Prodigal Truth
Fourth Sunday in Lent
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he told them a parable:
“There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the wealth that will belong to me.’ So he divided his assets between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant region, and there he squandered his wealth in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that region, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that region, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled his stomach 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 and to spare, 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; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.” ’ 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. 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 as he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has got him back safe and sound.’ Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have 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 might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your assets with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are 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.’ ”
Luke 15:1-3, 11-32
This Lent, we’re keeping with the theme of living in truth. We’ve talked about temptation and truth, truth and power, and then the truth that thaws you into muddy grace. Today, the weather in Vermont brought us back to snow, and the lectionary has brought us to perhaps the greatest and most famous parable, the Prodigal Son.
This parable is timeless not only because nearly every line is symbolically rich with revelation about the human spiritual journey and the character of God, but also for how it speaks to each of us in our time and place, almost no matter what our particular faith journey has been or which brother we’ve been (and I believe we’ve all spent time as each brother). While there are endless ways to approach this, today we’re going to focus mostly on that younger, prodigal son.
As I was thinking about this parable’s timelessness, I thought about how even beyond the Church, we see its themes; I know our town of Craftsbury has been a place some grow up and never leave, while others have grown up here, left to find themselves, and then come back, maybe wondering why they ever left. Some of us didn’t know what it was like to grow up here and just are amazed we got invited. Likewise, I know some of us never left the Church, some of us are pretty new to the Church, and many of us have left the Church and come back.
It was actually kinda annoying for me when I came back to the Church because I felt like a cliche prodigal son, and my dad could finally say after all those years, “I told you so!” I had to get over that pride longer than I’d like to admit.
One of the things we learn about this parable of the Prodigal Son is about that title almost everyone in our culture knows. I’m curious how many of us know what the word “prodigal” means. For the longest time, I thought “prodigal” meant something like “wandering,” like “the son who went on a journey.” At least when I was in my twenties, that’s how I primarily saw myself, and probably how the Prodigal Son saw himself: “I’m on a journey.” But that’s the nice PR spin on what the younger son did, and that was the PR spin on my own spiritual journey. I was in charge of myself, nobody was going to tell me what to do, the rules of the house I grew up in didn’t apply anymore, I was going to choose my own religion and be my own spiritual boss. And, okay, that worked well enough for me for a while. Even when it wasn’t working, it worked well enough.
But as many of us know, “prodigal” doesn’t mean “wandering.” Prodigal means wasteful, reckless, extravagant. So when we say the “prodigal son,” it’s the wasteful son, the son who was given so much and didn’t even realize the gift he was given, he just knew he wanted it now to live “la vida loca.” And it was the same for me, and if you spent time away from God, maybe it’s been true for you. While it was true that I was on a spiritual journey, and that is well and good, the fuller truth is that I was reckless and wasteful with God’s grace. Because there is so much of God’s grace, he will give it to you early and often, freely letting you use it as you want. In turn, so many of us choose to take that grace and use it to build ourselves up.
But any time we take what God has given us and use it to worldly advantage, we are automatically wasting it. Any time we try to use what we’ve been given just to give ourselves more, God will let us do that in freedom, but we are in a self-defeating spiritual trap, being a prodigal, wasteful child of God with our Father’s grace. We wander as we squander. When we take everything God has given us and use it to try and pursue our selfish ends, we aren’t resting in God’s grace, we are scheming with it. We aren’t patiently living with him anymore, we just want to break ground on the great project called Myself.
The schemes of that project get complicated. They become what Scripture calls “crooked paths.” Then, all of a sudden, rock bottom.
But in my experience, rarely are rock bottoms truly “all of a sudden.” They weren’t for this younger son; the journey out of his Father’s house took thousands of small steps. The only thing that’s usually all of a sudden in a rock bottom is our realization, like this son “coming to himself,” realizing all the little steps that got us there.
When this younger, lost, prodigal son comes to himself in the pig stye, it came all at once, but had it been nagging at him in the back of his mind? While he was seeking freedom from the oppressive rules of his father’s house, were there ever fleeting moments of missing the warmth, too proud to say he was sorry until suddenly pride became too expensive?
Whatever the case, however long his denial was at how this “being your own spiritual boss” thing wasn’t working, now that he was no longer in the grace of mud but the grace of pig manure, his questions were different: “What am I doing here? How did I end up here? And how can I get back? I would do anything to get back.” Have you ever had those questions in your life?
So he starts scheming again. Oh, don’t get me wrong, his schemes are better oriented this time, no longer scheming for himself but to get back with his father. So he starts scheming because he’s afraid that his father will be upset, that he’s incurred this huge debt now, and that he’s lost all his dignity in his father’s eyes. How could his father see dignity in him? He can’t see it in himself.
He hadn’t yet learned that he is still his father’s son. And no matter how far he was or we are, and no matter how often we get lost, we don’t need to scheme to get close to God. We just need to turn back home.
And it doesn’t take us having completely lost ourselves in a rock bottom; we can get lost all the time through our personal scheming, asking ourselves subconsciously how to win God’s love: “What can I do? How do I really get the Father’s love? What set of steps do I need to be back in his house?” Like that reckless son, “I’ll be a hired hand, a slave, whatever—just tell me what I need to do if he’ll have me back.”
But before he can get any of his schemes going, he doesn’t take two steps into his father’s sight before that merciful father runs to hug him and kiss him. And this is why Tim Keller famously called him the prodigal father and the prodigal God—recklessly loving, extravagantly loving, throwing him a party better than any of the ones the son had wasted his money on. And so this prodigal, wasteful son is just no match for God’s prodigal, extravagant love. And that is the full, prodigal, extravagant truth.
It was true that the son did tremendous harm to himself and others. It was even true what his older brother would say: the rule-following son didn’t get a party for not wasting his grace, because it’s even more true that living in God’s house is its own wonderful ongoing reward. And the most prodigal, extravagant truth that should never leave us in Lent or at any time is that God has so much love for you that you cannot possibly waste any amount of his love that he will not have even more love for you. He’ll let you walk away, give you the freedom to reject him and his ways, and once you realize it and wonder what to do to get closer to God, before you know it, he is interrupting your plans with his prodigal love—a hug, a kiss, and a party.
It is excessively true that you can really screw your life up and the lives of a lot of people by taking your grace for granted and defying God, and yet God’s grace is far more bottomless than your rock bottom. The full truth is God’s mercy is running out to meet us faster than we can meet him, as he cries into our shirt right into our heart, “I thought I’d lost you.”
“You thought you needed another scheme for me to love you? Don’t be silly. We’re here to celebrate. I was never upset because you wasted my grace. I was upset because I thought I lost you.”
“You think I’d be mad because you misplaced some of my grace? There’s more of that where that came from. I didn’t want to lose you. I let you go because I love you enough to let you be free, but I never stopped waiting for you to turn back home.”
However far from home you are, whether just a few steps or so very far, there’s nothing to scheme to get back home. You are the last thing God wants to lose and the first thing God wants to find. Believe that. And when you get back home and you’ve been welcomed, then don’t be like your older brother; help your Father out by throwing another prodigal party for your next brother walking back home. It’s true we were lost. But it’s even more true that in Him, we are found.
