These are your words, Lord. Your word is truth. Lead us into the truth. Amen
When I was about seven or eight years old, my brother Brian and I decided that the state of things in our family needed to change. Mowing the lawn, vacuuming the house and cleaning up our rooms for the pittance in allowance we were given seemed manifestly unfair to us. So we went on strike.
I can’t remember if it was the air traffic controllers or the Hormel workers or someone else in the news who had gone on strike and inspired our own labor stoppage, but whoever it was, going in strike sounded good to us. We felt that our demands for fair compensation hadn’t been met and that the only way management (our parents) would give in to our demands would be a strike. So we got the lawn chairs out of the garage and went on strike. Not the cheap, upright lawn chairs, mind you: we got the reclining chairs. After all, if going on strike wasn’t about taking it easy, then what was the point?
We lasted on strike for about three hours. Eventually we got hungry and decided to go inside for some cookies and lemonade, at which point we were informed that people on strike didn’t make any money and we’d just have to fend for ourselves. Needless to say, at that point negotiations started up again, and this time they were decidedly short and one-sided. I would have blamed my youngest brother, Kevin, for crossing the picket line, but he was only three and not devoted to the cause. At any rate, we were soon back to work and order was restored in the household. We didn’t even have time to make signs.
A child who thinks he or she can go on strike is a confused child. In the telling of the gospel parable of the prodigals, Jesus told a story about another set of brothers who were confused about their family and their place within that family, and the pain and grief they both cause to their father, who isn’t confused at all but rather frustrated by and devoted to his children.
The younger son asked for his inheritance from his father, which is the same as saying, “Dad, I don’t want to wait for you to drop dead: gimme what’s mine now, would you?” After living for the moment, blowing the entire inheritance in an unknown number of years and having the misfortune to run out of money just as a famine hit the part of the world in which he lived, the son realized his sin and wanted to save himself somehow. But rather than throw himself on the mercy of the father he abandoned for dead, the son decided that he would make a conditional return to his family. In Luke 15.19 the son said, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son: treat me like one of your hired hands.” The younger son’s confusion led him to believe he could make his way back into his father’s good graces by being a hired hand.
The older son, upstanding, responsible lad that he was, remained home and worked diligently for his father. He managed the farm and the livestock and his father’s affairs well, becoming the child every parent hopes to have. But when the younger son, his brother, returned from his years of reckless wandering and irresponsible living, we find in the older son another sort of confusion. The older son’s confusion made him claim he’d been working like a slave for his father, that all his years of effort and toil hadn’t been out of gratitude, but out of some kind of servitude, and an ungrateful servitude at that.
Can you imagine the pain of the father of these two confused men? Here is a father who has lived a dual life for years. On the one hand, he watched his baby boy wander off into faraway lands, and he must have yearned for his boy’s well-being every day he was gone. No parent can watch a child charge recklessly into such a life without a great deal of pain, suffering and self-doubt. On the other hand, the father proudly watched his firstborn grow and mature into a fine gentleman, a businessman whose responsibility and integrity seemed beyond reproach. No parent can see such maturity and character without feeling justifiably proud of the raising of such a child. So the father was torn between his fear for the one, his pride in the other, his love and devotion to both, and his frustration at the situation in which his family remains, even after the return of the one who was lost.
The father doesn’t want hired hands or slaves: the father’s unrelenting, passionate desire is for his sons to be his children, to live as a family. This was always the father’s desire: that his boys would be brothers to each other and children to the family in which they were raised. This parable is not a parable about sinners getting off easy and the righteous dealing with indignation: this parable is about the reunification and creation of a family in which all are loved and welcomed, and the past is no longer given power over the future. Will there be consequences for the sins that were committed? Absolutely – but the family will face those consequences together, without recrimination or reproach for what has happened in the past. The family is reunited – the lost has been found – all should gather together and rejoice, for what was fractured is once again whole.
Jesus told this parable to more fully illustrate the point he was making about repentance, forgiveness and mercy. A group of Pharisees had been grumbling because tax collectors and other sinners had been coming to hear Jesus teach, and Jesus had welcomed them. After hearing them grumble, Jesus told the Pharisees three parables: the first about a sheep who had been lost and found, a coin which had been lost and found, and a family which had been lost and found. After the parables regarding the lost sheep and the lost coin, Jesus said, “Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance,” and “Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” Sheep and coins cannot find themselves, and they cannot change their minds about being lost, yet God and the angels rejoice when sinners repent. This tells me that repentance and forgiveness are not about working our way back into the good graces of God by changing our minds: repentance and forgiveness are more about realizing and accepting what God has already done for us, looking around and realizing that we are already home, already forgiven, already welcome where we have always belonged.
God has not created us to be hired hands. Hired hands negotiate, they earn, they labor for what is not theirs to receive payment that they spend elsewhere. Hired hands may take pride in their work, but only because good work produces a greater reward. Hired hands are rewarded for good performance and punished for poor performance. If a hired hand makes a mistake, the boss may offer forgiveness, but usually with the warning, “Don’t let it happen again.” And eventually, if the hired hand makes enough mistakes or wanders away for a long enough period of time, the hired hand is no longer welcome to work for the boss. This is not the image in which God has created us. Far too many churches operate with the understanding that we are all hired hands, and the reward we receive from God will be proportionate to the amount of our good works. God has not created us to be hired hands.
God has not created us to be slaves. Slaves are property, expendable, with no position or value to the owner except for the work they have done. We know from our own national history that slaves weren’t even considered human by their owners: they were beasts of burden worthy only of the minimum amount of care and feeding necessary to keep them functioning normally. Slaves could be changed as easily as a gear in a machine. God has not created us to be slaves in this sense.
God has created us to be God’s children. Children belong. Children are cherished. Children are nurtured, blessed, raised and instructed to carry on the legacy of the household and their parents. Children are joined to their parents by blood, and so we are joined to God our Father through the blood of Jesus, our brother. But in light of today’s parable, we must remember that children are each treasured and cherished individually, even though they can be vastly different people. In the family of God, all belong because all have been made in the image of God, and there are no slaves or hired hands here, but only siblings in whom God wants us to take delight. Whether you are the wandering reckless child who has returned after years of absence or the dutiful, responsible child who has never strayed, God loves you because you are God’s child. What is past is past, and all that matters in God’s eyes is the future, where the family of God will be reunited and whole once more. As Paul says, “if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!...in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting [our] trespasses against [us], and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us…”
Do not be confused about who you are in this season of Lent. You are not God’s hired hand, earning wages of righteousness with your good works. You are not God’s slaves, property wearing your fingers to the bone for a God who can and will discard you if you are not producing enough work. You are God’s child, beloved and cherished, and you are welcome in God’s family today. In fact, God’s throwing a feast for you, right at this table: taste and see the great love God has for God’s children, and take your place at the table. Amen.
Nice development, I like the way you looked at each son equally....
ReplyDeleteI have to be honest - when you started telling the strike story, I couldn't remember it. As I read on, it started slowly coming back to me. What were we thinking?
ReplyDelete