Thursday, March 3, 2016

Oh, Quit Your Whining! (Reflections on Lent Four, Year C)

The Parable of the Prodigal Son as envisioned by Rembrandt 
So I’m trying to come up with a new idea to preach for this Sunday’s Gospel text (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32), which is pretty much at the top of “Jesus Christ’s Greatest Hits.” It’s the parable of the Prodigal Son. We all know this story, right? The young son of the landowner asks for his inheritance early so he can go blow it on partying and hookers. When he’s flat broke and down on his luck he comes crawling back to his dad to beg forgiveness. His merciful pop rejoices to have the young idiot back again. After all, the kid is his son. Unfortunately, the prodigal’s faithful big brother gets his shorts in a wedgie (metaphorically speaking) because Dad is making a fuss over this sinful, wasteful, deadbeat brother but has never done anything special for him.

Jesus’ point?

“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.” (Luke 15:7)

And that moral is pretty obvious from the text. Maybe I should just read the Gospel and sit my overly loquacious butt down. Ya think..?

I mean, it seems pretty simple: God’s desire for us is for repentance, forgiveness, and reconciliation. Period. But this story is loaded with so much family dynamic that I could probably go on forever parsing all the subtleties of this text. However, “going on forever” is not a very good idea for preachers, so I’ll just reflect on something which is speaking to me rather loudly in this American election year.

To me, the character of the elder son is an indictment against our constant, sinful desire to divide the world into “them” and “us.” Recently, I seem to be hearing so much idiocy being spewed by people either in the church or in politics about who is deserving and who isn’t.

In the parable, the elder son may think it’s all well and good for him to whine about his undeserving moron of a brother getting so much love from Daddy just because he repents, but this overgrown crybaby really doesn’t have anything to complain about. In the world of the text he will be the beneficiary of primogeniture—the practice of leaving the bulk of an estate to the elder son. By no merit of his own—just the accident of birth order—this kid is going to inherit everything when his old man kicks the bucket. All the work he does with his dad will ultimately be to his own benefit. You’d think with so much going for him he might be able to spare just a little bit of compassion for the rough road his brother has been on.

Unfortunately, as individuals and as a society we all just love to indulge in self-righteous self-pity. Here’s what I hear the Elder Son saying these days:

“No amnesty for illegals! Our parents came here legally and learned English. Why are we giving law-breakers a free pass?” Why? Because so many of these “lawbreakers” were kids when they came to the US. Their parents have done work we were not willing to do. They’ve grown up in our country, learned in our schools, paid our sales taxes, and have been willing to fight in our military. And our faith teaches mercy, compassion, and reconciliation.

“There’s a war on Christianity! Our religious liberty is being threatened!” If Christianity is under attack, why haven’t I been arrested? We Christians are still the largest religious tradition in the United States, and the largest religious tradition on the face of the planet. “They” (whoever “they” are) can take away prayer in public school and take the Ten Commandments off courthouse walls, but when the sun rises tomorrow the followers of Jesus Christ will still be the most culturally dominant force in the world. It takes nothing away from our faith that our Muslim neighbors are opening a youth center around the corner from my church. Our job as Christians will still be to reflect the love of Christ to everyone.

“Reverse discrimination!” Like the elder son, the accident of my birth makes me the heir to considerable privilege. I’m a white, heterosexual, male living in America. I did nothing to earn the privileges I enjoy. I do, however, have a Christian responsibility to see that such advantages can be shared by all people. It takes nothing away from me to see others get ahead—especially if they’ve been behind for a very long time.

Let’s face it: If we talk about sin, none of us are deserving of the grace we’ve been given. None of us deserve to live in a world which is as magnificent as the one God has created and generously sustained for us. It’s time we stop our whining and get on with our work—to repent, to forgive, and to reconcile.

Thanks for reading, my friends. Drop by again, won’t you?

PS- For another (and less topical) take on this parable, you might want to check out an older post I wrote by clicking here.



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