This isn’t a Story About Fairness

Reflection on Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

This isn’t a story about fairness, about justice measured out carefully with a teaspoon, this is a story about grace. 

I’ve heard that this story we heard this morning might be misnamed. It’s usually called “The prodigal son” right? It’s one parable in that collection of parables with the Lost Sheep, and the Lost Coin, and so even though this one was instigated by a pharisee critique “this man welcomes sinners and eats with them,” we often put this story in the boundary of the “lost” and then “found.” 

But the subjects, the themes of this parable are bigger than that, aren’t they? 

This parable probably should be called A Story of Two Brothers. 

I was thinking how this story might look if it were just a little different, if it reflected “the societal values we actually see lived out all the time. The ones like always wanting more, or holding only those at the bottom responsible for their actions, “holding people accountable” or making sure people know the consequences of their actions. 

It would be a terrible story if this parable reflected these values.

It could have gone like this: once the good father dies, the older son makes his brother’s working life so difficult, through manipulation and bad treatment that it would be a relief to go back and feed the pigs.

Or. The son comes home and his father makes him apologize publicly so that he’s held properly accountable for his actions, so that he will never do it again. 

Or one more. The younger son still comes to himself, but knowing how awful he’d been and how judgmental his father and his older brother are, decides never to go home again because they are terrible people.

I think we’re lucky that this story reflects the gospel values and not the misshapen values of the world in which we live. 

Grace is sometimes harder than it looks. It’s harder to remember, harder to accept, and harder to live out than sometimes we give it credit for.

The problem isn’t grace, by the way. The problem is us. 

It’s uncomfortable, overwhelming and maybe even a little too beautiful for our eyes, because often in the din of the day to day, we forget the radical nature of these words of Jesus. 

In our story, the father acts without reserve, without thought of his reputation, without fear of the way he will look, with only love in his heart, running to his son without remainder, while he was still a long way off. The boy wasn’t even home yet, for God’s sake! He was only a shadow on the road, a possibility on the horizon, but that was enough for the father. There wasn’t proof of change, an apology before it could be offered. No. It was love without strings, without embarrassment. 

Have you been offered that kind of love, love without reserve? Love given when you don’t quite deserve it, or maybe don’t deserve it at all and you know it! Or even that you’ve been given by God way more grace than you know that you deserve. 

There’s only one response to that kind of perfect gift. You’re thankful, completely thankful. And. Maybe a little embarrassed. And I think that as I grow older, I’m even more embarrassed. Because back when I was younger, I knew way less. I know what grace it tastes like, what it smells like, what it feels like to give it, to give it gladly. I know the cost more. I also know the gaze of the elder brother. I know the gaze of the elder brother because it’s my own gaze. 

Now I don’t worry about God. I hope y’all don’t either. It continues to be my experience that God opens God’s arms to me again and again, especially when I don’t think I deserve it. God is always waiting for me to metaphorically “come home” and God is always more willing to forgive than I am to ask. This is a gift that God always offers but then there’s people. 

How often has it happened that I’m the one who looks askance when forgiveness is freely offered? How often is it that I hold a grudge - on behalf of someone else, a friend – when my friend has already let it go, turned it loose, forgotten the offense, forgiven fully? How often do I look over their shoulder and nurse resentment, as if God made me judge, jury and executioner? “If it were up to me, this is how I’d dispense justice?” 

But in God’s way, there is no holding on to the old offense. There is no bringing it up again, holding it over their heads, no half-hearted-ness, no hard-heartedness, no stubborn grudges, no askance looks, even though we know those well, especially those of us who’ve stepped outside of the lines a few times. And this is why the call to reconciliation is so important, especially in this time and place. 

Because the call to living reconciliation belongs to the church. It’s not that we’re always so good with it, or that we do it better, because we don’t, but it’s our birthright, at the very center of God’s call upon us. God asks us to live this kind of love, this kind of reconciliation with one another in our communities and then with the world, deciding always and already on love first and foremost, because “God was and is reconciling the world to himself, and then entrusting us with this message of reconciliation.” Or if you don’t prefer Paul, turn to 855 in the BCP, where the catechism asks the question, “What is the mission of the Church?” The answer, “The mission of the Church is to restore all people to unity with God and each other in Christ.” 

It’s not the “let’s all get along, toleration” which can be necessary, but is not as strong as what I’m talking about. No. It’s the putting away the disgrace, putting away the shame of the past, and seeing each other as the beloved child of God, those for whom Christ died. It’s all in the way that we see one another, the way that we choose to see one another. 

In times like these one, this reconciliation has to be stubborn, hard headed. It’s already radical, and if we’re honest, a little too much, but isn’t that the exact point of this story? The one who doesn’t deserve it gets the dad’s robe, ring, and party, but even more importantly his forgiveness and complete delight?

This is a story where once the young man comes to himself, he’s already forgiven. He doesn’t have to beg, he’s not under his brother’s thumb, there is no public apology in the church for all to judge, none of this. 

That’s why this is the perfect story for the Christian life because once we know this is the radical welcoming nature of the gospel, is there any other way for us to be as followers of Jesus? Radical welcome. Radical grace. Sometimes this takes us places that are rather unexpected and somewhat uncomfortable. 

My across the street neighbor in Richmond and I disagreed deeply about politics. Usually we didn’t talk about them. But one night, right before the election of 2016, we got into it. It ended in a very ugly way, where she questioned my Christianity and the validity of my “ministering.” I couldn’t believe it! How could she say such a thing? Was it even her business? And how could her thinking be so ridiculously narrow? 

Now usually I’m not very good at keeping grudges. I usually forget the offense within minutes, but that time, I kept remembering. I kept remembering with anger. I wasn’t even sorry. I kept thinking that she deserved to know the truth, right? 

I slept on it. I slept on it one night and then another and another. A few days later, I had to admit to myself that I had been ugly. I thought about it more. I’d been so desperate to be right, that I’d let myself get worked up and had forgotten that she is a beloved child of God, made in God’s image and that it was not ok to have that kind of discussion in that way with her. I had othered her. 

I apologized, she forgave me, offering me grace. I was still a little embarrassed when I saw her, but we figured out a way to talk about our dogs for a few weeks while the discomfort lifted.

I’m not asking for us to paper over our differences or to tolerate the intolerable. I’m asking us to figure out how to do our work with humility, and to forgive those whom God has forgiven. I’m asking that tell the stories of the times we’ve been wrong, the times we’ve needed forgiveness. I’m asking that we live in the world with open hearts. We ourselves know this ministry of reconciliation so well, because we receive it every single Sunday in the Eucharist, that grace that comes to us, as God gives God’s very self to us, as we gain the strength to become again the living reconciliation for the redemption of the world. 

I wonder what the world would look like if we lived this potent truth. 

There would be place and space for all kinds. We would be telling our stories of redemption, hope, blessing, and reconciliation. We would tell about the times where even the older brother came to the party. It could even be a place where the younger brother could forget his shame and live in harmony and hope with the family he hurt so much. And I can almost see it – the next time the elder brother got a hold of a young goat, he’d extend an invite to his younger brother.

Artwork: The Prodigal Son by Kirby Kendrick