Tuesday, March 5, 2013

An adult faith with a child's ear...

NOTE: Here are my worship notes for Sunday, March 10, 2013 - the Fourth Sunday in Lent - focusing on my favorite parable of the Prodigal Son.

Introduction
The story of the Prodigal Son – or the Scandalously Gracious Father – or the Rightfully Indignant Sibling – or ALL of the above and more – is my favorite parable in the whole Bible.  It is both complex and clear, it is simultaneously about sin and grace, it is edgy and challenging and demands a reaction from us that helps each and all of us comprehend just how much we need God’s love in our lives. 

What’s more, it is an adult story of faith – neither simplistic nor sentimental – that refuses to moralize or judge because the gospel way of faith is always multifaceted and demanding.  As Douglas John Hall puts it in his new book, Waiting for Gospel, the gospel is not reducible “to fundamentals … or pathetic little greeting card ideas that are only slightly more sophisticated than gross superstition!”  No, the gospel is a lively, never shallow or frivolous encounter with the essence of our God who is always Good Friday and Easter together, silence and solidarity, Alpha and Omega in the shadow of the Cross all at once. 

As the poet and prophet Isaiah said so clearly:  My thoughts are not your thoughts nor are your ways my ways,” says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”  So for adults, beloved, our conversations about this parable – and the whole gospel of new life in Christ the Lord – cannot be summarized by slogans nor reduced to “six minute meditations” filled with simplistic formulas.  We must go deeper as St Paul told us:  “Now we regard no one purely from a human point of view… because if anyone is in Christ, they are fully a new creation where the old has passed away.”

Think about that for just a moment:  we are to see life both from the perspective of the gospel AND from our humanity for we have been called to “be ambassadors for Christ, knowing that God is making an appeal to the world through us.”An ambassador is an official representative – the highest ranking diplomat – who gives shape and form to the heart, mind and soul of a nation or government – in this case the kingdom of God.  Have you ever listened to the way ambassadors speak?  They are careful with their words, intentional with their actions.  They don’t give in to rants or cheap shots – name calling is out of the question – and they always look for ways to keep the door open and communication flowing.  They are nuanced thinkers committed to strength and tenderness simultaneously.

Sadly, in our generation, Christians have become more like the crusader than an ambassador, bullies rather than servant-leaders:  our era detests nuance and paradox; we cynically denigrate complex thinking and despise both careful theological reflection and acts of quiet compassionate.  “Without a modicum of linguistic sophistication (in the Church)… and the reduction of the key concepts of our faith to formulaic ideas lacking depth (that are) incapable of dialectic” (Hall) much of what now passes for the gospel in North America is a dumbed-down and mean-spirited parody of Jesus.

·       Enter the parable of the prodigal son – praise the Lord – because it is incapable of being deconstructed by intolerance or reduced to some simple-minded lowest common denominator.

·       This bad boy, beloved, is the real deal – the WHOLE gospel enchilada from Good Friday to Easter with Pentecost and the Ascension thrown in for good measure – served up in all of its wild and complex wisdom for us to digest as adults.  And that’s what I’m going to ask you to do with me this morning:  spend some time savoring this parable with me so that it might be well digested and fully absorbed in all of its gracious goodness.

Insights
You see, one of the fascinating truths about this story is that it has something for everybody:  there is an entry point for every perspective and nobody is excluded. What’s more, it taps into our normal and well-socialized sense of the scandalous and turns it upside down without ever once moralizing or explaining away God’s amazing grace.  So let’s start to savor the wisdom embodied in the three key characters – the youngest son, the father and the oldest child – to see what’s really going on.

Here are a few important details about the youngest child:  the story begins with him asking his father for his inheritance before poppa dies.  Now not only was this NEVER done in ancient Jewish culture, but it represents the height of selfishness and greed for two reasons.  First, an inheritance is shared with the heirs only after a death, so this request is like the boy was saying “to me, father, you are as good as dead.”  This wasn’t just chutzpah, it was disrespect and greed writ large.  And we can say that because of the second reason:  it wasn’t just money that was involved in the inheritance, but property:  in order to give in to this child’s demand, the family estate had to be broken up and divided.  Tradition and honor have been neglected here – and things go from bad to worse with the youngest child as he leaves home for a foreign and thus unclean land, takes up reckless personal behaviors, squanders his inheritance and winds up as a Jewish man working in a Gentile pork factory.  He even falls so low as to consider eating with the hogs before deciding to head back home and try to play the old man like a violin one more time.  You see, there’s no mention in this story of this child’s sense of repentance – maybe he was sorry – or maybe he was just feeling sorry for himself and wanted to cut his losses. 

Are you with me here?  The details of this story leave lots of room for nuance and complicated motives – just like real life.  What’s more, they tell the all too familiar tale of a young person thinking they know better than tradition and family who makes a mess out of everything.  And whether you’ve been there in an AA meeting after hitting bottom – or standing in a line applying for unemployment insurance – or sitting before an officer of the court at a divorce hearing, most of us here today have played out our  own version of the younger son and this is one way we enter its wisdom.

Now think about the father in the parable:  he is scandalously stupid on one level but equally holy on another.  First of all, after his child tells him he wishes he were dead, he not only sells off part of the family farm, he gives in to the greedy little ingrate.  And then, after years of fear, disappointment and shame, when this loser decides to schlep back home, the father runs out to greet him, interrupts his lame excuses and restores him to a place of honor and love in the family by throwing him a feast.  Now, there isn’t a parent among us who wouldn’t turn over heaven and earth for their children when they’re in trouble, but let’s get real:  NONE of us would be so extravagant with our wounded and manipulative child as the father in this story – and, of course, that is the point: “Jesus is introducing people to the relational logic of the kingdom of God that runs contrary to and way beyond the legal logic of the world.” (David Lohse)

Some of us find our way into this story through the father – whose heart is broken, who aches to forgive his broken child and who gives shape and form to the grace of God that is beyond our imagination – for this, too is part of the complicated wisdom of the Lord whose ways are not our ways and whose thoughts are not our thoughts.

And then the oldest child – the so-called “good one” – who is every bit as complicates as the other two in this parable:  sure he goes along with his father in breaking up the farm so he’s not a total innocent, but look:  mostly this guy is right.  He’s right about his loser brother, he’s right about his own actions, he’s right about the “ridiculously permissive” nature of his father and he’s right about the social consequences of this whole mess.  And here’s the bigger tragedy:  he chooses being right rather than being in loving relationship with his father and brother.  As one scholar put it this decision ships him off to a far and distant land, too – the land or resentment and loneliness.

And without belaboring the point, I know I’ve spent time in that sad and distant place – and you probably have, too.

Three characters in a story, each one speaks something true about experiences we have all shared and each one leads us to confront the grace of God that is simultaneously blessed, complicated, challenging and life-changing.  These are people and stories we know – we’ve lived them – and just to be clear let’s try an experiment:  which of these three do you resonate with right now?  We may have been each one of these players at different times, but who speaks to you today – and why?

(Invite people to share out loud)

Conclusion
The gospel is a mystery – not a reward, not a prize, neither compensation nor incentive – just pure gift and total grace from God.  We cannot earn it or learn it, we cannot create it or replicate it:  all we can do is receive it and give thanks that at the core of creation and life is a love that is greater than our fear and sin and greed.  And when we turn back to God – when we return home – God welcomes us as with a feast.

·       One small child said that this story tells us that “if you go away from God for awhile, when you come back, God rejoices.”  In other words, our God “is a loving God who gathers us in and rejoices when we are found.  The story also tells us something of the rhythm of God’s love:  when something is lost, there is a search until it is found and then there is celebration.  

·       Preacher Ann Howard put it like this:  What if we learned to hear with a child's ears in our adult lives? What if we came to trust again this sacred pattern?   

Maybe, (as adults) we could toss out the old metaphors for God that still lurk in the dark and dusty corners of our religion: no more judge on a throne up in a faraway heaven, no more angry landlord tossing Adam and Eve out of the garden, no god who requires blood sacrifice, no more Santa Claus god who rewards the good and punishes the bad, no more slot machine God that delivers if only we can strike the winning combination.

Ever since the beginning of time, deep within each and every one of us, THIS truth about God has been breathed into us by the Holy Spirit:  we may have forgotten it, or buried it beneath shame, we may have run away from it to a sad and distant land or even had it beaten out of us by the suffering that is all too real in all of our lives.  But like Jesus reminded his first friends:  the kingdom of God is very near to each of you – and I believe it is still there aching to come out.  So as we give you a few moments to digest this gospel truth in the quiet and safety of this place, consider this true story.

Once upon a time a couple had a three year old daughter and the mom was about to give birth to their second child. The little three year old girl was really excited about having a new baby brother or sister, and when the new baby got home, the three-year old girl was absolutely insistent that she be permitted to be in the baby's room with the baby alone and the door shut. Her parents were a little bit nervous about this, but then they remembered that they had an intercom system, so they let the little girl go into the room. When the door was shut, they ran to the intercom and when they listened they heard the little girl say to the baby, "Tell me about God. I've almost forgotten."
(Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity)

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