Lent 4, 2025

 We’ve had our cat for 5 years now.  He’s the cutest grey tuxedo cat who sleeps all day and most of the night, too.  He doesn’t really tolerate being petted.  He often nips at us if we try to show him some affection.  But if he sees me pat Sterling on the back or ruffle his hair, he is suddenly jealous that someone else is getting love and attention and he isn’t.  Jealousy isn’t just a human emotion. Maybe that is why it is so powerful.  It takes us to an animal place in our brains that doesn’t make sense but can have a huge impact on us. 

It is so easy to relate to any of the characters.  Any of us could place ourselves anywhere in the story.  There is the younger son who goes out on his own.  No matter how good we are, we have at times blazed our own trail and forged a new path.  We have gone away to find ourselves or wandered away where we knew better than to go.  We have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. We are all the younger brother.

There is the Father, worrying, wondering, agonizing over his lost son.  People tell me that worry for your children doesn’t end when they leave home.  There is always some connection with our children.  So when the son comes back, the father is overjoyed.  He overflows with love and generosity and doesn’t hold back.  We are all the loving father.

There is the older son, working hard, faithful, steadfast, but also jealous and resentful.  We’ve all worked hard and had our work taken for granted.  We’ve all seen people rewarded who didn’t deserve it.  We’ve all pouted in the corner while the party went on.

There is something so true about this story, that family can be so aggravating, with the roles we play and the hurts we harbor.  There is nothing like family to link us together in the strongest of bonds and send us to opposite ends of the earth with the damage it inflicts.  And we all play our role in our families.  Sometimes it seems no matter how many times we tell ourselves we won’t react or let that person get to us, the same thing happens again.  Why are we so surprised when our family members behave the way they always do?

Really this parable has no resolution.  The older son is pouting outside the party.  The father is pleading for him to come in.  The younger son is celebrating, but will he pull the same stunt again, disappear only to reappear with his tail between his legs?

Jesus is telling this story to people who have been complaining about how he relates to tax collectors and sinners.  He is trying to hold up a mirror to them so they can step back a little and see the situation more clearly.  He wants to help them let go of their resentment, which is hurting themselves most of all—they are missing the party.  And their behavior is hurting the community, which needs to be in close relationships, which works best when everyone is enjoying the celebration together.

In this parable we find a generous father.  God has enough for everyone.  God has enough love, enough mercy and forgiveness, enough food and festivities.  God has provided all that both of these sons have, and all the servants and their families.  There is enough.  God doesn’t need the older son to uphold his honor.  God doesn’t need all the faithful ones to be policing the others to say who is good enough or who deserves a party.  God wants us all to be there, we are all invited, so why do we complain about the undeserving?

The older son thinks he has earned the right to claim he is better than his brother, that he has earned his father’s inheritance.  Neither earned anything—their father did the work to build up the wealth of the household.  In the same way, God has created everything on this earth and people have collected and processed the goods of the earth to make them usable.  Still we claim to own them and use our money to stake that claim.  We feel we deserve nice things.  Sometimes we take an entitled attitude. The older brother doesn’t seem to understand that the same grace that is extended to his brother is extended to him.  Sometimes we forget that everything we have is a gift from God, that the same grace that has been extended to the foreigner and the poor and the released prisoner and the person receiving a bag of food from Zarephath has been extended to us.  We are all recipients of God’s grace.  Just some of us accept it with humility and others of us feel entitled to it. Sometimes we all forget that it isn’t about parties and cloaks and rings, but what really matters is relationship. We can set aside our jealousy and accept our place in God’s family with all the other rif raf.  God’s love is not a pie that if our brother gets a slice, there is less for us.  God’s love is infinite and when our brother receives love, that is good for us all.

In this parable we find that both sons have been lost to the father.  One ran off and who knows how he spent the money.  He took his inheritance before he had any right to it and now it is gone.  This son has been far away and hurt and hungered from his distance from his father.  The older son, too, is lost, distant from his father.  He feels entitled to have celebrations for himself.  He feels entitled to the fatted calf.  He feels entitled to his father’s approval.  And he feels entitled to judge his brother, who he won’t even claim as a brother in the reading.  He calls him, “That son of yours!”  He is in broken relationship with his brother and he is in broken relationship with his father and it is hurting all three.

We don’t know the end of this story, but Jesus tells it in hopefulness that people can change.  He has constantly commanded repentance.  That is what lent is all about, turning in a new direction.  Jesus is hopeful that can happen.  The younger son already repented.  He came running back to his dad, ready to be a servant in his household.  He has humbled himself to receive even the crumbs from the table.

The older son hasn’t yet been ready to change direction.  He declares that he has never disobeyed a command from his father.  This sounds exactly like the rich man who came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life—that he has kept the commandments all his life.  Jesus tells him he lacks one thing—go and sell everything and give the money to the poor and then come and follow Jesus.  The rich man goes away sad because many of his possessions possessed him.  He loved his status and his comforts more than he loved following Jesus or being in a good relationship with others.  This older son says he has always done what he is told.  But he hasn’t humbled himself or noticed his father’s generosity.  He hasn’t wanted to extend that generosity to others.  He has wanted it for himself and his friends.  The status and party have been the goal for him, not the relationships.  So he hasn’t yet repented and come in to the party.

I choose to think this story is hopeful, even though we don’t know what happens next.  As Christians, we believe that we can change, that God can change us, that the gift of God’s grace can turn us around to receive and give love.  Our natural inclination may be toward jealousy and fear that there isn’t enough love to go around, but God has made us a little lower than the angels to overcome our jealous animal brains and rise above it.  We can examine our hurt feelings to find out what is really going on.  Remember last week, we talked about what we can change and what we can’t?  If you’re a tree, you can’t really water yourself and make yourself bear fruit.  In the story of the Prodigal Son, the older son can’t make the younger one more responsible and he can’t make his father less generous.  The only person he can change is himself. The same is true for us.  We can't change God’s generosity—that’s who God is.  We can’t change others’ behavior.  The only one we have control over is ourselves.  So are we going to the party or aren’t we?

We are invited to the celebration.  We may put away the celebratory “A” word in the season of Lent, but we still come to the celebration table.  We come to the celebration table with Jesus, a person born to unwed parents, with no place to lay his head, a refugee, an asylum-seeker, a convict, a rabble-rouser. We come to this celebration table with tax collectors and sinners, all the undeserving ones that Jesus welcomes.  That’s the thing about Jesus, he always brings his friends.  Yet we find when we look around that table, that there is plenty of room for everyone.  Even me, Jesus loves even me. Let’s put aside our hurt feelings and go celebrate with our siblings the feast of God’s love and grace!