God’s grace, peace
and mercy be with you. … My sermon title is People: Audience, Parable and
Present, and my focus is our Gospel (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32). Let us pray. Heavenly
Father, the psalmist wrote, “I rejoiced when they said to me, ‘Let us go
to the house of the Lord.’” Now that our feet are within your gates, we
rejoice to hear your Word. As we listen, may your Spirit enlighten our minds
and move our hearts to love deeply as Jesus loved. This we pray to you, Most
Holy Trinity. Amen.
Several weeks ago,
I opened my sermon with the first line of People from Funny Girl.
As I was preparing for today’s sermon, I noticed that there are distinct groups
of people present in Jesus’ original audience, in his parable and in His Church
today. That prompted me to wonder how many times the word people appears
in titles of songs or movies. The answer? Dozens.
Among songs,
artists have recorded Everyday People, Short People, C’mon People, All God’s
People, Lonely People, Shower the People, and even more I never heard of: Plastic
People, Damaged People, Secondhand People and Broken People.
Directors and
producers have given us Ruthless, Ordinary and Used People. There
have been movies attributed to animals and people, such as Mole People, Cat
People, Alligator and Bat People. Personality traits have been
featured in such blockbusters as Secret People, Smart, Fierce, Crazy,
Terrible, Superfluous, Civilized, Beautiful and Simple People.
We are extremely
interested in people. Across all platforms, 98 million Americans read People
magazine. Our fascination with people may explain why Luke recorded Jesus
narrating a story about three people to men and women who were tax collectors
and sinners while scribes and Pharisees grumbled. And so, I begin with my first
point about people, the audience.
It is necessary to
identify the people in the audience in order to understand properly the point
Luke makes.[1] Luke recorded that tax
collectors and sinners were drawing near to hear Jesus while Pharisees and
scribes grumbled that He received sinners and ate with them. The mere fact that
tax collectors and sinners approached Jesus provoked the scribes and Pharisees
to complain.
This was not the
first time these two audiences gathered around Jesus. We read in chapter five
that Levi made him a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of
tax collectors and others reclining at table with them. And the Pharisees and their
scribes grumbled at his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with
tax collectors and sinners?”[2]
Again, in chapter
nineteen, when Jesus spotted Zacchaeus the tax collector, and informed him that
he must stay at his house, he joyfully welcomed Jesus, which provoked them to
grumble, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”[3]
Of course, Jesus
was aware of what they were saying about him. In chapter seven, after the
disciples of John the Baptist left, Jesus addressed the crowd on the response
of scribes and Pharisees to both John and himself. He concluded by saying, “John
the Baptist came eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a
demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him!
A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”[4]
How were gluttons
and drunkards punished in his day? The answer is found in Deuteronomy. “If
a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his
father or … mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them,
then his father and mother shall take hold of him and bring him to the elders
of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the
elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey
our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall
stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst,
and all Israel shall hear, and fear.
And
if a man has committed a crime punishable by death and he is put to death, and
you hang him on a tree, his body shall not remain all night on the tree, but
you shall bury him the same day, for a hanged man is cursed by God. You shall
not defile your land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance.”[5]
With that in mind,
Jesus sought table fellowship with sinners. Why? Because the end-time banquet
in God’s Kingdom welcomed sinners who turned from their evil ways and towards
God. So, while he is on his way to Jerusalem to be crucified on a tree, he is
unconcerned about anything but people – tax collectors, prostitutes and
sinners, that is, the poor, disabled, lame and blind.[6] They came to hear Jesus
who said, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”[7]
Now, both groups
of people heard the three parables which illustrated that the nature of the
kingdom is joyous feasting with God. The illustration culminates in the parable
of the two sons where the kingdom is a feast for sinners prepared by the Father
himself. The older son drew near and heard the music and dancing of the
messianic feast prepared for the prodigal son who repented. The older brother
is like the Pharisees, who did not recognize the kingdom when they saw it.
The tax collectors
and sinners drew near to Jesus, who received them, ate with them and told them
a parable about rejoicing at the end-time feast. The parable’s older brother
also drew near to the feast only to be scandalized, and rejected the meal, and the
joy and mercy of his father – a reaction similar to the Pharisees’ rejection of
Jesus. Thus, Jesus addressed both the Pharisees and scribes and the tax
collectors and sinners simultaneously. His comforting revelation of the way of
the kingdom is also a loving admonition to the scandalized to join the
celebration through repentance.
Now that we
recognize who’s who and their reasons for being there, we move from my first
point, people in the audience, to my second point, people in the parable.
We are all
familiar with the three people in the parable. There is the callous younger
brother who demanded his share of the inheritance, squandered it in reckless
living, and found himself starving amidst the squalor of pigs. He calculated he
would have a better life serving his father as a day laborer and prepared a
speech begging for forgiveness.
We do not know how
he wasted his money. The older brother accused him of spending it on
prostitutes, but we only know that he squandered it by living foolishly. The
real fault is the irremediable loss of inheritance.
Did you know that
his planned confession is in harmony with the rabbinic doctrine of repentance?
He was required to admit his sin and name the offended person. Even Pharaoh
asked forgiveness from Moses and his God when plagued by locusts: “Forgive
my sin, please, only this once, and plead with the Lord your God only to remove
this death from me.”[8] Later, in Malachi we read,
“From the days of your fathers you have turned aside from my statutes and
have not kept them. Return to me, and I will return to you, says the Lord of
hosts.”[9]
In short, if the
story ended here, it would be a good moralistic parable conforming to the
Pharisees’ expectations about how outcasts should be restored to the community,
but, and there is always a but, the Father is unpredictable.
His father saw him
while he was still far away. His seeing is the real act that brought the son
near. Now, some translations use the phrase but while he was a long way off. A
better translation is the King James’ Bible, ‘yet’, for this indicates
that the son could not really do anything on his own to reach his father.
The father’s heart
went out to his son because he was filled with love and compassion. The father
saved him while he was hopelessly lost. In other words, salvation comes from
the father. The son is accepted with no further conditions to fulfill. He found
the freedom in his father, which he thought he would find by leaving his father
in the first place.[10]
We know what the
father does next, but we should note that his compassion is not based on the
son’s appeal. He had compassion while his son was still at a distance and
hastened to greet him affectionately before he said a word. Just as Jesus
received sinners and ate with them without first demanding signs of repentance,
so the father accepted his son without waiting for him to first prove himself
truly repentant and worthy.
Confronted by his
father’s tenderness, which had already forgiven him before any confession of
his fault, the son finally reached the point where he could forgo pride and
accept the gracious love of his father. Nothing should be added after the
words, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” He did not
speak the last words of his speech because he accepted his father’s
unconditional love.[11]
Before I comment
on the older son’s role, let me say a word about a similar Buddhist story which
begins like Luke’s parable. The boy in that story returns home and works off
his guilt over a period of years. How the father in Jesus’ parable treats his
son vis-à-vis the Buddhist father illustrates the difference between the
principle of Karma and that of grace, free forgiveness and full restoration of
one who is undoubtedly guilty. The reason for distinguishing the differences is
that the Pharisees would have expected the son to work off his guilt as a
common day laborer for the rest of his life. On the other hand, Jesus and his
Father would not demand such servitude. Rather, our God offers grace, free
forgiveness and the restoration of the guilty.
Now, let’s fast
forward to the party. The older son’s journey from the fields parallels the
younger son’s home-coming journey. The live music he heard signified meal
preparations and the arrival of guests. As the oldest he would have been
familiar with festive music, and had he been expecting a feast, he would not
have gone to work in the fields because his role would be servant-host so that
his father could mingle with guests. So, imagine his surprise!
Note that he did
not run to the feast, but, oddly, questioned one of the servants and remained
at a distance. In other words, he declined his role as the older son.
When his father
approached and begged him to join the festivities, he humiliated him by
quarrelling and insulting him in front of the village guests. The older son
misunderstood his relationship with his father because he believed it to be
based on merit and reward.
Like the younger
son, whose sin was his prideful will to independence and denial of his own
sonship, the older son’s sin was also rooted in pride. His prideful presumption
was that sonship was earned, and so he refused to accept his brother because
the younger did not “earn” sonship as he had.
Having heard the
father’s plea to understand his offer of grace to both him and his younger
brother, Luke leaves us wondering if the older son would share his father’s joy
that one who was dead has been raised to life.
As I segue into my
third point, let me summarize. The people in the parable symbolize the people
in the audience. The younger son represents the tax collectors and the sinners;
the older son, scribes and Pharisees; and the father, God. Now, Luke always wrote
within a context, not a vacuum. He was always addressing an issue pressing upon
his community. So, just as the three people in the parable represent the people
in the audience, they also represent the people in the Church – then and today.
Hence, my third point, people in His Church today.
A fundamental
understanding of any New Testament letter or gospel is that the piece was
written for the Church. As Church, the New Testament gave people the story of
Jesus, but also instruction on how live as His disciples. Whether we turn to
the first piece of New Testament literature, Paul’s Letter to the
Thessalonians, where he wrote, “you became imitators of us and of the
Lord, for you received the word in much affliction, with the joy of the Holy
Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers…”[12], or to our Gospel today,
we are given instruction on how to live as the people of Christ’s Church.
That said, how do
we apply today’s parable to our lives as Church? Specifically, how have we
responded to reconciled sinners? How have we responded when flagrant sinners
have turned to God seeking forgiveness and mercy through His Church? Have we
responded like the older brother who distanced himself from the celebration of
the younger brother’s return? Have we joined the celebration and joyfully
embraced the repentant family members, in-law, neighbor or church member who
has sinned against us and our families? How deeply have I expressed my joy on
their return? In other words, the parable for people in the Church today is to
celebrate joyfully the return of someone who wished us dead, separated himself
from us, squandered our family’s fortune, and returned sinful, sorrowful,
repentant and reconciled with the family, its matriarch or patriarch. Now, you
and I are invited to join the celebration. And you already know that I have a
question for you. But before I ask my question, I want to tell you something
that happens to me almost every day.
When I return
home, our Golden Retriever, Maggie, greets me with joyful abandonment. When I enter
the house from the garage, she runs and gets a toy and brings it to me because
when dad gets home the party starts. No matter what my mood, the joyful
demeanor of our canine transforms crankiness to happiness, and weariness to
wonder. She shows us how to respond to a prodigal person who is now returned
and reconciled with the Church, with you and with me.
How do we respond?
How have we responded? How should we respond? My friends, I will not leave you
with a proper closed ending. Instead, I leave it to you to write your own
ending. Will you join the celebration or distance yourself from God’s joyful
banquet where He embraces and kisses those who offended Him but returned? Do
you prefer Karma or Grace? Lifelong punishment or free forgiveness and
reconciliation? Do you prefer to shun or embrace and kiss the sinner that God
does, that is, you and me? Today or tomorrow, you can reflect on where you are
as all are invited to God’s heavenly banquet. And if you choose to enter that
banquet and embrace and be embraced by fellow sinners, may the peace of God
that surpasses all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
Amen.
[1] Arthur
A. Just, Jr., Luke 9:51-24:53 (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 1997),
586ff.
[2]
Luke 5:29-30.
[3]
Luke 19:1-10.
[4]
Luke 7:18-35.
[5]
Deuteronomy 21:22ff.
[6]
Luke 14:13, 21.
[7]
Luke 14:35.
[8] Exodus
10:16.
[9] Malachi
3:7ff.
[10] Herman
Hendrickx, The Parables of Jesus: Studies in the Synoptic Gospels (London:
Geoffrey Chapman/Harper and Row, 1986), 155.
[11] Ibid.,
156.
[12] 1
Thessalonians 1:6-7.
