Jared Stoltzfus: Two sons; two points of view

March 14, 2010
Lent 4: Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

Jared K. Stoltzfus is the pastoral intern at Park View Mennonite for the 2009-2010 school year. He is a second-year MDiv student at Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

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Today we encounter one of the most, if not the most, familiar parables of Jesus. Not only is this true in the church but perhaps in also very true of outside the church. Most of the time when we have thought or heard about this text is had been from the point of view of the son who was lost and is now found. This makes sense if, we just think that that this parable carries on the theme of the other two preceding it, the lost sheep and the lost coin. However, this reading seems to only capture half of what is going on in this parable. This is not just a father with one son; this is father with two sons. He has an older son too, not just the impatience younger that asks for his inheritance before his father is dead. This parable is not just a nice story about how much God loves us; this story has something very serious to say about how we view others as well.
BODY:

2 Corinthians 5:16-21- A new point of view

We need to start building a new set of lenses to look at the Gospel text and so I want to first turn our attention to the Epistle reading. This is no doubt another familiar passage that has lost a lot of its punch. This concept of a new creation has no doubt been drilled into our heads, at the price of it becoming less than exciting or true. However, this passage is truly extraordinary. We don’t have to go very far in it to see some remarkable things. For one we know longer have a human point of view, we no longer look at things like a human. The Greek here translates to something like “according to the flesh.” We no longer look at this like this, our bodies; our human minds would look at things. That is what Paul seems to be labeling as the “old.” Instead we are new, we have been given a new point of view, something outside of our human understanding. Perhaps this is a simple transformation of human thoughts into proper thoughts, or perhaps it is a radical reorientation to the things of God, which far exceeds what we could come up with. It is a reorientation to the things of God, and not the things of the flesh, of humans.

I think it is now, with these beginning concepts in mind, of a transformed point of view that we can enter into the Gospel reading, a story of a father and two sons.

A Father and his Two Sons

Like I said earlier this parable is third in a string in chapter 15. The whole discourse that Jesus gives here begins with the framing of verses 1 and 2 of chapter 15. The chapter starts with grumbling at Jesus for some very questionable practices, at least in the eyes of the Pharisees. Jesus was eating with tax collectors and sinners. Scum of scum in Jewish society. Tax collectors collaborated with the occupying forces of Rome and made a profit of their fellow Jew. Sinners were just plain unclean. They had broken laws, set up by the Pharisees and were therefore cast to the sides. Already in these first few verses we see the beginnings of two different points of view. We have the establishment point of view, and we have what Jesus is doing.

As we enter into the story we are introduced to a man, who has two sons. The younger one comes to his father and demands his inheritance. A bold move for the son, not only because his father isn’t dead yet but because he is after all the younger son. It was not his place to ask for such things. Nevertheless, the father gives him what he asks for. And in a few days this son picks up and leaves. He gathers everything of his and leaves, and goes off to a distance country, no doubt a gentile one. What does he do there he squanders all of the money, spends it on dissolute living, wild living, living in excess. He goes out and blows it and he his left with nothing. Now a famine comes upon the land and he is really up a creek without a paddle. He hires himself out and is reduced to feeding pigs, the worse and most unclean of all creatures. Yet he is so hungry he dreams about eating what the pigs are eating.

At this point the younger son comes to his sense and realizes a couple of things. One that his father’s hired hands are a lot better off than he is. Two that he has sinned and three that it would be better to acknowledge his sin and be treated as a servant or slave in his father’s household than dream of eating pig slop. And so he gets up and heads back to his father.

Now the scene switches to the father, waiting, And as he looks into the distance he sees someone coming, and soon he realizes who it is. It is his son. The one who took his money and left his family. But even though he is a long way off he runs to him, greets him with a kiss and lavishes his love upon him. The son tries to get out the words he rehearsed but the father tells his servants to go get a robe, ring, and fattened calf, there is going to be a party.

We could stop here and this would be a wonderful story about a father’s love. We could feel all warm and fuzzy knowing how extravagant the father’s love his for his children. I think that we have come to expect that sermon. We know its twists and turns and we are comfortable with that message. Now it is true that the father’s love is wonderful and extravagant. I am not denying that reality. I just want us to go deeper and wrestle with the issues that extravagant love raises. To do that we must enter scene three; the older son.

The older son enters the stage to a party. He has been out working and did not see his brother coming home. He asks around and finds out that his brother, the one who squandered everything is back, and his father has killed the fattened calf for him. This ticks the older son off and he stands outside the party refusing to go in. Now here is an interesting move. The father does not let him outside; he goes to the older son, wanting to bring him into the party. The older son vents. “That son of yours”, he says, has done some terrible things. He wasted all your money, on prostitutes and now he comes back and you throw him a party. I have been hear the whole time. Working myself to death for you and want do I get nothing, not even a little goat? This is not fair, this is not right. The father replies, “Son you are always with me, everything that is mind is yours.

A Different Point of View- A lingering question.

That is where the story ends, and we are left with a question, what did the brother do. Did he realize his father’s point and come in or did he stay on the outside. There is no point in trying to figure out the answer to this because there is no answer, which is still a question for us. With this older son Jesus looks at the Pharisees and confronts their intolerance and their strict definitions of who is in and who is out. Who you grumble about me eating with tax collectors and sinners, don’t your realize that God loves them too. Don’t your realize the joy and happiness when someone who is lost is found. Why do you stand on the outside with that human point of view, looking down on those who are unclean saying that have no hope of coming in to the feast. They have every hope; God’s love is extravagant, far more than you are willing to let it be. THAT is now FAIR they and we cry in protest. How can you let that SON OF YOURS back into the fold? He did real terrible things. Cast him out. To this Jesus says a resounding no. Our FAIR, our JUSTICE is from a human point of view. We would claim to be in, need to see with some different lenses. “THERE IS A NEW CREATION: EVERYTHING OLD HAS PASSED AWAY; SEE, EVERYTHING HAS BECOME NEW!!!” We are no longer supposed to be building ways and casting those out, we love with extravagance far beyond what we thought was possible. We are now ambassadors for CHRIST, ambassadors for RECOCILATION.

That question that lingers at the end of the text lingers now for us as well. We might have been the prodigal son or daughter at one time but that does not stop us from becoming that older son as well. We are now in the fold of God, are we as extravagance as God was to us, or have we turned our backs on our own reconciliation and instead turned to walls and barriers of the Pharisees? This parable never gets old and never losses and message. It meats all of us now and begs us to reflect on the question, will we come in. Our we willing to let God’s love be extravagant (as if we really have any say in that) or our we just going to stand on the outside with our human point of view screaming it isn’t fair, I want a fattened calf.

Response:

Once again we are now going to enter a time of confession. The question has been posed. I invite us to reflect on it and if we feel God’s call to repent, and bring it forward. Just like the last three weeks there is tissue paper in the blue folders in the pews. Take a piece, write something on it, or leave it blank, and come forward and place it in the water as the ensemble sings SOFTLY AND TENDERLY JESUS IS CALLING. After that song we will again join in singing the hymn of assurance STS 63 GOD FILL ME NOW VERSES 1 AND 2.


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