Reconciliation

Texts: Joshua 5:6-9; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11-31

This morning, on this Fourth Sunday in Lent – sometimes called Refreshment Sunday – we are given this very popular parable of the Prodigal (or Lost) Son, presumably to lift our spirits. That’s the idea of Refreshment Sunday. Lent is long and gloomy, and we have a sort of half-time break to strengthen us for the second half. What better then than this lovely story to give us some warm fuzzies.

And it does, doesn’t it? We might secretly think the old man is a bit soft on the boy – and we might secretly have some sympathy for the older brother’s point of view – but overall we rather like this story, because it has a happy ending and it doesn’t challenge us too much. We particularly like this story if we can identify with the younger son.

Think of him for a moment – what picture do we get of him? What do we think he’s been up to? The narrator says only that he had squandered his money on wild living. The elder brother fills in the blank for himself – he says his brother has squandered his money on prostitutes. What do we fill in the blank with?

Perhaps we think of him as a sort of student in Castle Street – basically a decent enough lad, but away from home for the first time and determined to have a bit of fun on a Friday or Saturday night. A bit of couch-burning, a wheely-bin derby, getting wasted, having sex, partying all night and upsetting the neighbours. But nothing too serious – just lads-being-laddish stuff. Sowing a few wild oats – getting it out of his system – all just wink-wink, nudge-nudge stuff. The sort of stuff that staid old men of my age like to pretend we got up to at his age.

Is that our image of this younger son? Or perhaps we prefer a somewhat more sophisticated image – more like Prince Harry for example. Occasionally glimpsed going in and out of high class clubs at all hours of the day and night, sometimes dressed in entirely inappropriate fancy dress. One of the smart set with money to burn. More irritating to us than the wild-eyed student variety, but again essentially harmless. He’ll grow up one day. In the meantime he’s just having fun – or wild living as the parable calls it.

If either of those models are close to the image we have of this younger son, then it’s not surprising that we miss the real punch of this parable. And this was brought home to me recently by a throwaway comment made by Professor Paul Trebilco, head of the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Otago University. The lecture was on St John’s Gospel not St Luke’s, but he referred to this parable, and in particular to the bit where the father sees his returning son in the far distance and runs to meet him. The usual interpretation of that is that the father was so overcome by joy and love that he forgot every other consideration and rushed to his son.

But according to Professor Trebilco there was another reason for this as well. The father was rushing to protect his son. From whom or what? From his kinsmen and villagers. He says that when we focus on what the younger son may have done or not done in the far distant land, we miss the real scandal of the story. In the culture of the time, the real offence committed by the younger son was in demanding his inheritance upfront while his father was alive, and abandoning his father and all his kinsmen. That would have brought huge dishonour on the whole clan; and if the kinsmen had seen this guy before his father did, they would have exercised a little vigilante justice. That, perhaps, gives us a better feel for the way in which Jesus’ listeners would have understood this story.

It doesn’t work for us because we are used to the young spreading their wings, doing their O.E., perhaps doing a few unwise or even dangerous things, before returning home and settling down. It’s no big deal. So perhaps we need to re-shape our image of the younger son before we can really enter into this story and get its full impact.

What if in the far distant country this younger son had been involved in gang rape, or child pornography, or terrorism, or drug-running, or any other conduct that you personally find utterly repulsive? Reflect for a moment on the community outrage when they discover that a convicted paedophile has moved into the neighbourhood – that seems to be the sort of reaction this young man could have expected when he returned home if his father hadn’t got to him first to protect him.

If we can get a handle on that, then we can begin to understand how amazing the Father’s welcome is – and the power of the story when Jesus first told it in response to criticism from the Pharisees and the teachers of the law that he welcomed sinners and ate with them. According to St Luke, Jesus responded with three stories, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and this one about the son.

But there is an essential difference between those first two stories and this one. When the sheep was lost, the shepherd went out to find it; when the coin was lost the woman searched the house to find it. But when the son was lost, nobody went after him, nobody tried to find him. The turning-point came when he himself realised it was time to turn his life around, for which the religious word is repentance, of course. Only when he faced up to what he had done and what he had become was reconciliation with his father possible.

And that involved a frank admission of his unworthiness. He recognised that he had sinned against God and against his own father, and, as a consequence, was no longer worthy to be called his son. But – true as that is – he is still the father’s son. He repudiated the relationship, but his father did not. So when the son returns, his father treats him as a son, not a servant. Neither he, the son, nor anyone else, could take away from the son his status as son.

And I was reminded of that particular truth just this week when I was preparing the service of confirmation for Amber & Hannah next week. I don’t want to give too much away in advance, but let me give you this sneak preview. Just before Bishop George lays his hands on these young women in confirmation, he ill pray a beautiful prayer, which begins like this: God of mercy and love, new birth by water and the Spirit is your gift, a gift none can take away.

And talking of Bishop George, those of you who were at St Barnabas four weeks ago may remember that he said something about baptism. He said the day of our baptism is the most important day in our life, didn’t he? Why is it so important? Because it is through baptism that we become children of the Father; and once we are children of the Father there is nothing that we can do or that anyone else can do that can take away that status from us. Baptism is our assurance that no matter how far away from God we may go, no matter what we do, when we come to our senses and return, we will receive the welcoming and protective embrace of the Father’s love and forgiveness.

I end with the words from St Paul:

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins again them.

That’s pretty refreshing, eh?