Sunday,
October 18, 2020
What’s your favorite story about Jesus? If I just said, what’s your favorite Bible
story, you might say, Noah and the Ark, or, David and Goliath,
or Paul on the Damascus Road. These
are excellent stories, but for this morning, let’s narrow it down. What’s your favorite Jesus story? If you’re
watching on Facebook Live, type your favorite Jesus story into the comments. If you’re here in person, just shout out your
favorite Jesus story.
When I was starting out in ministry, I heard a professor
of preaching say the passage from the Bible preached more than any other is
Jesus’ parable of the Prodigal Son. The
professor did not offer data to support this claim, so I don’t know if what he
said is accurate.
I do know that the story is extremely popular, even among
people who have never read the Bible.
Some might know the story and not even know it’s in the Bible. It is!
And Miroslav Volf, the theology professor from Yale Divinity School I
mentioned last week, cites the Prodigal Son in his explanation of his idea of Exclusion
and Embrace.
Volf uses the term ‘exclusion’ to encompass all the ways
human beings hurt and objectify each other.
Racism; genocide; betrayal; unfaithfulness; deception; bullying; in
countless we dehumanize our neighbors and ourselves. We offend God with each injury we cause,
including injuries to ourselves, because each person is made in God’s image and
is loved by God.
If ‘exclusion’ is the summation of humanity’s sin against
itself and individuals’ sins against one another, ‘embrace’ is the posture of
love. Embrace is when we make space in
ourselves for the other, and we simultaneously enter the space the other opens
in themselves for us. It is a literal
hug; it is also more than that. Embrace
means, ‘I see you.’ ‘I care for you.’ ‘I
love you’; and, ‘I receive the love and care you extend me. In embrace, we obey what Jesus calls the
greatest commandment – to love our neighbor.
In loving our neighbors, we love God.
Take a close look at Jesus’ story, the Prodigal son. First, we see exclusion.
The son requests his portion of inheritance, normally to
be received upon the Father’s death. In
the ancient near east, this young man’s identity would be tied to his family;
he was known by whose son he was. “Younger
brother;” that title told us part of his story. He severed this identity, turning his back on
his family.
A father receiving such an audacious and disrespectful
request would have been in his rights to offer his son a backhanded slap. But in Jesus’ story the father simply
complies. Where discipline might be
called for, he just goes along with the younger sons’s outlandish plan. What kind of father it this?
The son then earns his name, ‘prodigal.’ He goes to a distant country where he has no
support system. Sometimes people,
especially during the season of young adulthood, can be a little irresponsible
with money; or a lot irresponsible. I
know I was at times. This young man
spent everything. His savings were gone
when the famine hit.
A famine hits everyone, like a hurricane striking all
residents on the coast, or a wildfire consuming all in its path, or a global
pandemic with a virus anyone can catch.
This young man, with no savings and no support system wasn’t ready. Verse 16 says no one helped him.
We have seen, in the current crisis, the Coronavirus
pandemic, the layered, devastating effects. First of course is health and possibly even
death if you contract the disease.
Second, fear of spread has closed down the economy and cost people
jobs. If someone was barely making it
before they lost their job, they’d be like this young man, hungry and
desperate. A lot of people find
themselves in this situation.
The catastrophes humans face are worsened by our tendency
to cut ourselves off. Famines were
common in ancient life, something to prepare for. And that preparation is communal. You don’t prepare by yourself but as a part
of a community. The same is true
today. We know hurricanes hit the Gulf
Coast where millions and millions of people live. When they come, if we prepare and cooperate
with one another as neighbors who care about one another, even the worst storms
aren’t as bad as those we try to face on our own. The lost son’s fall was directly tied to his
cutting himself off from his foundation.
He excluded himself from the family that gave him name,
identity, and wealth. Volf says he
“un-sonned” himself. [i]
If you read the genealogies in the Bible, you see people are named by who their
family is. Luke 3:23 tells us Jesus was
(as was thought) the son of Joseph, son of Heli, son of Matthat,” on the
genealogy goes all the way back to “Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God”
(v.38). How do we know who Joseph
was? He was the son of Heli?
We do it differently, but we do this too. How do you know who I__ is? He’s a Tennant. And H__, what of him? He’s a Tennant. Who is this young woman, M__? She’s a Tennant. Much more could be said of each of us, but we
start with a name. The name says we are
part of a family. We belong. The Prodigal cut himself off. He un-sonned himself.
Where in life have we seen this, or ourselves, done
it? Where have we been cut off, or
intentionally cut ourselves off from God, friends, and family? And having been cut-off, have you faced the
desperation he faced, or desperation within your own experience? Do you know what it’s like to take stock of
your own life and feel like all is lost?
What do you do? He remembered the
character of his father.
Jesus says he “came to himself” (v.17). Despairing, starving, longing to eat pig slop
– the refuse humans reject and feed to animals who will literally eat anything,
he remembered. My father. My father’s heart is so big, his servants eat
and live well. Embarrassing as it will
be, serving there will be better than dying here.
In his mind, he’s still excluded. He remembers his father, but only now will he
understand the depth of grace, the fullness of embrace. He thought his name, ‘son’ was done. He had ‘un-sonned’ himself. But, with the true father, we don’t choose
our name. We don’t tell God who we
are. He tells us who we are.
Think about someone you know who is deeply wounded. It might be you, or someone close to you, or
someone you’ve observed. Maybe the
injury is the person’s own fault. The
injury results from a series of mistakes that beget more mistakes. Maybe the injury is something that happened
to the person. He’s a victim of terrible
acts. Most of time, it’s a
combination. The longer he has lived as
one injured, lived in a far country away from support with savings gone and
disasters piling up, the harder it is to remember. ‘Broken,’ becomes his name, ‘lost’ his
identity.
This is why hurt people
cause so much pain and why it is so hard to come back. It’s a failure of memory. We forget who tells who we are. We forget our names: ‘son;’ ‘daughter;’
‘beloved.’
What happened when he went
back? While he was still far off, the
father who never accepted exclusion and never believed his son was completely
lost, saw him. He saw him because he
never stopped looking. He saw him and
ran to him and then the literal embrace enveloped the one not worthy of
it.
Give me inheritance; you
are dead to me. Embrace!
I am no longer worthy to
be called your son. Embrace!
No longer worthy? It was never a question of worthiness. The day we look into the loving eyes of
Jesus, the Holy Spirit awakening our hearts, we are called ‘son’ and ‘daughter’
not for our worthiness but out of God’s grace and love.
“He ran and put his arms
around him and kissed him” (v.20). As
the Father is pouring his love onto the son, the prodigal is stumbling through
his lame exclusion speech. The father
doesn’t even acknowledge the young man’s words.
“Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his
feet. Kill the fatted calf. We must celebrate.”
It’s not that the father
ignore the son so much as they are telling and living two different
stories. The father determines his story
of embrace is the one that will win out.
The son, ‘un-sonned,’ comes with a story of a desperate man willing to
live as a servant, even a slave, but the father reconstructs his identity.
Do actions speak louder
than words? The son is delivering his
prepared remarks. The father is weeping,
hugging, kissing, robing, instructing, and celebrating. The identity he gave that this son rejected,
is still there, given again, with even more love and passion.
As we walk through Jesus’
well-known story and see what embrace looks like, I have to ask. Have you experienced embrace? It’s as wonderful as Jesus depicts it.
Do you need to experience
it? Do you need Jesus to reconstruct
your identity? Do you need help
remembering that you are loved? You are
made in the image of God? You are a
blessed child of God. There’s no country
so far that God will stop looking, ready to run to you kissing, hugging,
robing, celebrating, and naming.
Bask in the joy, remembering
a time you received God’s embrace.
Or, are you hurting, and
in that far country? Turn to God now,
confessing your sins with bare naked honesty; turn into the arms of the loving
God.
Or, you’re walking with
God, you know your name, but you also see into the world. With patience and an abundance of grace, help
a lost soul find her way to the arms of the father.
Jesus began the parable
saying, “There was a man who had two sons.”
We will look at the older brother as we continue learning about embrace
next week.
AMEN
[i]
M.Volf (2019), Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of
Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation: Revised and Update, Abingdon Press
(Nashville), p.164.
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