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The Great Party ParableMarch 18, 2007 Fourth Sunday in Lent We just heard Javier read one of the most famous of all Biblical stories; the tale of the so-called “prodigal” son. Prodigal, meaning wastefully, recklessly, or rashly extravagant. That historic title for the story tells us the focus has generally been on what Jesus refers to as the “dissolute living” of the younger son. Dissolute, depraved, debauched, immoral, decadent… take your pick of the synonyms, all of them make for a real firestorm of fantasy. As a result, the prodigal son has found its way into countless books, articles, movies, paintings, dance, and television productions. From high art to low, fantasizing about the shenanigans of the prodigal has kept the story front and center for centuries. No doubt, because all of us are susceptible to fantasy. And, all of us have our own idiosyncratic predilections for what living in the prodigal’s “far country” might entail. One could never accuse the Bible of being a book for the prudish, although, many have attempted to make it such. No, the Bible, and especially the stories about Jesus and the ones he told, were not for the weak-kneed or straitlaced, since the subject of his life work included the whole truth of our human situation. Still, I’m thinking that the traditional title, “The Prodigal Son”, can take us down a rabbit hole of fantasy. The story is about many more things than the dissolute living of the younger son. Some have suggested it ought to be called the story of “The Loving Father”, or “The Forgiving Father”, because the action is really driven by what the father does. After all, he willingly obliged his younger son’s request for an early inheritance. He joyfully greets the young man upon his return. And he even goes out to be with the resentfully belligerent older son. So maybe the father should garner our primary attention. I’ve also read that the best title would be the first line of the parable: “There was a man who had two sons,” and leave it at that, because that captures the descriptive container of the main players. I suppose that has the merit of not having us over-focus on any particular aspect of the tale, allowing its rich and nuanced content to unfold organically. But here’s another idea I rather like: why not call it “The Great Party Parable”? Personally, I think this comes closest to the actual heart of the matter, because the party seems both the culmination of the youngest son’s trajectory and the instigating problem for the elder son. I think focusing on the party comes closest to the underlying theme – God’s amazing grace. Yet, there’s a deeper vein to mine in this. Amazing grace can sound rather amorphous, overworked, even sweet and potentially sentimental. But the grace referenced in this parable is anything but sentimental because the real stakes here are nothing less than death and life. How do I know this? Well, because the father says so right at the end when he’s confronting the older son. He pleads, “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life….”[1] We had to party! What else could we do? Your brother was dead and came back to life! Do you see how naming this “The Great Party Parable” gets to the heart of the matter? So, I say the stakes exposed in this story are life and death because the father says so. But I also say the stakes are life and death because I’ve heard from untold numbers of persons about their own life stories, and how from time to time, the stakes have been very starkly drawn for them, as in matters of death and life again. Some of you have intimated as much to me concerning your own life story. Surely lived experience reveals the case. Even a casual brush with the news lets us in on this truth. But stay with your own lived experience for the moment. One of the reasons this parable has found such resonance for centuries is because it reflects the true human situation, our human situation. If I asked for a show of hands of the people in this space who could identify with the prodigal at some stage in their past – or, alas, fearing some future stage – a fair amount of hands would go up, if you were brave enough to say so. But then, if I also asked for a show of hands of those who more readily identified with the older son, I’m guessing an equally large number of hands would go up. Some might raise a hand for both questions, I suppose. But the thing is, Jesus is really on to something fundamentally important here. Important and ubiquitous to the human situation. (By the way, if you ever have wondered why the Bible has been the world’s biggest best-seller since the invention of the printing press, here’s the reason – it captures the truth about the human situation. All of our questions and urges and ethics and relationships, our sins and triumphs and fears and hopes. That’s why we spend so much time reading and wrestling it.) So, our story today begins with the tale of an indulgent father and a young man who spends out his life in a wasted extravagance. Awakening among the pigs, he realizes he’s as good as dead and he concocts a small and humiliating plan to at least return to the ranks of his father’s hired hands. He makes the right call in returning home. He wakes up and recognizes he’s as good as dead. That’s the meaning inherent in living among the pigs, animals considered the most unclean by the strictures of Jewish law. He could be no further from his true life and still draw breath. We recognize the instinct, though – the instinct to return to the safest harbor we know when we’re about to slip under the water. I’m as good as dead; I’ll go home. But before the younger can make his pathetic little speech, his father sees him from afar and runs out to greet him and restore him and throw the party to end all parties because the father also knows his son is dead and is now ready to live. And the father can grant him real life. Now, on the other side of the party, we’re introduced to the older son. The guy who’s hung back and taken on the responsibility of the household. In common psychological parlance, he’s the so-called responsible child. He’s the one who makes it all work. With melodramatic flair Robert Farrar Capon captures the response of the older son: “Elder brother rants: The fatted calf! Doesn’t the old fool know I’ve been saving that for next week’s sales promotion when we show our new line of turnips? How am I supposed to run a business when he blows the entertainment budget on that loser of a son? ‘He became angry and refused to go in.’ Finally, therefore, he makes a proclamation: I will not dignify this waste with my presence! Someone has to exercise a little responsibility around here! “And Jesus, willing to oblige him with an important audience for all this grousing, sends him one: ‘His father came out and began to plead with him.’[2] This parable is about death and life. That’s the arena in which grace operates. The essential situation it addresses is the acknowledgment that without a dynamic and vital relationship with our graceful God, we are dead. The two sons are two sides of the same coin of the human situation. The prodigal is attached to his self-indulgent worthlessness and the elder is attached to his self-righteous resentment. Both are “dead” and in their deadness cannot revel in the party, unless or until they respond to their father’s entreaties. They cannot experience joy born from their acceptance of who they really are and whose they are, and where their life will actually be found. As the story is told, the younger son discovers his deadness; the elder, by the end, has not yet discovered his. In this way the great party becomes the litmus test of whether we are dead or alive. The father’s joy tells the tale. Do we wish to share in the father’s joy or not? And you see the irony for the elder son given that, as the father says, “Son, you are always with me and everything that is mine is yours.” Still, for that, the elder’s resentment means more to him than his father’s joy. To hell with the party! I’ll stick with the business of running the farm. Amazing grace only works on the dead. So the elder son is as ripe candidate as the younger. The story ends without answering whether or not he will finally accept the truth of the matter and share in the joy. And of course, that’s just where the story began. Remember how Luke reported, “Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming to listen to [Jesus]” and all the self-righteous, resentful types were grumbling and grousing and saying, “[Jesus] welcomes sinners and eats with them. [3] Jesus told them The Great Party Parable. Given our contemporary context, it's important to recognize that this story is not intended as family therapy, but as spiritual therapy. This spiritual therapy strips us down to the essential dynamics of our existence. To the elemental matters of death and life. It takes us into the inner recesses of our most basic identity and to our fundamental attachments, which, we more often than not discover, keep us from joining God’s party. Discovering how we exist among the dead is one of the greatest blessings that can be given to us. It’s a difficult-seeming paradox, I know. But with that discovery, amazing grace then does its miraculous work and we find we are home at last joyfully feasting and celebrating as though there were no tomorrow... _______________________________ Previous sermon: Drink for the Thirsty, Food for the Hungry • Next sermon: The Care and Feeding of Wolves All past sermons |
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