Living Forgiveness
First Congregational Church of Evanston
March 18, 2007 (Fourth Sunday in Lent)
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Psalm 32, (2 Corinthians 5: 17-21)
Rev. Dr. James E. Roghair, Interim Pastor
A Mom and Two Sisters (A Children’s Story)
Two sisters went shopping with their mother. It was a very big store. The littlest sister was very curious. She saw things in the store that interested her. She stopped to look at everything – it was so interesting. There were toys and games, and books and clothes. There were great big TV’s with fine pictures. The littlest girl kept walking and looking, and walking and looking.
Then she turned around and she didn’t know where her mother was. It was so scary. She started to cry. What would she do? Finally she went to one of the checkout counters. One of the big people asked her what she was crying about. When she told them her mother was lost. They made her sit down and started making phone calls.
In almost no time the mother came rushing up and gave the little girl a hug. “Oh, I couldn’t find you. I was so worried. I’m so glad you are all right. Let’s go home now and have some supper.” The older sister just frowned, she wanted to shop some more.
When they got home, the mother called Grandma and told her the story about how the littlest girl was lost, but they now was found. But the older sister just kept looking angry.
Mother told the girls’ father how their littlest girl had been lost and was found. Dad hugged the little girl, and told her they were so glad she was all right!
But the older sister said, “I don’t know why you are making such a big deal about my little sister! It was her fault for wandering off! Why don’t you ever hug me and call Grandma because I don’t get lost? It’s always her! She should pay more attention when we go to the store. I hope we just leave her there, if she ever does that again.
So what do you think about those sisters?
Was it right for the parents to be so happy they found the little one?
Was it right for the older sister to get upset because they were being so nice to her?
Did anything like that ever happen to you or to your friends?
Campers return!
It was a junior high summer Bible Camp. The entire camp was told they would be studying the parable of the ten maidens who waited for the bridegroom – some with appropriate preparations and others not prepared. One cabin group had just returned from an overnight trip. They were very tired. They got their counselor to have them excused from the Bible Study.
When the were reminded that there was to be a party after the Bible study, this group asked to have their share of refreshments in advance. Reluctantly the camp leaders shared the refreshments with them. However, after the Bible study the tired cabin seemed to revive. When they showed up, they asked to rejoin their friends, but when asked if they had brought their refreshments, they confessed that they had gotten hungry and eaten them already.
The pastor who was leading the camp turned to the other campers and asked for a vote. It was unanimous: The cabin could not rejoin the party!
But one girl spoke up from the back. She stood up and read the parable of the Prodigal Son. Looking at the group, she said, “If we can’t accept our sisters and brothers, we will lose God as our Father.” And she sat down.
The entire group had walked into the parable of the Prodigal Son, and each of those youngsters came away with a lesson for life they would never forget.
We Walk into the story
We, too, may find ourselves walking into this parable. This parable has three distinct characters the father, the younger son and the older son. While it may be tempting to think of this story as an allegory – that is each of the characters stands for some particular other person or thing, and that only – parables are more complicated than that. The characters and events in the parables are not simply stand-ins for other characters and events. The stories themselves work on us, and meanings vary.
A classical and rather simplified definition is that ‘a parable is an earthly story with an heavenly meaning.’ It has often been said, also, that parables have only one central message. But this is a long and complex parable – it’s almost like it is two or three parables, or at least 2 or 3 chapters of one story. And so I suggest that this parable
works on us in multiple ways. We find ourselves in the parable at various places. I invite you to consider where you are in this parable.
A Real Loving Parent
Several years ago, at the church I was serving, there was a mother of grown children. She was always in the church without any other family members – but she was always there. Regardless of what was happening in the church, she was there.
As I got to know her she revealed that one of her children was gay. But that another of her children had gotten tied up with a judgmental brand of Christian faith, and could not face his brother’s homosexuality. Consequently this judgmental one had gone away from his family. Cut-off they call it in family systems language. He would have nothing to do with his mother, his father or his brother. He didn’t move to another part of the world, but stayed in the same small community just avoiding them. Oh, they might see him at the supermarket, but he avoided coming face to face with them. The mother carried a heavy burden.
But one morning during the congregational prayer time, she said, “My prodigal son has returned!” The missing boy had come back, asking if he could stay with his parents, because things in his life had not worked out, and he needed a roof over his head. This mother knew the desolation of the father in the parable.
We Have Been the Parable’s Father
Many of us have known that desolation, too. We have known broken relationships. Perhaps a marriage fell apart, or a friendship went astray. We thought we would be ok, but as the time dragged on the relationship remains broken, and we ask ourselves, “Did I cause this?”
Each of us who has loved someone has known the pain of the Loving Father in this story. We know how badly reconciliation is needed in relationships. We know the need for forgiveness. And when the time comes for forgiveness, we, too, might be ready to throw aside every convention and every bit of advice from our friends. We might find ourselves running up the road to meet the loved one who has finally returned to us – to let the old pass away and to let the new come.
We do know what it means to be the father in the story.
The Foolish Son
It may be harder for us to see ourselves in the story as the foolish son – harder for some than for others. I’m not sure that Jesus’ story intends to paint this son as bad as the older brother thinks him to be – foolish to be sure – but it is only his jealous brother who suggests he has wasted his resources on prostitutes. The story mentions a famine, and he found himself in need.
Times of famine come. Factories or businesses we had counted on fail. Jobs we were ready to hold for years come to an end. Stock markets crash. Automobile accidents occur. Illnesses that we couldn’t anticipate come. We know of calamities. When the times of trouble come to any of us – do we find the support we need and want?
The young man in the story found that no one gave him anything. Although he was a Jewish boy – brought up not to eat pork – he found himself feeding the pigs. And he was so desperate that he was about to eat the food that was given to the pigs. He was destitute – cut off from his family – wondering where to turn – trying to make it on his own.
The point of change was when he finally ‘came to himself’ and turned around. He repented of his foolish resolve to try to make it on his own, and he decided to go back and to seek employment – not reinstatement in the family – but employment there.
When have you hit the bottom of trying to make it on your own, and realized that you indeed need the love and help of others? Was forgiveness part of what you needed to get from those people you had been cut off from? We do find ourselves in the story as the younger son.
The Righteous Brother
But what of the brother who was so faithful and righteous? The one who was so sure he had kept all the rules – dotted every ‘i’ and crossed every ‘t’? The one who was angry when he saw his father forgiving the younger brother? Have you ever found yourself in that character of the story?
I am reminded of the story Jesus told about the Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, “God, I thank you that I am not like other people... or even like this tax-collector (Luke 18.11). Some of us wonder about the choices and the life-style of others – we imagine ourselves a cut above the rest. But even as we are standing above others we may secretly harbor jealousy. “Why should they have all the fun? Didn’t I always serve you? Didn’t I always follow the straight and narrow? It isn’t fair!”
This particular position is one that people who have been around a church for a long time can slip into. Sometimes we say, “We were here for the long haul. We’ve been here for twenty or thirty years, through all the rough times. So, who are these new people who are just now coming? And why would the church bend over backwards to make them feel so welcome? The church never did everything that I wanted it to do for me.”
I was not quoting anyone – just representing some of the possibilities of where people in a church might find themselves within this story. I hope we can remember that God’s mercy is to all of us. We never deserve the goodness of God’s love – whether we have been faithful our whole lives or not. Whether we come to God at an early age or come at a later time. Always whatever we receive from God is God’s gift to us. We will get the wrong idea if we spend too much energy on counting our own righteousness over against that of others.
But we begin to get God’s idea when we recognize the hospitality and embrace that God has for anyone who comes. When we recognize the possibility that the church is called to love and serve people in need of God’s love – people whom God loves. But when new people come to the church, the church changes with each new person who comes. Just like the dynamics of the family changed when the younger brother returned.
The older brother was convinced that life isn’t fair. Perhaps it is not. But God’s mercy is always free! This is a powerful parable of mercy and forgiveness. It ends up in the air. We can only imagine whether the older brother ever repents to welcome his younger brother, or not. The story of our lives and the story of our church are still up in the air, too.
The Mother’s Reflection
In conclusion, let me imagine with you what one of the unseen characters in this story might have felt. I use the Jewish term ‘midrash’ to describe this reflection from the wife – the mother of the two boys. Her words:
I look out the gate where my husband is speaking earnestly to our oldest son, trying to get him to come into the house for this banquet. I can’t hear, but I can imagine he is entreating our older son. My husband is beside himself about the youngest who has returned after all these years. We both are. We considered him dead. Now he is alive.
But the older boy is having nothing to do with it. He won’t even call his name, only saying, “That son of yours...”
How my husband and I have waited for this day. How we wept. We prayed for him every day. The pain was great, and our neighbors were no help: They were critical that we had let him have his share of the inheritance before he was mature enough to handle it. Perhaps they were right.
But now, that is behind us, and some of our critical neighbors are here celebrating with us. The lost has been found! The dead is alive again! Thanks be to God! We thank God for keeping our son safe, for turning him around, and for bringing him back to us. Now, tonight I pray for our other son.
Amen.
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 6, 2008