Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
We all love the story of the prodigal son. We can picture ourselves coming home to God. God opens God's arms in welcome to us. We are loved just as we are and there is something to being loved so completely. Today I want us to walk into a more uncomfortable part of the story, one we don't often think about. Jake Owensby this week renamed this the Parable of the Religious Jerk, saying we wouldn't probably read this if this parable were named that.
The second son. There is more than one son in this story. We like the first son so much and we are so comfortable with him we ignore the second son altogether. We can stay comfortable and secure in our place as beloved. Lent is a time of reflection, a time to pull out and look at the things we don't like to. So today I challenge us to look at this brother because this brother is us.
The second son doesn't learn about the feast or that his brother has come home from his father. He heard the party as he was coming in from the fields by calling a servant to ask what was going on. Imagine it, you've been working all day, kind of like the religious leaders in the story, and you come back home to this. No one called you home, they forgot you, left you working in the field.
The servant explains to the second son what is going on, what is on the menu, and why the father is rejoicing. Now his father comes to him and he's angry enough to let him have it. I've worked, been obedient and you don't even give me a goat so I can have a party with my friends. He's not going to join the feast, instead he remains on the outside, angry.
Brenè Brown says anger held onto is not good, it develops into something unhealthy within us. Just like the Pharisees, they hold onto their anger about Jesus eating with the sinners and riff-raff until they kill him. He's not human anymore, they don't feel sorry, don't rejoice at his successes. They want him dead and gone. Is it jealousy, threat of unpopularity, threat of difference under Roman rule, or threat of not knowing as much, it could be a combination of all of the above. This becomes the question we have to ask ourselves. How are we like the older brother?
Now we may find some pain or discomfort in picking up this question. Nowadays we don't like to pick up questions, pain, grief, etch. We like to avoid it. We have forgotten that pain helps us grow. For a woman in labor, if she does natural childbirth with no drugs, which is rarer now, to get the pain to stop you have to go into it. We have drugs now even for that and many are having C-sections to avoid the pain of real birth. We don't like pain, it has become the enemy to avoid at all costs.
The pain here is to really ask the question. How are we like the second son? Do we hold new people at a distance because we're the ones who have done the work. We're the ones who know this church. Who cares really about growing. Or why should we welcome the homeless, the rescue mission people, or anyone we classify as different and unworthy? Sound familiar to the story?
In lent we are to be honest with ourselves about sometimes being the second son jerk of the story. We are to repent now. We just heard this last week. We have to embrace the questions which come to us in the wilderness. The ones which make us uncomfortable, the ones we don't want to face, the ones which help us grow. So if Jesus came today and invited all the new people to a party and we were forgotten on the outside would we stand there angry that he forgot us? This isn't how the story goes, we're supposed to be welcomed into our Father's arms.
What is right, are we actually more important? Are we the religious leaders, evaluating, judging who is worthy and who is not? It is more our church than yours, we've been here longer, worked longer, paid our dues, is that really what the story says? Ouch, ouch this is the place to examine this though. This is the place where there is healing balm. Yes, we all make mistakes, yes we all separate and think we have it figured out and yes God is still waiting to embrace us. The Father still invites the second son in, it's the son who refuses to go. Will you refuse?
We all love the story of the prodigal son. We can picture ourselves coming home to God. God opens God's arms in welcome to us. We are loved just as we are and there is something to being loved so completely. Today I want us to walk into a more uncomfortable part of the story, one we don't often think about. Jake Owensby this week renamed this the Parable of the Religious Jerk, saying we wouldn't probably read this if this parable were named that.
The second son. There is more than one son in this story. We like the first son so much and we are so comfortable with him we ignore the second son altogether. We can stay comfortable and secure in our place as beloved. Lent is a time of reflection, a time to pull out and look at the things we don't like to. So today I challenge us to look at this brother because this brother is us.
The second son doesn't learn about the feast or that his brother has come home from his father. He heard the party as he was coming in from the fields by calling a servant to ask what was going on. Imagine it, you've been working all day, kind of like the religious leaders in the story, and you come back home to this. No one called you home, they forgot you, left you working in the field.
The servant explains to the second son what is going on, what is on the menu, and why the father is rejoicing. Now his father comes to him and he's angry enough to let him have it. I've worked, been obedient and you don't even give me a goat so I can have a party with my friends. He's not going to join the feast, instead he remains on the outside, angry.
Brenè Brown says anger held onto is not good, it develops into something unhealthy within us. Just like the Pharisees, they hold onto their anger about Jesus eating with the sinners and riff-raff until they kill him. He's not human anymore, they don't feel sorry, don't rejoice at his successes. They want him dead and gone. Is it jealousy, threat of unpopularity, threat of difference under Roman rule, or threat of not knowing as much, it could be a combination of all of the above. This becomes the question we have to ask ourselves. How are we like the older brother?
Now we may find some pain or discomfort in picking up this question. Nowadays we don't like to pick up questions, pain, grief, etch. We like to avoid it. We have forgotten that pain helps us grow. For a woman in labor, if she does natural childbirth with no drugs, which is rarer now, to get the pain to stop you have to go into it. We have drugs now even for that and many are having C-sections to avoid the pain of real birth. We don't like pain, it has become the enemy to avoid at all costs.
The pain here is to really ask the question. How are we like the second son? Do we hold new people at a distance because we're the ones who have done the work. We're the ones who know this church. Who cares really about growing. Or why should we welcome the homeless, the rescue mission people, or anyone we classify as different and unworthy? Sound familiar to the story?
In lent we are to be honest with ourselves about sometimes being the second son jerk of the story. We are to repent now. We just heard this last week. We have to embrace the questions which come to us in the wilderness. The ones which make us uncomfortable, the ones we don't want to face, the ones which help us grow. So if Jesus came today and invited all the new people to a party and we were forgotten on the outside would we stand there angry that he forgot us? This isn't how the story goes, we're supposed to be welcomed into our Father's arms.
What is right, are we actually more important? Are we the religious leaders, evaluating, judging who is worthy and who is not? It is more our church than yours, we've been here longer, worked longer, paid our dues, is that really what the story says? Ouch, ouch this is the place to examine this though. This is the place where there is healing balm. Yes, we all make mistakes, yes we all separate and think we have it figured out and yes God is still waiting to embrace us. The Father still invites the second son in, it's the son who refuses to go. Will you refuse?
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