First Friends Meeting
Luke 15:11-32
‘Why Choose?’
Doug Gwyn

Well, the NBA Finals wrapped up this week. I think I was one of about 15 people outside of San Antonio and Cleveland who even noticed. But with every major sport, when play-offs roll around, I think – every team except one ends the season with defeat, a sense of failure. Of course, that adds to the exaltation of the championship team. Its star players are nearly deified. Of course, they’re all millionaires these days. But it don’t mean a thing if you ‘aint got that ring.

This winner-takes-all mentality is widespread in our culture. In the business world, the corporate CEO is the winner who takes all. A CEO may make hundreds of times more money than the lowest-paid workers in the company. But he (or sometimes she) is the one who has been sent to save the company. Like star athletes, CEOs have become messianic figures. People bow down to them as saviors – saviors of the company. Saviors of their jobs, no matter how meanly paid. Even if that savior may down-size them out of a job tomorrow. But this is an economy dominated by stock-market investment. And investors, like fickle gods, can move their capital, their blessing, in a matter of minutes to some more promising enterprise. Basically, this is an economy dominated by gambling. The popularity of championship poker is a sign of the times. Again, winner-takes-all – and the-devil-take-the-hindmost.

Some say that this winner-take-all mentality is a symptom of a patriarchal culture, a society where men’s perspectives have priority. Where sons compete ever more intensely, even desperately for a father-figure’s favor. Well, I don’t know. But we do see that feature strongly in the stories of the patriarchs in Genesis. It’s Isaac, not Ishmael, who is Abraham’s child of promise. Then, it’s Jacob, not Esau, who inherits Isaac’s blessing. Actually, we find Abraham and Isaac loving both their sons. In fact, it’s Sarah who insists that Ishmael has to go. And it’s Rebekah who schemes with Jacob to steal the blessing from Esau. So maybe it’s mothers as much as fathers playing favorites.

By the time Jesus came along, these stories were already ancient. The Jewish people languished under Roman occupation. They yearned for some kind of liberation, some kind of redemption. They looked for a Messiah, a Son of God, the ultimate Chosen One, to redeem them from this Roman bondage. Many of them imagined this Messiah as a military leader who would somehow defeat the Romans. In the gospels, we see that Jesus grappled very carefully with this whole Messiah thing. He claimed God as his Father – but as our Father too. Jesus came to God’s chosen people – but he was also friendly with Samaritans and even Romans. He came to free his people, but not through a military showdown with Rome. The Good News Jesus preached is about as far as you can get from ‘winner-take-all’.

The parable of the Prodigal Son that Bonnie read for us may be the most powerful image Jesus left us of God as a loving father. It’s so familiar to many of us, we may not hear it easily anymore. Jesus begins, “There was a man who had two sons.” That might be the better title for the parable. The prodigal son is no more the center of the story than his older brother. The center of the story is the father’s love for both of them.

We’re told that the younger brother asked for his inheritance up front. It’s interesting already that his father gave it to him. “Over my dead body” is the way these things usually work. Anyway, the younger son went out and squandered it all partying in a distant country. He finally made himself utterly miserable. He decided that working as a hired hand for his father would be better than eating with the pigs. So he returned, completely repenting of his ways. He confessed to his father and asked for a job on the farm. But his father was filled with pity for his son. He embraced and kissed him. Again, the son expressed his repentance and confessed that he wasn’t worthy to be called his son. But his father insisted on putting good clothes on him, placing a family ring on his finger, and treating him to a great ‘welcome-home-son’ banquet. The son’s mind must have been reeling. He was an utter failure, a write-off. He’d wasted half his father’s wealth. But his father loved him more than all that. What a teachable moment for the young fella! This moment could turn his life around.

But what a dismaying moment it was for the older brother! We can be glad for the younger brother. We can identify with his sense of failure, his regret, his relief and joy at being accepted again by a loving father. But we also can feel his older brother’s chagrin! He came in from hard work in the fields to witness this scene. No wonder he didn’t rush in and join the party. All those years of faithfulness to family. All those years of hard work and virtuous living. And that brat walks in and takes the cake! Well, the father killed the fatted calf, but I can imagine the older brother probably kicked the dog.

I love the conversation between the father and the older brother. The older brother is offended by both his father and his kid brother. He calls his brother as “that son of yours.” He complains, I’ve never received even so much as a young goat for a party with my friends. But his father understands his anger. He doesn’t berate him for it. He simply says, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine, is yours.” Your kid brother has received his half. He’s not going to get half of what’s left. But he’s still my son. He’s still your brother. He was lost to us, and now he’s found. For all we knew, he was dead. Now he’s alive to us. What can we do, but celebrate?

Jesus leaves us right there. What will happen? We don’t know. Can the older brother forgive his younger brother – and his father? After the father is gone, will the younger brother continue to be a hired hand on the farm? Will the older brother send him packing? Make him a partner? Not only do we not know how the story will turn out. There isn’t even a handy formula for how these two brothers and their father might work this out. They will have to invent something together. But the key is that the father loves both of his sons. He’s not choosing between them. This is the kind of father Jesus invites us to know, to love, to trust, to believe in. Of course, God is beyond male or female, beyond fatherhood or motherhood. But faith is so much a matter of trust, of love and intimacy. Our natural fathers and mothers figure very large in our ability to trust in God. And in this story, Jesus gives us a father who’s somebody we want to believe in.

Over the centuries, Christians have tended to think, well, the father’s love for the prodigal son is what our faith is all about. The older brother, abiding by the rules, that’s the Jewish faith. But the father really likes the little brother better. But that’s not the story Jesus tells here. The father isn’t choosing between them. And the Jewish faith welcomes back repentant sinners as much as it cherishes faithful sons and daughters. Jesus speaks to both sides of his tradition here. And really, do we want to make a hero out of the prodigal son? Yes, we emphasize forgiveness. But we believe in second chances not for their own sake. People get another chance for the sake of moving on to steadiness and faithfulness. Our faith is not about messing up so we can throw another party. As Paul put it, the point of the gospel is not to sin more so that grace may abound. That’s what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called “cheap grace.” The father’s compassion in this parable is made possible by the younger son’s wholehearted repentance and new-found humility.

I’m grateful that both my Dad and my Mom were such steady, faithful, and loving parents. They gave me a good foundation to build on in my life. I was the younger of two brothers, and definitely the under-achiever of the two as we were growing up. My brother brought home the good grades, and they rightly praised him for it. But they didn’t get all over me about my mediocre grades. They just kept encouraging me, and figured that once I got interested in something, I’d start working harder. And I did, eventually.

Jesus told this parable in response to criticism. The righteous and virtuous were offended that Jesus kept company with so many sinners – and they always seemed to be partying! Jesus didn’t choose the sinners over the righteous. He eagerly invited them to join the party. He kept bringing them together, but he never offered easy formulas for how they were supposed to work it out. So the parable never tells us how the father and his two sons are going to work this thing out. Down to this day, we struggle in the Church with this same dilemma. We have our different approaches, our different beliefs, our different virtues, our different lifestyles. There are no easy formulas for working through these differences. We only know that Jesus lost everything to draw us together, and that ‘winner-take-all’ will make losers of all of us.