The Fourth Sunday in Lent

Many years ago, my younger brother ran away from home one day. He was about 11 at the time. Our father died a month before. We had sold the home in which we grew up and moved across town to a much smaller, affordable one right across from a cemetery. He was feeling the loss of a father, his friends and a familiar neighborhood.  When he didn’t come home from school, my mother enlisted the help of some folks to comb the neighborhood. A few hours later he was found—sitting in that cemetery across from our home.

I wonder if we’ve all been in that place—having a fantasy about or, in fact, actually running away from it all. We may have thought about what that far way place would look like. The problem is that, just as it was for the son in the story, it doesn’t take long for the distant country to use you up. Rarely is it life-giving, encouraging, and supportive. It might be fun for a while, but the fun can’t be sustained for too long.

Mild mannered high school chemistry teacher Walter White thinks his life can’t get much worse. His salary barely makes ends meet, a situation not likely to improve once his pregnant wife gives birth, and their teenage son is battling cerebral palsy.

After Walter learns he has terminal cancer and realizing that his illness will probably bankrupt his family, Walter makes a desperate bid to earn as much money as he can in the time he has left. He turns an old RV into a meth lab on wheels and becomes a ruthless player in the local drug trade.

Because of his drug-related activities, Walt eventually finds himself at odds with his family, the local gangs, and the Mexican drug cartels, putting his life at risk. This is the story line of the once popular TV series Breaking Bad. This morning, the Gospel of Luke offers us the story of another man who likewise made some bad life decisions. Walter White acted out of utter desperation, and I wonder if the younger son in this parable was so desperate, that he needed to run away and acted out the way he did.

This story of the Prodigal Son is probably one of the most familiar and reveals one of the most profound theological statements about God. This is not primarily a story about two sons. It is a story about a father who loved both of his children to distraction and who wanted them to love one another. In a sense, it’s really the father who is the “prodigal” since one definition of that word is “extravagant” and he certainly was— giving up his inheritance and radically then forgiving his son.

If we really want to understand what a punch this story packs, we need to read it in its context. It is one of three parables that Jesus tells in response to the mean-spirited grumblings of the Pharisees—the religious right of that time—because they caught him eating with people they considered to be sinners. The title “The Prodigal Son” suggests that the whole point is to see what happens to the young man who “breaks bad.”

It sets us up to delight in seeing that he gets what’s coming to him. “Serves him right,” we might think, “for leaving his father, demanding his share of the estate – actually wishing his father dead –and then squandering it all on reckless and extravagant living.”

But here we miss the point because it is really the story about a forgiving parent, a parent whose love is so strong that he forgets the past, forgets his child’s transgressions, and showers him with affection and mercy. It is a story told to assure us that God is willing to forgive us but even more than that – God welcomes us, embraces us, loves us “Just as I am—without one plea.”  

There is a real pearl in this parable that might be easily overlooked. Note that as soon as he caught sight of his son, the father ran—he didn’t stay put, he didn’t walk, he ran. Running may be cool in our present culture, but in Jesus’ time men did not run.

It was a sign that you had lost your dignity.

And now the real clincher: the father never says one single word to the Prodigal Son—no “I told you so,” no name-calling, no angry tirade. There is an embrace and a kiss—but no words. And, even more striking is that this boy, who has wasted his share of the inheritance putting his father’s security in jeopardy by squandering it, this kid never gets one word of his confession of guilt out of his mouth—until after the kiss, until after the embrace.

Preaching on the parable, Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor says it’s up to each one of us to finish the story, to decide “whether we will stand outside all alone being right, or give up our rights and go inside to take our place at a table full of reckless and righteous saints and scoundrels, sisters and brothers united only by our relationship to one loving father, who refuses to give us the love we deserve but cannot be prevented from giving us the love we need.”

The message Jesus wants us to hear on this Sunday when we rejoice in the approaching feast of Easter and the glory of spring: that we are loved just as we are, for who we are. Like other parables Jesus told about forgiveness and grace, it ends with celebration.

Hear this then: No matter how lost we may be, no matter how we dream of that far away country, no matter how we have been led astray, God is looking into the distance for us and longing to bring us home. No matter how much we’ve squandered, what we’ve done in desperation, all is forgiven. The party has no choice but to begin.

Now, a deep theological question for you:  Who was really sad that the Prodigal Son came home?

The Fatted Calf!