I’m tired of winter. I’m particularly tired of the weather we’ve been having the past few days or weeks—a little snow, rain, freezing rain, gray days. Gray. The snow piles that remain on the side of the streets and sidewalks are grimy. Where the snow has melted, we see all of the trash that’s accumulated over the last months, and the mud, and the dead vegetation. To make matters worse, did you know that the high temperature in Madison on March 17, 2012 was 80 degrees? It’s all very depressing. Continue reading →
The parable of the prodigal son, the gospel reading we just heard, is probably one of the two or three most familiar of all Jesus’ parables. Most of you have heard the story many times before—in sermons or in Sunday School. It’s so familiar and so beloved because it conveys to us an appealing image of a loving and forgiving God, an image that comforts and reassures us. As familiar as the story is, it is told with drama and detail that draws us in, inviting us to enter into it and to identify with one, or perhaps more, of the characters. So I’m going to invite you to reflect for a moment on which character you most identify with. Turn to your neighbor, introduce yourself if you don’t know each other, and share with each other where you find yourself in this story—does the situation of the older son, younger son, or father most resonate with you at this time of your life? And why is that the case?
This rich parable invites us to do what we’ve just done, to enter into it to put ourselves in it. When we do so, we begin to connect the deep emotions of each character with emotions we’ve experienced in the past, or perhaps are experiencing right now—feelings of repentance, resentment, joy and love. But now I’d like to shift gears a bit, inviting you to hold on to that exploration of your emotions and the emotions of the characters and look at the parable’s larger context.
Luke wants us to read the story in a particular way. The lectionary signals his desire to us by including the very first verses of chapter 15 that tell us about the Pharisees’ complaint that Jesus hangs out with tax collectors and sinners. Luke follows those verses with two other familiar parables before giving us the one we know as “The Prodigal Son.” Those are stories are the one about the shepherd with 100 sheep who loses one, and the woman with ten coins who lost one. So the set up, by the time the reader gets to today’s parable is clear: rejoicing upon finding that which was lost.
The other pieces of information that may help throw light on our parable are a couple of things about ancient culture. First, the idea that a father might give his son part of his inheritance, while not illegal was unheard of. One’s property was disposed of only at death, and for a child to demand his share of it before his father’s death is sort of like telling your father, “You’re dead to me.” Presumably, the property, in this case the land, would have been sold. It’s easy to imagine what both father and elder son thought whenever they passed by the property they had once owned and watched the new owners working it. It would probably also have meant loss of income.
In addition to all that, there’s what happens when the son “comes to himself.” He wastes his inheritance in dissolute living, ends up eating fodder meant for pigs, basically living with the pigs, and finally decides he’s had enough of it. He composes a speech that he hopes will, if not restore him in his father’s good graces, at least ensure him of a better life and half-decent food. He heads home tail between his legs. He is probably ashamed and embarrassed and he expects to be shamed further when he arrives back home.
In her commentary on the text, Alyce McKenzie points out that Roman Palestine village culture was a culture based on honor and shame. By his behavior, the son had brought shame on both himself and his family. Apparently, villages performed a shame ceremony when a villager returned after having left the community for the gentile world, or married a gentile woman. Upon his return, the whole village would gather around him, breaking jars with nuts or other items and declare publicly that he was cut off from the rest of the village. It was an act of public shame and shunning.
But the father’s behavior prevented that ritual of shame. By running out to greet his son, he prevented them from performing that ritual. Even more, he welcomed him back into his own bosom and the bosom of his household. There’s a sense in which the father’s actions are themselves shameful. Respectable men didn’t behave that way in public. They didn’t display affection in that way; they certainly didn’t kiss a son publicly. He’s acting more like a mother than a father, and his behavior is inappropriate. By allowing himself to be humiliated, he stopped the village from humiliating his son.
I’d like to go back to the question I asked you a few minutes ago. Then, it was, “With whom do you most identify in this story?” There are other ways of asking the questions, other questions that the story raises—one is, “with whom ought you identify in the story?” That is to say, where does the story challenge your understanding of yourself and God? It’s easy for us to put ourselves in the role of the younger son. Perhaps we don’t see ourselves as quite as awful a human being as he was. We might not offend our parents as deeply, sin as much, fall into as abject and dissolute life as him. But nonetheless, it’s easy to see something of ourselves in him. Having sinned, we are penitent and seek the forgiveness of a loving God.
But the parable doesn’t let us stay there. It challenges us to see us in those other roles, the roles of elder son or father. If we’re honest with our selves, how often is it the case that we act like the older son? Whether within our own families or at work or school, how often do we resent what seems to be the favored, and undeserved, treatment of someone else? How often do we feel as if we’re the older brother who finds out about the party only after it’s well underway? Do the father’s words offer any consolation to us when we feel slighted or underappreciated?
That’s one challenge the parable presents to us. But there’s an even more difficult one. Think of the father again. The story began with his younger son demanding his inheritance, treating him as if he were dead, jeopardizing his family’s financial security. Now he returns after squandering his inheritance, after years of hard living. He returns with a rehearsed speech on his lips, and the father runs to greet him, inviting more of the community’s humiliation. He pays no attention to past grievances or feelings of moral superiority; he embraces, kisses, invites his son back home and rejoices at his return.
If this parable invites us to imagine our selves in the places of its characters, where might we need to find our selves in the role of the father? Where might we need to offer the joy of forgiveness to someone we encounter in our daily life? Who might we encounter who is in as deep need of forgiveness and love as the younger son in this parable? To offer that forgiveness, to offer the joy of God’s love to someone who feels unable to receive it on their own, may be the greatest gift we can give and is certainly one way to share the good news of Jesus Christ.
Our sermon yesterday was preached by Lauren Gallant Cochran, our Christian Formation Director. Here’s what she had to say:
I find deep spiritual comfort in believing that our God is a God of paradox, a God who is the possible version of impossible. I believe God is unchanging, and ‘still speaking’. I believe God is three, and one. I believe God was then, is now, and will be in the future. I think God is unknowable, and yet intensely intimate in my life… everywhere and nowhere all at once. I take comfort in these contradictions because while I will never fully understand everything there is to know about God, God still approves of my questioning and desire to learn and understand. I thank God every day for the opportunities to talk about these paradoxes of God with other people: those who agree with me, and those who do not.
In the Presbyterian Church, every candidate for ordination must write a very concise statement of faith, and I have just read you the opening paragraph of my statement. It seems a bit self-righteous to quote myself, but I want to talk about the paradox present in our scriptures today, which points to the paradox of Lent, and the paradox of our God. I want you to start thinking about all the things in our faith that are opposites but both true and complete all at the same time.
Last week Father Jonathan asked the question “what does Lent mean to people today?” He said traditionally it has been a time for people to focus on an angry God who demands repentance—but noted that that’s not really what it seems to be any more. The lectionary texts- including last week where Jonathan highlighted that God’s covenant with Abram was both terrifying and trustworthy—the lectionary texts of Lent are handing us paradoxes.
Let’s look first to Exodus—to the burning bush.
Moses finds himself in a scary situation. Here he is, peacefully keeping his flocks of sheep when he stumbles across the burning bush. God yells out Moses name and commands him to remove his sandals. The presence of God is so overwhelming that Moses hides his face in fear. Moses knows that this is the same God he has been hiding from after killing a man back in Egypt. But even beyond the wilderness, God has found him and now commands him to return to Egypt and demand that Pharaoh free the Israelites. When Moses musters the courage to respond, he asks “well who should I say sent me?”— God responds “I AM WHO I AM”.
I would be terrified. God in these verses is very powerful, demanding, and frightening. But don’t forget, I want to talk about the paradox in this passage. It was hard for me, at first, to recognize that there is more than a powerful and scary God in these verses… But then I realized that I was thinking about this story with preconceived notions that didn’t have anything to do with the real words of scripture.
It’s even a little embarrassing to admit what these notions were. First, is that when I was 12 years old, the animated movie The Prince of Egypt was released. I loved that movie, and the scene of Moses and the burning bush is what I picture in my head when I read this passage. It is a dramatic point in the movie, of course they chose to make it seem very powerful and slightly scary. Once I found out that the actor Val Kilmer voices the roles of Moses AND God, it seems a bit more comical to me when I picture Val Kilmer talking to himself. But, the point is that an animated movie with dramatic effects was placing a lens over how I read this story.
Secondly, every time I read this scripture—as silly as it may sound—the capitol letters “I AM WHO I AM” always make me think that God is yelling those words. Scholarship tells me that the use of capital letters signifies that God’s name cannot be clearly translated, so in order to get all of this fictional yelling out of my head, I decided to read the passage to myself in the most calm and loving tone that I could.
I imagined God as a mother speaking to her son who is wandering beyond the wilderness, trying to bring him back to help him and their family. “Moses… Moses… “I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey”.
This presents a completely different picture of God– now it should be also noted that nowhere in this conversation does God ask Moses to repent for his sins. Nowhere are there any conditions for Moses to change—Moses sins aren’t even mentioned. In this light, the passage is not an angry God looking for repentance of sins.
Here is our first paradox. God in this passage IS all powerful, and certainly makes a point to Moses about God’s power to free the Israelites—and Moses is scared. Moses hides his face. But God is also reaching out to Moses, God has compassion for the chosen people serving as slaves in Egypt. God is the shepherd reaching out to a lost sheep from his flock. God is I AM WHO I AM, and I am who I am. God is showing Moses that this task will not be easy, but with the power of God it will be done.
And so we come to the paradox of a parable from Luke.
For our youngest children here at Grace, the Godly Play curriculum (loosely based on the Montessori System) shares the Bible in a story telling format, including the parables of Jesus. All the parables are stored on their own shelf, and each is kept in a special white box. Gwen, their wonderful teacher, patiently shares each story with them, but before they begin she reads these words about the parable they are about to experience.
“The box is closed. There is a lid. Maybe there is a parable inside. Sometimes, even if we are ready, we can’t enter a parable. Parables are like that. Sometimes they stay closed. This box looks like a present. Parables were given to you long ago as a present. Even if you don’t know what a parable is, the parable is already yours.”
I think these words can give us comfort as well when faced with a parable such as this. These verses also show a powerful God in a frightening way. God has the power to remove us from the vineyard not only because we might do something wrong, but also because we have not done anything at all. And then we are left with a cliff hanger ending. I don’t think a more terrifying literary tactic exists- we are left wondering about the fate of the fig tree, about our fate if we lead unfruitful lives. Don’t forget that immediately before the parable, Jesus left us with the words “unless you repent you will all perish”.
Because Jesus was a man who frequently used agricultural metaphors in his parables, he probably knew that it can take up to five years before a fig tree bears fruit, much longer than the 3 years the owner of the tree has come looking for figs. The point is clear, we must be fruitful and we cannot wait to do it, otherwise we are wasting the precious soil in the garden.
So this parable shows us a powerful vengeful God, who demands active fruitfulness. But there is a character that I have not mentioned yet. The gardener. If the parable portrays God as the owner of the garden and the fig tree as you and me… then who is the Gardener? The first time I heard a sermon that suggested the idea that Jesus is the gardener, I thought… Whoa… That changes everything!! Here is Jesus! Interceding on our behalf. But who is Jesus other than God himself? Thus we arrive at the second paradox. God is expecting great things and threatening to throw us out, while still giving us another chance, giving us the nutrients we need to make it happen—fighting for us to stay.
As I shared with you at the beginning of this sermon, I find comfort in believing that God is a God of paradox, that God can be many things at once. Both the owner and the gardener of a vineyard, both a powerful burning bush and a loving mother calling out into the wilderness, both terrifying and trustworthy.
Our reading from first Corinthians reveals that Paul felt the same way. “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure.”
It is not a coincidence that our scriptures confront us with so many paradoxes during the season of Lent. Lent is a time to repent, but also a time to take joy in our forgiving God. Lent is a time to prepare for the death that we know is coming on Good Friday, but also a time to prepare for the resurrection that comes on that mighty Easter Sunday. There is talk of darkness and light, ashes and life, our pasts that sometimes haunt us and the future of the kingdom to come. Lent is a paradox in itself, leading us to the moment of Easter, preparing us to entertain the notion of an empty tomb. Lent is preparing us to experience the paradox of a God who dies, and rises… for us.
One of the interesting aspects of the season of Lent for me is that my earliest and in some deepest encounters with Lent came not through the liturgical cycle of contemporary Christianity, Episcopal or otherwise, but rather because I was trained as a historian of Christianity. Lent’s roots grow deep in the Christian tradition, dating back to the practices of early Christianity. In the fourth century, and perhaps earlier, it was common practice for baptism to occur primarily at the great Vigil of Easter, the wonderful celebration of Christ’s resurrection that begins in darkness on Saturday night, and traditionally ended at the first light of Easter Day. In preparation for baptism, those who had committed themselves to undertake initiation prepared by a season of fasting and learning. Continue reading →
I often wonder what visitors think when they visit an Episcopal church like Grace on the First Sunday of Lent. Actually, I often wonder what most members or regular attenders think when they come to Grace today. We have endured the oldest piece of liturgy written in the English language—the Great Litany, with its comprehensive list of petitions on behalf of everything and everyone under the sun. We have chanted and prayed at length, listened to readings, and now finally you’re settling in for a few minutes of respite from what will be six weeks of relentless reminders of our humanity, sinfulness, and need for repentance. Is it any wonder some people give up church for Lent? Continue reading →
Epiphany is a season during which we are invited to explore the ways in which God’s glory appears to us. This year, brief as it is, we have seen God’s glory in the Baptism of our Lord, in the miracle of Jesus Christ turning water into wine at the wedding in Cana. Each year, on the last Sunday of Epiphany, we hear a different gospel version of the same story, Jesus’ transfiguration. It is a story that breaks in upon us, just as God’s glory breaks in upon us, and in its details, its eerie nature, and its resonances, it breaks in upon our sense of time and reality, and invites to look forward to the resurrection, and back to the Hebrew Bible, to Sinai and to the prophets. Continue reading →
A number of years ago, when we were living in SC, Corrie was invited to participate in an appreciation Sunday for one of her students. Gloria, I believe her name was, was soon to graduate from college and go off to seminary in Atlanta. She was in her forties, a mother, and for several years had pastured a CME church in a small town in the mountains of western NC. It was down a country road several miles off the main highway and when we got there, we found a typical mill village. At some point in the late 19th or early 20th century, an entrepeneur had built a factory, built houses for the workers, and milled cotton of some sort or another. When we visited, the mill was long closed, there were a couple of churches, the CME which was our destination, a United Methodist church, a school, a convenience store, and houses, some of them well kept, others rundown. Continue reading →
The Sunday after the Epiphany is always the Baptism of our Lord. On this Sunday, we hear the story of Jesus’ baptism according to one of the gospels. It’s also a day when we often celebrate baptisms. Unfortunately, due to a combination of circumstances, we aren’t baptizing anyone at Grace today. But the lessons still give us an opportunity to reflect on baptism—what it means, why we do it, and how we can claim it as central to our lives as Christians. Continue reading →
One of the things I’ve come to regret over the years is that I never took an Astronomy class in college. What I know about the stars and constellations is remarkably little. Oh, I can pick out the Big Dipper, Orion’s belt, and on a good night, even Cassiopea perhaps, but I barely take notice of the moon or stars and if I know that a planet appears in the skies some night, it’s only because I happened upon that information in the course of the day. It’s really quite remarkable, in a way, that the whole of the universe, everything beyond my immediate plane of existence, remains mysterious and utterly unkown. I do have an app on my iphone that plots the skies for me given my current location. The trouble is, I rarely remember that I have it, and when I do, I’m usually somewhere where the light pollution makes seeing anything above us impossible, or I’ve got no reception so it can’t find my location. Continue reading →
Where is God? It’s a question we often hear in the aftermath of a natural disaster but especially after a tragedy like the massacre at Newtown. When we ask the question where is God, we are asking not only about God’s presence in a particular instance. We are also questioning God’s presence in the world, in our lives. We are questioning God’s providence—the idea that God is in charge of things. Sometimes behind our question is another question, Is there a God? Continue reading →
Preaching Grace on the Square 