Joshua 4:19-24;5:9-12
2 Corinthians 5:17-21
Luke 15:11-32
Psalm 34 or 34:1-8
There was a woman who had two daughters. The elder daughter said to her mother, "It's NOT FAIR ! Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command. I quit my real job, sold my house at a loss, and moved my family 1092 miles from home just because you asked me to. I studied hard for three years to learn how to understand and care for you. I spent all my savings to do what you asked, and am still paying off the debt because you sent me to seminary. And now look! My little sister gets to keep her job, home, and family; she doesn't have to leave it all and pay to go to seminary, and you're making all this fuss over her. You're going to ordain her, dress her in my vestments, and give her my job!" It's NOT FAIR !"
Every seminary-trained priest, son or daughter of Mother Church, when faced with total ministry and local ordinations, knows how the Elder Brother in today's gospel parable felt. Or maybe it's even worse for the seminary-trained Elder Daughter, because it's usually hard to claim that the Younger Sister, who is about to be ordained as a local priest, has squandered her inheritance in dissolute living. So Big Sister from Seminary can't even feel properly self-righteous and superior.
This gospel story is one that most of us, not just the priests, can identify with somehow. Many of us, especially those of us who show up for church regularly, can put ourselves in the place of the dutiful Elder Brother. Many of us can hear about the Younger Son and remember those lost times in our own journey, thinking, "Yep. Been there. Done that."
We know how it feels to be lost and hungry like the Younger Son. If we're fortunate, we may also know how it feels to be welcomed, loved, and forgiven. And we know those intense feelings of the Elder Son when life just isn't fair.
But, you know, Jesus isn't telling us this story to teach us something about ourselves. The point of the story isn't really the two sons. The story is to tell us something about the father. It's really the story of the Prodigal Father.
It's the father who squanders everything extravagantly, senselessly, lavishly, even foolishly. It's the father who is the big surprise. When one son says to the father what amounts to: "I wish you were dead so I could have my share of your money," the father just hands over the money to his sons. When the son then squanders it all, the father rewards the irresponsibility with a big party ... no recrimination, no accountability, no lecture on the lesson to be learned. Of course it's not fair. It's crazy. This is not a picture of the Responsible Parent.
This is a picture of Reconciliation. The father lets go of absolutely everything in order to be reconciled with his children. He lets go of all his property. He lets go of his control of his children. He lets go of the standards of his culture. He lets go of his dignity, running out to meet them in his joy. He lets go of his children's mistakes and invites them to share his joy.
In Greek, the language of the New Testament, the same word that means "to let go" also means "to forgive." The father forgives his children, even before they ask. That's what godly reconciliation is – the grace of forgiveness is already ours. It's God's grace, and you can take it for granted..... Literally.
The father has already let go of our sins. That's what happened to us in our baptism: Our sin – all of it that will ever happen – is washed away and we are made clean. Before we ask, we are already forgiven.
When we put ourselves in the place of the wandering Younger Son, the forgiveness is already there for us, but we only recognize that when we choose to return home to find it. When we put ourselves in the place of the resentful Elder Son, the forgiveness is already there for us, but we only know that when we accept the invitation to the party.
Yet, "Whether you are the younger son or the elder son, you have to realize that you are called to become the father."*
This is our calling. To put ourselves in the place of the father in this story. We are all called to become more godly. Not to be God, but to reflect God's image in our lives, to be Christlike. And not only that, but to see the image of the Christ, the Father's Son, in our neighbors. It's about that baptismal promise "to seek and serve Christ in all persons" in the wild, prodigal children and in the dutiful, resentful children.
We are called to act as the parent. It is our baptismal call to be godparenting each other: To forgive. To let go of everything that stands in the way of reconciliation. To share our joy in God's extravagant grace and forgiveness, and to invite absolutely everyone to the party.
The Apostle Paul reminds us that "God has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us." So, behaving like good godparents, and like the Prodigal Father, we have to celebrate and rejoice.
*Spoken to Henri Nouwen in "The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming" p. 22.