharisees and scribes grumble like the Israelites grumbled in the wilderness because God saved them!
In response, Jesus tells three parables, the third of which is our gospel today. The first, a Shepherd leaves his 99 sheep to find the one who is lost; the second, of a woman, not so rich, with 10 saved silver coins who loses one (a day’s wage), searches the house over until the lost coin is found. Both stories refer to repentance. Metanoia, defined as the changing of one’s mind, as the sinner turning around, seeing need for God. However, the idea that either sheep or coin can actually ‘repent’ as we typically understand repentance seems unlikely, even ‘absurd’. Thus Reverend Richard Jensen in Preaching Luke’s Gospel suggests a new definition of repentance: “The only possible action in this story that could constitute repentance is the finding of the lost. Repentance, therefore, may be defined as our acceptance of being found. (Jensen credits this insight to Kenneth Bailey’s book, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15) [p.167] He later iterates: “Repentance is our acceptance of the reality that God has found us in Jesus Christ. [p.169]” This will prove an important point as we continue to story #3.
It begins like this: "Once there was a man who had two sons. The relationship in focus is between a father and his two sons. The younger son says to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So the father divided his property between his two sons
This is an unthinkable act within the context of time and culture. What the father does here is give of his ‘bios’ — his life before he is dead. In a sense, he is now pronounced dead. It is an unthinkable request and a foolish act on the part of the father. He gives not just to one, but to both his sons his ‘bios’, his life. Kenneth Bailey in Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15 adds cultural context to this story, having spent most of his living in the Middle East, having access to eastern attempts at understanding this story. “ It is a surprise in a Middle Eastern story that the younger son speaks first. He is out of his place already! What he speaks is even more astonishing. He is basically telling his father to 'drop dead.' All Eastern commentators on this story acknowledge that the son's request is totally illegitimate. It is an unthinkable request. A father only gives the inheritance in death.
The father should explode with anger at such an inappropriate request. He does not explode. He grants a request that was completely unimaginable in his time. Such is the nature of the father in the story. This is a very unusual father! [p. 172]
A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.
Eastern commentators do not take this to mean a necessarily immoral lifestyle on the part of the son. He is a spend-thrift to be sure. He spends money like it is going out of style. We often talk about the Prodigal as being engaged in all kinds of immoral activities. Eastern commentators do not read it that way. It is the Elder Brother who suggests that the Prodigal has spent his money on prostitutes (v. 30). The Elder Brother is not a very reliable source of information on the matter! [p. 172] The Greek words in v. 13 do not imply immoral behaviors, but thoughtless actions. "Scattering" (diaskorpizo) the money without any thought of future consequences (asotos). He is living just for the moment.
When the younger son had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
Living just for the moment “may have worked out all right, except for the natural disaster of famine which he hadn't counted on. The younger son's dire straights were not completely his own fault. The famine, of which he had no part in causing, also played some part in it.”
So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
At this point, the younger son reaches the low point. He wishes he were a pig! At least the pigs had something to eat. An interesting twist to a good story among people who religiously don’t eat pork
But when he came to himself ‘came to his senses’, ‘got smart’, devises a plan for himself.
He said, ‘How many of my father’s haired 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.”’
This is NOT the moment of his repentance. Repentance in these stories occurs when the lost is found. Bailey notes that Arabic translations of these words read that the younger son "got smart." He got smart in the sense that he now was ready to look out for himself. He had a plan. He knew that his father had many hired hands who had bread enough and to spare. He'll go back home. He knows he can't go back as a son. He won't go back as a slave. So he will go back as a hired hand. "He will not live at home, and not join the family. He will pay is own way. First he must convince his father to support the plan" (Bailey, p. 133) His plan is to earn his restored status. "Give me a second chance. I'll earn it back and repay you. I am not now worthy to be called your son, but I will be if you give me a chance" (Bailey, p. 133).
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion (womb-love, moved with pity and tenderness);
He ran
In ancient Palestine it was regarded as unbecoming — a loss of dignity — for a grown man to run. Yet the father set aside all concern for propriety & ran. [p. 302, Culpepper (Luke, The New Interpreter's Bible)]
Bailey notes that Arabic translations of this story refuse to translate this running! They avoid this because it is clear that the father here is acting as God acts towards prodigals. Running is public is too humiliating to attribute to a person who symbolizes God. [p. 174, Jensen (Preaching Luke's Gospel)]
And put his arms around him and kissed him.
Why this lack of proper actions by the father? Was he just overcome with joy at seeing his son? There may be other reasons. Tannehill (Luke) comments on v. 20: [The father's] response is described in a rush of verbs that move rapidly from seeing to running, embracing, and kissing. By these actions the father gives an emotional welcome before the son speaks a word. The father does not wait for explanations, confessions, or promises. Nor is he concerned with the restoration of his own damaged honor. It has been suggested that running to meet the son while he is still at a distance also has the purpose of protecting the son from the scorn of the rest of the village, who would remember the way that he had treated his father and make their feelings known (Bailey, 181-82).
Then the son said to him,
‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
But the father said 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.
A footnote on v. 22 in the Contemporary English Version says about "the ring … sandals:"
These show that the young man's father fully accepted him as his son. A ring was a sign of high position in
the family. Sandals showed that he was a son instead of a slave, since slaves did not usually wear sandals.
Precisely in the son's speech where we would expect him to ask to be received as a hired hand, the father
receives him as an honored son. (Footnote on v. 22 in the Contemporary English Version re-ring,sandals)
And get the fatted calf and kill it, And let us eat and celebrate;
Meat was not part of the daily diet. The whole animal would have to be eaten in a short time or the meat would spoil, so the father is expecting a large group. Perhaps the whole village will be invited. The father is not planning a quiet family gathering but is making a public gesture to proclaim his acceptance of his son so that the whole community will follow suit. (Note that when the father states the reason for the party in v. 24 he explicitly refers to the prodigal as "this son of mine.") All of this is done without requiring any period of testing or acts of public penance from the wayward son. [p. 242]Tannehill
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’
“The father simply gives him back his sonship as an act of grace. The son accepts. He repents; he accepts being found! [p.175] Richard Jensen, from Preaching Luke’s Gospel.
And they began to celebrate. Can we? Are we willing to celebrate with the father for the found lost?
“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. The slave, replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ The elder brother became angry and refused to go in.
This party is in honor of the father — like in the two previous parables: parties given for the shepherd and the woman who find. This means that the older son's refusal to join the party is an indication of not honoring his father!
His father came out and began to plead with him.
The father leaves the party to seek his older son, setting aside his honor for the sake of this wayward child.
But the son answered his father, ‘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!’
Earlier, the slave reminds the older son of his relationships by saying: "Your brother" and "your father." The older son will not use these terms. He seems to indicate his relationship with his father as that of an obedient slave (v. 29). When talking to his father, he refers to "this son of yours" (v. 30). However, the father reminds him of these relationships: in v. 31: He calls him "child" and in v. 32, says: "this brother of yours." The father is seeking to reestablish the proper relationship between himself and his older son; and as Culpepper writes (I just love this!): "In the world of the parable, one cannot be a son without also being a brother." [p. 304]
And so, the father says to his eldest child, “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.
Craddock (Luke, Interpretation Commentaries): … it might be well to underscore two elements in the story that often get neglected. One is the party. It was the music and dancing that offended the older son. Of course, let the younger son return home. Judaism and Christianity have clear provisions for the restoration of the penitent returnee, but where does it say that such provisions include a banquet with music and dancing? Yes, let the prodigal return, but to bread and water, not fatted calf; in sackcloth, not a new robe; wearing ashes, not a new ring; in tears, not in merriment; kneeling, not dancing. Has the party canceled the seriousness of sin and repentance? … The second element often overlooked is that the father not only had two sons but loved two sons, went out to two sons (vv. 20, 28), and was generous to two sons (vv. 12, 22, 31). [p. 188]
Ps. 32: Psalms for Praying by Nan C. Merrill
Blessed is each one whose wrongdoings have been forgiven, whose shame has been forgotten.
Blessed is each one in whom Love Divine finds a home, and whose spirit radiates truth.
What does the word home mean to you? A cozy place to return to after a hard day’s work? A sanctuary in times of trouble? Or the earth itself? How about this for a definition of home — any place where we are welcomed and nurtured. Lent is the time for coming home. In the ancient church it was the season for reconciling lapsed Christians to the community of the faithful.
Be ye welcomed and nurtured this Lenten season. And, remember, one cannot be a son or daughter, a child of God, without also being a brother or sister. Amen.
| Updated 03/21/07 |
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