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Eucharist Sermon, Gospel Text: John 1:29-42
(David Wee, Holden Village, 16 January 2005)

On this weekend when we celebrate the birthday and life of Martin Luther King, Jr., our minds focus on his vision of justice, his leadership toward a more peaceful world, and his stirring language and voice that gripped our nation a half century ago. If we are lucky, his words will continue for generations to move us, especially in the absence of some new and powerful voice that could alter our national course, and turn it toward a just world that would be pleasing to our creator. Martin Luther King not only proclaimed a gospel-based vision of God's realm on Earth, but he did it with stunning metaphoric language that might be the envy of any poet or story writer. King's "Letter From Birmingham Jail" I consider to be one of the great and important literary texts of our cultural history, and his speech "I Have a Dream" one of our age's most stirring public addresses.

Some of us are here at Holden this month studying the art of the short story. We are encountering a wide range of stories, and are learning to appreciate the ways that people tell stories as a way to tell the truth, and we are getting better at hearing the truth in stories. Had Martin Luther King taken to writing fiction, I'm sure that we would be reading a story or two of his.

Jesus is one of history's most famous short story artists; his language is filled with the methods of the storyteller. You know them well:
- his parables (about the rich man who wanted to store up treasures for himself, about the man who gave a banquet to which none of his invited guests came)
- his metaphors (about shepherds and lambs and lamps)
- his similies (God is like a woman who lost a coin; God is like a shepherd who lost a sheep)
- his images (of mustard seeds, of farmers, of building on rock instead of on sand).

Like many of the stories my class and I are reading here at Holden, some of Jesus' stories and parables and metaphors confused his listeners. Often his disciples didn't get the point. Some of them didn't know which way was up until the Ascension . . . But the parable was a well-known Jewish teaching technique, and Jesus used it well. Let's listen carefully to one of Jesus' best-known stories, recorded in Luke 15: 11-32:

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The Prodigal Son (From the New International Version)

   11 And He said, "A man had two sons.

   12 The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the estate that falls to me.' So he divided his wealth between them.

   13 And not many days later, the younger son gathered everything together and went on a journey into a distant country, and there he squandered his estate with loose living.

   14 Now when he had spent everything, a severe famine occurred in that country, and he began to be impoverished.

   15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.

   16 And he would have gladly filled his stomach with the pods that the swine were eating, and no one was giving anything to him.

   17 But when he came to his senses, he said, 'How many of my father's hired men have more than enough bread, but I am dying here with hunger!'

   18 I will get up and go to my father, and will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven, and in your sight;'

   19 'I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me as one of your hired men.'

   20 So he got up and came to his father. But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion for him, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.

   21 And the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.'

   22 But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly bring out the best robe and put it on him, and put a ring on his hand and sandals on his feet;

   23 and bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;

   24 for this son of mine was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.' And they began to celebrate.

   25 Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.

   26 And he summoned one of the servants and began inquiring what these things could be.

   27 And he said to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.'

   28 But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father came out and began pleading with him.

   29 But he answered and said to his father, 'Look, for so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends;

   30 but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.'

   31 And he said to him, 'Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.

   32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been found.'"

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This story has historically been called the Parable of the Prodigal Son. But I'm sure that Jesus wouldn't have given it that title, for the story isn't about just the prodigal son. It's about three people and their relationships. Listen again to Jesus' first sentence: "There was a man who had two sons." This story is about family dynamics. And as we know, it is about God's relationship to us. It is about God's response to a wasteful child who has returned home and asked for forgiveness. And it is about God's response to the "good" child--the one who has apparently done everything right, who has stayed home and worked like mad.

For me, the key image of this story comes in verse 20:

But while [the prodigal son] was still far off, his father saw him . . . he ran and put his arms around [his son] and kissed him.

This father wasn't sitting in his den watching the Super Bowl, or even reading a good scroll. He was at the front window, watching, hoping, straining his eyes for a sign of his child.

At last when he saw him, he ran! Jewish patriarchs didn't do that. Stony paths. No paved running and bike trails. No Nikes, no Adidas, no Reeboks, no 10K races. He was barefoot, or at best in his Birkenstocks, and he ran! I wish I could have seen it. For me, it is one of the most stunning of Jesus' images.

Many of you know that I am a lifelong distance runner. You may even notice that two of today's hymns include running metaphors--and I didn't even choose the hymns. I have no clear memories of my own father running, and my children never saw him run, but our daughter Allison can picture him running. Here's our favorite family story:

When Allison was three years old, she wanted to do everything with Grandpa. That summer she and her grandpa were up at the lake cabin, fishing for perch off the end of the dock. Allison said, "Grandpa, I want to be with you for the rest of my life!" Dad said that he would like that too, but that he was now old and would die before Allison would. Just then up at the cabin Mom rang the dinner bell to call them up for supper. Dad said to Allison that just like that dinner bell, some day in heaven the bell would ring for him, and that he'd have to go. But he told Allison that he would be in heaven waiting for her. Little Allison was silent for a moment or two, then looked up and said, "Grandpa, when I die and the bell rings for me, will you come running?"

"Will you come running?" That story, that image, has strengthened our family ever since.

But now back to Jesus' parable, especially to the second half of the story, to the final scene, where a storyteller often puts the thematic clincher. The last eight verses focus not on the younger son we call the prodigal, but on the older son, the good son. Now most of us, even if we have traveled to distant countries, aren't really prodigals, squandering the family fortunes, consorting with prostitutes, reduced to feeding swine and envying them their swill. Most of us are the elder brother or sister. Nice. Hard-working. Responsible. Reasonable. Fair. Some readers miss the fact that this parable is about the two sons--it's not only about the young wastrel, but it's also about you and me, about the good child.

The elder son, remember, was outstanding in his field. President of the Future Farmers of Palestine. Eagle Scout. Prom King. On the Dean's List. All-American Stoker. But he refuses to go in to join the celebration.

Notice what his father does: once again he comes out to his son. He invites him in. He doesn't get angry. He doesn't scold. He doesn't excuse the younger son. He just says "Come."

The elder son is angry, because this isn't fair. He stayed home and worked while his kid brother went out and partied big time. He's mad. He refers to his brother not as "my brother," but as "this son of yours." Harsh.

The story ends with the father saying, "We have reason to celebrate. Come . . . This brother of yours" (notice how pointedly the father suggests how the elder son should have named his brother) "this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found."

End of story. Jesus doesn't tell us what the elder brother does next. A typical short story writer: he stops before the story seems to be over. But Jesus doesn't have to tell us how the elder child responds, because we already know--you and I are the elder son or daughter, and we know ourselves. We will have to write the rest of the story ourselves, by the way we live.

This week as I have been re-reading this story I have come to sense that the title we have usually given it-- "The Prodigal Son" --is heavy with unintended irony. But it is an irony that Jesus must have intended. Which son is the real prodigal? The younger son wasted material and fleshly things--his money and his body. But look at what the elder son squandered--the things of the spirit. He has thrown away unconditional love for another, even for his own brother. He has squandered grace freely given. He has wasted his invitation to the feast, to the table.

What could be more prodigal than this? The younger son's wastefulness, his prodigality, pales when compared with that of the elder brother, who is the real prodigal of Jesus' parable.

This week our community has been thinking of our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters in Christ, and of gay and lesbian people everywhere, whether we know them or not. In our country and in our churches, by our actions and our inaction, by our words and our silences, by our laws and our policies and our prohibitions, we have made many of them--even baptized members of our own faith families--believe or feel that they are prodigal. And this has driven many of them into despair and beyond.

In his preface to the book We Were Baptized Too, Nobel Laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu says that whenever in word or deed, through our "acknowledged or . . . tacit homophobia or heterosexism . . . we reject them, treat them as pariahs . . .we negate the consequences of their baptism and ours." When we make a child of God believe that he or she is outside the baptismal promise, says Tutu, we have committed "what must be nearly the ultimate blasphemy." The ultimate blasphemy! Is not this also the great prodigality of the elder son?

Fifteen years after our daughter Allison and my father had that conversation on the dock, she and the rest of us discovered that she is a lesbian. Dad, by this time a silver-haired patriarch of the Church, never missed a step, and in his mid-eighties, walked and finally shuffled arm-in-arm with Allison on her journey through this world that is a daily danger for the gay community. And I know that when the bell of heaven does ring for Allison, my father and my God will come running.

But today this Church is not running to embrace Allison. She wanted to be a Lutheran pastor like the grandpa she admired, but instead she found a slammed door in the ELCA policies and special conditions, and she has turned her life elsewhere. There are many others like her, and their loss to service in the Church is a waste of prodigal proportions.

On this issue the Church is wrong, as the Church has been wrong, and then finally corrected itself, on other issues like ecumenical cooperation and the ordination of women. Last night we sang "How many years" --a question that some have been asking for decades, and still the Church discusses and studies and votes and delays, and studies and discusses and votes and delays. Martin Luther King constantly reminded us that justice delayed is justice denied; how long can our growing urgency last?

Jesus said to Andrew and Simon, "Come." The man who had two sons said to the older brother, "Come." Today, to this table, we are all invited to come. When will we get it? When we do, our action will be based on our careful understanding of Scripture, and on the life and teaching of Christ, on the Lamb of God who calls us all.

So what is Jesus saying to us through this eternally fascinating story of the father who had two sons? Where do you and I fit into this story? Who is the real prodigal? Who is wasting the things that matter?

This story haunts and exhilarates. We cannot ignore that startling, wonderful image of God's love: the old patriarch, in flopping sandals and flapping robes, running--running a long way--to embrace his child, once lost, but now coming home. Jesus has shown us, in the father's response to both his children, the only acceptable way to respond--with unconditional love. Unconditional.

When the bell finally tolls for you and for me, God will come running like crazy. Until then, we must live our lives, as individuals and as communities and as a Church, in such a way that no child of God will ever doubt that same reception.