3-31-19 Readings & Sermon

We're reading from Joshua.

The Lord said to Joshua, Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt, and so that place is called Gilgal to this day.

While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal, they kept the Passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.

On the day after the Passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land on eleven cakes and parched grain.

The manna ceased on that day, they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna, but they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.

The word of the Lord.

Happy are they whose transgressions are forgiven and whose sin is put away.

Happy are they to whom the Lord imputes no guilt, and whose spirit there is no God.

While I held my tongue, my bones withered away because of my groaning all day long.

For your hand was heavy upon me day and night.

My moisture was dried up as in the heat of the summer.

Then I acknowledge my sin to you.

I did not conceal my guilt.

I said, I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.

Therefore, all the faithful will make their prayers to you in time of trouble.

When the great waters outflow, they shall not reach them.

You are my hiding place.

You persevere you preserve me from trouble.

You surround me with shouts of deliverance.

I will instruct you and teach you in the way that you should go.

I will guide you with my eye.

I do not do not be like horse or mule, which have no understanding.

Who must be fitted with a pit and bridle, or else they will not stay here.

Great are the tribulations of the wicked.

But mercy embraces those who trust in the Lord.

Be glad, you righteous, and rejoice in the Lord.

Shout for joy of all who are true of heart.

Reading from 2 Corinthians, from now on, we regard no one from a human point of view.

Even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.

If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation.

Everything old has passed away.

See, everything has become new.

All of this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.

That is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.

So we are masters for Christ.

Since God is making his appeal through us, we entreat you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God.

For our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin.

So for that we might become the righteousness of God, the word of the Lord.

Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus, and the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, Well, this fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.

So Jesus told them this parable.

There was a man who had two sons.

The younger of them said to his father, Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.

So the father divided his property between them.

A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and travelled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.

So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.

He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating, and no one gave him anything.

But when he came to himself, he said, How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough in despair?

But here I am dying of hunger.

I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you.

So he set off and went to his father.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion.

He ran and put his arms around him and kissed him, and then the son said to him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you I am no longer worthy to be called your son.

But the father said to his slaves, Quickly bring out a robe, the best one, and put it on him.

Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet, and get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.

For this son of mine was dead and is alive again.

He was lost and is found.

And they began to celebrate.

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

He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.

The slave replied, Well, your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.

And then the older brother became angry and refused to go in.

His father came out and began to plead with him.

But the elder son answered his father, Listen, for all these years I've been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command, yet you have never given me even a young goat, so that I would celebrate with my friends.

But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him.

Then the father said to him, Son, you were always with me, and all that is mine is yours.

But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life.

He was lost and has been found.

The gospel of the Lord.

Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a lamb of your own fold, a sheep of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Please be seated.

Welcome to Rose Sunday.

In a long and sober season, somber even.

Rose Sunday is here at the midpoint to remind us of where this journey is supposed to be taking us.

Not to greater discipline, but to greater joy.

And we have the opportunity today, I think, particularly to consider how it is we might see the world through God's own rose-colored glasses.

I'm suspicious if you've been to church before at all.

You know this story all too well.

This is the story of the prodigal son.

Except it isn't at all.

That's probably, I think, one of the ways in which the church trying to give me some great gifts has actually given me some unfortunate ones, and I think to you as well.

So I want you to hear this story anew, even if you've heard it recently.

In order to do it, we actually have to back up.

Luke is the only gospel that has this story, and it comes not on its own, but as the end of three stories.

If you've read Luke, you know these already.

There's a story about sheep and a story about coins and a story about boys.

So please put up with me just for a second, telling you about sheep.

Jesus says, which one of you having a hundred sheep, if one of them wandered away, would not leave the 99 to go look for the one?

Anybody raised sheep before?

How many of you would leave 99 sheep to go look for one?

That's the right answer.

No one does that.

The reason is, of course, that if a wolf comes, it will kill all of the 99 sheep while you are looking around.

This is Christ, the bad shepherd, not the good one.

That prodigal sheep.

How dare it leave the 99 and draw the shepherd away?

I mean, listen, I'm one of those 99 sheep that am where I'm supposed to be.

So what nerve of Jesus to go following that prodigal sheep.

Of course, that's not how the story works at all.

Word about shepherding, and if you were here on Fat Tuesday, you heard some of the sorry.

You know, domesticated animals are different from their wild counterparts, not just because they put up with the they're actually different at the DNA level, which is proof, don't you see, that cats are not domesticated, they're just tame.

Because cats don't need you.

Now, dogs, on the other hand, and domesticated sheep do need you.

Consider a little bit how that works.

Domesticated sheep, well, they don't live in craggy mountains where they can hop away from wolves.

They live in the plain.

We brought them there.

So they have really no way of escaping wolves.

Domesticated sheep, when they smell a wolf, will bleat, which is like a way of saying, come get me! I'm over here.

Ding, ding, ding, ding, ring the dinner bell.

Domesticated sheep don't just eat the blade of grass, they eat the root.

That is, without a shepherd to move them, they will eat themselves to death because the grass will not replenish itself.

We could say those are just dumb animals, except actually they're trusting animals, and we made them that way.

So if you've been to church and heard that the Bible calls us sheep because we're dumb, I want to tell you, unlearn that.

The Bible calls us sheep because God wants us to trust and rely on God.

When the sheep wanders away, it is not a prodigal sheep, it's lost.

If you squeeze this story too hard, sure, being one of the 99 sheep is pretty rough, and God has abandoned you, but I don't think the story is about that.

I don't even think the story is about throwing a party because you found the one and it's all about that one lost sheep.

I think the story is about God, who is so loss averse that God can't manage to lose a single thing God has made and love.

Not one.

We learn at an early age, right off that one.

Gonna make an omelette, you've got to break a few eggs, don't lose the forest for the trees.

God can't lose either one.

So the sheep is not a prodigal, it's lost, and God throws a party because the flock is restored.

It's not about the one, it's about every single one being in God's flock.

There's another story about a lady that's got ten coins.

She loses one.

Did you notice that?

She loses the coin.

Coins are not prodigal.

Let them wander off.

She lost it.

And she looks for it.

And then she does something crazy.

She finds the coin, and then she goes and tells her neighbors, I lost a coin and I found it.

Imagine your neighbor coming and knocking at your door.

Hey, Jane! I lost a jugger! And I found it! Let's have a party.

You would start locking your door after that.

Right, you have a ring doorbell so you know when not to come.

It's not a prodigal coin, it's a lost coin.

So now we come to this story that we're so programmed to hear is about prodigals.

And I bet you've heard once upon a time, if you've been in church long enough, that when the younger son comes up to dad and says, Hey, can't I have my inheritance now?

That's like saying, I wish you were dead.

Anyone heard that before?

Well, at least one person has, thank you.

Don't learn that because it's wrong.

I mean, listen, when you were a teenager, didn't you think, wow, if I had a bunch of resources, I would buy a fast car, or I would do this or that, I'd go on that vacation.

Did you ever have those thoughts as a teenager?

Is it because you were prodigal, or frankly because you're playing anymore because you were a teenager?

You forgot that there were relationships that you would be, well, cutting down the expenses to have that little treat.

Well, look in the story.

There's no malice here unless we read it into the story.

The kid just says, I wish I had some money.

Dad, can I have my stuff now?

This is a critical part of the story.

The dad agrees.

He completely divides the estate.

Remember that.

The son goes and then he's in Greek, he scatters it.

He scatters his possessions, and what do you know?

He loses everything.

Now we don't know what he did.

You know who says he spent it on prostitutes?

The older brother, who wasn't there, which might be a little bit of a Freudian slip telling you what the older brother is wishing he could spend his own money on.

I mean, this is really important to hear.

We don't know how it is the younger son loses everything.

We just know that he does.

He comes to his senses and he has this monologue.

He says to himself, self, go back, be a servant.

On his way, though, don't you see?

The father is doing exactly what the shepherd does.

He's looking for the lost son.

The son who's lost.

Now you might be wondering, well, why doesn't he go out looking for the lost son?

Well, because you know there's a difference between three-year-olds and teenagers.

Three-year-olds, I can run down.

Oh, the lights just went out.

Three-year-olds, I can run down.

Teenagers, adults, they could go anywhere.

Where are you going to look?

Dad stays the well, the last place he saw his son, which is what I teach my kids.

Go back to the last place you saw me.

And he looks.

And he does something very not Middle Eastern.

When he sees the younger son coming, he runs to him.

I can tell you in the Middle East, men they run for any reason.

He runs to the sun.

And the son starts this thing, Dad, I'm not worthy.

But can't you tell the father has already made up his mind what he's going to do?

He's already made up his mind.

And he says, go fetch the best stuff.

To whom does that stuff belong?

The older brother owns all of it.

The father owns nothing.

He already gave it away, don't you see?

He settled the inheritance.

The father owns zero.

He takes the stuff from his older son and puts it on the younger son, and then he doesn't have a probation period.

He doesn't have an intervention.

He throws a party.

And the younger son is so, I'll be sorry, the older son is so put out.

I don't get anything, Dad.

I work all the time.

You don't acknowledge my work.

Look at you running up after that prodigal sheep.

The elder son refuses to go to a party.

He might have gone to an intervention, but he refuses to go to a party.

And as my best friend's mother used to say in high school, every party has a pooper.

Might as well be you.

Now, in the spirit of Lent and Confession, I'm going to tell you, I have lived and frankly still am living most of my spiritual life.

Hearing this story is about prodigals.

And I'm going to tell you that not only as a parent, but as a friend, I have wasted years of my life relating to prodigals.

I have wasted years of my life looking at other people and assuming their intention was to dishonor, to be hateful to me, and thinking they deserve exactly what they're going to get.

I have wasted years of my life confusing revenge and accountability because they have nothing to do with one another.

And here I think we're called in the middle of Lent to give up something that we're addicted to that is stealing life from us.

Stealing life.

And this story is asking us, I think, to consider whether we will continue to waste.

And I mean waste ourselves in prodigal thinking.

Or if we won't open ourselves to the mind of God and think about people might just be lost.

Brene Brown in her latest book says that the single most important criterion for whether or not we live a joyful life that's the rose color is whether or not we believe people are basically doing the best they can with what they have.

And I want you to think about yourself for a moment.

Those things that I have done that have most hurt my parents, my spouse, and some of you I can tell you with every bit of integrity that I think I have that were not moments when I invited Satan into my heart so that I could be a force of evil and malevolence in the world.

They were moments in which I had just lost my mind.

Or I was thinking about a tree instead of the forest.

Or I just thought I was supposed to be giving big, tough love.

Read vengeance.

I thought that's what I was supposed to do.

Because if I gave grace, I'd be condoning a lifestyle that was so wrong.

I'd be inviting somebody to continue to live in states of, well, awful.

And I'm addicted to that lie.

Addicted.

Because I'll tell you once again, I have wasted years of my life living that way with my children, with my parents, with my brother, with my spouse, and with my friend.

I have wasted years of my life living the prodigal story.

What if God has something better for us?

Because here is, I think, the crux of the whole bit.

God might simply be better at what we do than we are.

God might be better at noticing every wrong thing we do, not missing a single thing and getting even.

God might be like Santa Claus taking a long list, an inventory of every mistake you make, so that God can give you some coal when you die.

God might be better at that than we are ourselves.

Or, friends, God might just be greater than we are, I want to tell you, I am struggling to live into that second idea.

My mind knows God has to be greater than I am.

And I think the Linton journey is about us trying to live into that more.

Because if God is just better at getting even, if God is just better at retributed justice, then we worship ourselves every time we pray.

And that's the definition of idolatry.

Or else, don't you see?

Paul wrote, God came to reconcile the whole world.

God even became sin so that God could take care of that for us.

That's the gospel.

My head is convinced.

More often than not, I would rather miss God's party.

Because I want there to be getting even and shame and retribution.

That's why we're going to come back to Lent next year.

Because I doubt we're going to get there this year.

I doubt it.

But for a moment, for a moment, we have this opportunity to stop and think.

God is looking for the parts of us that are lost.

God is inviting us to look on other people God as prodigals, but it's just lost.

The party isn't just for them, it's for us.

It's for all of us.

Because the truth is, God can't stand to see to lose a single one.

And good God gets us all back.

That's the party.

And I can't think of a better reason, a better frame, than to think about baptism.

Because you know there's something incredible.

At baptism, we have this sort of moment where we see, oh, look, an adorable child of God.

A baby, because we know they're innocent.

I think that's why we do this to babies.

Because no one begrudges babies anything.

They don't know what they're doing.

When they explode their diaper, they're not prodigal babies doing that to put you out.

They're just lost.

They don't know where the body is.

And all that's really funny because we're talking about babies.

We have this moment to see each other in that same criterion of care.

We talk ourselves out of loving the Christ child in one another because we say you should know better, even if you don't.

You should know better.

Because you do think like me, and I know the best.

So you should know like I know, and we get crazy like that.

So for a moment, we're gonna have a Lenten retreat.

We've got a beautiful child of God that we're getting ready to baptize right now.

See the Christ child before your eyes.

Then when we get done and we pass the peace, whoever you shake hands with, see the Christ child before your eyes.

No matter how lost.

And if you have to lose something, lose the whole idea about being prodigals.