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NRS Luke 15:11 Then Jesus said,
"There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said
to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to
me.' So he divided his property between them. 13 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. 14 When he had
spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he
began to be in need. 15 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. 16
He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating;
and no one gave him anything.
This story comes to us as a familiar story from the Bible.
The Prodigal Son has been preached and taught many times. We know the basic
story. A father has two sons and one of the sons wants his inheritance now
while the other loyal son stays on and takes care of the farm. Most of those
who preach this story would tell you that the father is God. God who loves us
regardless! God who waits patiently for us to return! God who desires our love
more than we desire God’s! Others might say that the father is who we are
supposed to be as a Christian. That we are to love unconditionally! Whoever the
Father is may not be as important as which son we see ourselves as.
This story is the story of two brothers. Two brothers who
are nothing alike! One brother, the older one, is dependable. He is a hard
worker and is willing to sacrifice for his family. The younger brother lives
his life focused on himself. His life is centered around things that make him
feel good, providing him the things that he wants and he could care what others
think about him. In fact, he is so determined that his world is about the here
and now that he demands now what is not his to receive now. He demands his
inheritance. Now things in those days were no different than in our day. An
inheritance is something you receive when someone dies, not before, unless the
person decides to give what might become yours to you. And that is exactly what
the father does. He gives his son a share of the land and wealth. Something
interesting happens in the scripture that it says that he divided his wealth
among the two sons. Now in those days, the older son would have received 2/3
and the younger son would have been entitled to receive 1/3. For those of you
with farms and property you know that this probably means that the father had
to sell off part of his property to give the son what he wants. And it also
does not say whether or not the older sons share was given to him or set aside
for him. We will come back to that later.
Many years ago I had stood in a courtroom with a young
man who was a crack cocaine addict. Everyone expected the judge to send him to
jail but instead did something the judge did something unusual. He told the
young man that he was going to let him go free. He said that he could not help
him and sending him to jail would not help him. He went further and said that
because he had not hit bottom yet, he, the young man, had no idea that he
needed help and so the judge could not help him. The judge went on to say that
he hoped that he would hit bottom and seek help and his prayer was that when he
did the addiction did not kill him. In our story, the father may well
understand the same thing that the son would never understand what the father
wants him to know until he reaches a place where he is open to listen. So the
younger son goes off into the world and squanders his inheritance. Isn’t that
the way it works? So often you hear that the sons or daughters have gone
through the inheritance and have nothing to show for it. Maybe they were
brought up receiving whatever they wanted and never learning the value of
things. And then when all his fortune is gone and he has nothing left, he
resorts to the job of feeding the pigs. Now to a Jewish person, this would be
the lowest job possible in the food chain.
Have you ever been empty? Have you ever reached rock
bottom and realized that you have nothing to give to the world? Have you found
yourself at a point where there was nothing left to give. At that moment people
do one of two things. They either reach out in anger at the world demanding
that the world owed them something or they realized that the only way out of
this mess was to climb the ladder. The ladder that is there because they
realize that they have dug themselves a deep hole and the only way out is
climbing the ladder of humility and hard work. In our story the young man
realizes that there may be a chance to work for his father if he offers his
apology for his impatience and his immaturity. And so he heads back home. Can
you imagine how many times he practices the words that he will say? How many times
he reflects on his mistakes and how much he has given up?
In this story the first son, the younger one, probably
has lived under the shadow of the firstborn his whole life. So he goes after
the good life with all he has and will ever have, at least as the story begins.
He spends it on fast living and fun things that have no lasting value. How many
of us spend our lives on things that do not last and then one day look back and
realize what we have squandered and lost? Many of us focus on the here and now
and then are surprised when that lottery ticket did not have the right numbers
or that job ended before we were ready. I wonder how many of us would eat the
pods to feed the pigs? Remember, that Jesus is telling this story to Jewish
people who abhor the pig and the slop that a pig would eat. If the young son
would eat that then he has completely moved himself away from his culture and
his religious beliefs.
We have a story of two sons. One who was impatient and
immature and lived in the here and now not caring about others. And one who
continued to live at home in anticipation of what the future held for him. I
read this story once about a young man. I am not sure of the source. There is a
story of a young man who saved for years to go on a cruise. He carried crackers
and cheese to eat during the cruise in order to save money. But each day he
would look in on the dining room and all the food there and was envious. His
crackers ran out before the cruise was over and one day, tired and hungry he
asked the steward could he possibly have some leftovers. The steward asked for
his ticket. When the young man gave him his ticket, the steward said, young
man, your ticket entitled you to all of the food each day, you already paid for
full dining privileges. Apparently the young man had never asked the right
question and so he spent his entire time envious and angry. The first son came
to realize he needed forgiveness and came to his father and received it. The
second son resentful and angry, walked away from the heaven he already had a
full paid ticket.
I want to close this morning with a story about Abigail.
Abigail grew up on the other side of the tracks. She early got into drugs and
devil worship. She dresses in black and her entire body is tattooed with images
of devils and weird drawings. In fact, if you were to see her on the street you
would swear that she was a he. She found Jesus along the way. She asked for
forgiveness and received it there. But along the way, the good church people
shunned her because of the way she looked, her mannerism and her art. She came
to a weekend full of people with fear about how she would be treated. At that
place she was quiet and to herself. But the people were full of agape love,
loving her for who she was. They did not judge her, they just loved her. On the
stage on the last day, she told the audience that she had found love here. And
that here for the first time she had learned that she needed to let her
prejudices go in order to be reached by the love of others. Are we Abigail,
living in our own worlds, scared to allow others in? Or are we the good people
who judge her because of where she has been? You see in this story, we also see
the prodigal son lived out for real. Which brother are you?
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