A Sermon on the Prodigal Son
Fourth Sunday of Lent, cycle C, Mar 21-22, 1998
by Most Rev. Dr. Robert M. Bowman,
Joshua 5: 9-12
Psalm 34: 2-7
2 Corinthians 5: 17-21
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32
Life isn’t fair. Have you ever noticed? Sometimes it seems like it’s the mean and selfish people who prosper. Good guys finish last.
This seems particularly noticeable when it comes to children. It always outrages me to see parents coddling and bribing nasty, whiny brats. Especially when there are other children being good and getting no attention whatsoever. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
A few nights ago, I happened to see some of the TV show, "Everybody loves Raymond." His little girl was being a real pill — disobedient, arrogant, belligerent, you name it. Ray’s mother comes in and sees what’s going on and gives the little monster a piece of candy, which does absolutely nothing to change her behavior. All you can think is, "What that kid needs is a good smack on the fanny!"
If you have ever harbored such thoughts, then maybe you can relate to the frustration of the older brother of the Prodigal Son.
How many of you are the firstborn son or daughter in your family? You’re the responsible one right? Jesus knew his psychology. Us firstborns are always the responsible ones. And how many of you had a bratty, happy-go-lucky, irresponsible little brother or sister come after you? Uh, huh. Absolutely. I mean, is there any other kind?
Let’s face it. When the Prodigal Son asked his father for his inheritance and then went off to blow it on wine, women, and song ... is there any reason for us to think that this was the guy’s first irresponsible act? Of course not! This kid had undoubtedly been shirking his duties and letting his big brother shoulder the burden for eighteen years. He probably got more attention with his whining and his misbehavior than his big brother ever got by being good.
Isn’t there anybody here who can identify and sympathize with the older brother? Yet he’s been the "heavy" in this story for two thousand years. Like I said, life isn’t fair. (Sarah, I know you can identify with this story!)
Of course, others of you may identify with the younger brother. Maybe you’ve made mistakes and come to regret them. You don’t want people to hold those mistakes over your head forever. How many of you have had the experience of having a spouse or a sibling or a parent or a boss bring up the same past sin of yours over and over again? Sometimes you just want to scream, "Look, I said I was sorry! What do you want, blood?? Can’t we just drop it? How many years am I going to have to pay for that mistake?"
Probably all of us have felt like that at one time or another. Our loved ones are only human. Even though they know they’re not supposed to, every once in a while, they descend to dredging up the past. And it makes us resentful and angry that they can’t forgive and forget. But then again, that gives us something to forgive them for.
The Prodigal Son was probably always being reminded by his older, "responsible" brother of his failings. (That may be why he wanted to leave home in the first place.)
I know you second children out there can identify with the Prodigal Son. But in a way, we all can, because we’re all sinners.
Now, how many of you can identify with the father in the story? I know I can. It doesn’t matter what your children do, they’re still your children, and you love them. Sometimes they hurt you. (Some of ours have hurt us badly.) Sometimes children seem to reject you and everything you stand for. Yet you leave the door open for them to repent and come back. And you forgive, and welcome them back.
Oh, we don’t do it as well as the father in the story. After all, Jesus used him as a symbol of his Father in Heaven. But even in our humanity, we possess a little of the mercy and goodness of God. He did make us in His image.
So the story reminds us that our ability to forgive our children is a faint reflection of the infinite mercy and goodness of God. Remember our entrance song: "Loving and forgiving are you, O Lord; slow to anger, rich in kindness, loving and forgiving are you."
So in the story of the Prodigal Son, there are several things going on. There is the sincere repentance of the son. When coupled with the mercy and love of the father, this brings about reconciliation. At the same time, there is the understandable resentment of the older son. This resentment stands in the way of his being reconciled to his brother. We’re not told where the story goes from here, but it is clear that if the older son does not relent and be reconciled, that will become a barrier between him and his father.
In the same way, if we harbor resentments and refuse to be reconciled to our brother, sister, spouse, parent, whatever ... this can become a barrier between us and the love of our heavenly Father. It’s not that God rejects us because of our lack of reconciliation, but that it causes us to reject God. The father in the story didn’t withdraw his love from the older son. He pleaded with him to join the party. He said, "I am with you always, and everything I have is yours." That is what God says to us. But the older son seems to be telling his father, "If you love him, then you don’t love me." If the older son persists in forcing his father to choose between them, he will lose. The father will reject neither. He will open his arms to both. But if the older son refuses to be reconciled, he will walk away from his father.
Is there someone out there you are harboring resentments against? Is there someone you are unwilling to forgive? Is there someone you refuse to be reconciled with?
That is the critical question, for ours is a religion of reconciliation. In today’s reading, St. Paul says, "All this has been done by God, who has reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation. I mean that God, in Christ, was reconciling the world to himself, not counting men’s transgressions against them, and that he has entrusted the message of reconciliation to us. ... We implore you, in Christ’s name: be reconciled to God." (and each other).
I would like to close by reading you the following true story of an attempt at reconciliation. It was originally published in Guideposts Magazine in 1972.
It was in a church in Munich that I saw him — a balding, heavyset man in a gray overcoat, a brown felt hat clutched between his hands. People were filing out of the basement room where I had just spoken, moving along the rows of wooden chairs to the door at the rear. It was 1947 and I had come from Holland to defeated Germany with the message that God forgives.
It was the truth they needed most to hear in that bitter, bombed-out land, and I gave them my favorite mental picture. Maybe because the sea is never far from a Hollander’s mind, I liked to think that that’s where forgiven sins were thrown. "When we confess our sins," I said, "God casts them into the deepest ocean, gone forever. And even though I cannot find a scripture for it, I believe God then places a sign out there that says, ‘NO FISHING ALLOWED.’"
The solemn faces stared back at me, not quite daring to believe. There were never questions after a talk in Germany in 1947. People stood up in silence, in silence collected their wraps, in silence left the room.
And that’s when I saw him, working his way forward against the others. One moment I saw the overcoat and the brown hat; the next, a blue uniform and a visored cap with its skull and crossbones. It came back with a rush: the huge room with its harsh overhead lights; the pathetic pile of dresses and shoes in the center of the floor; the shame of walking naked past this man. I could see my sister’s frail form ahead of me, ribs sharp beneath the parchment skin. Betsie, how thin you were!
The place was Ravensbruck and the man who was making his way forward had been a guard — one of the most cruel guards.
Now he was in front of me, hand thrust out: "A fine message, Fraulein! How good it is to know that, as you say, all our sins are at the bottom of the sea!"
And I, who had spoken so glibly of forgiveness, fumbled in my pocketbook rather than take that hand. He would not remember me, of course — how could he remember one prisoner among those thousands of women?
But I remembered him and the leather crop swinging from his belt. I was face-to-face with one of my captors and my blood seemed to freeze.
"You mentioned Ravensbruck in your talk," he was saying. "I was a guard there." No, he did not remember me.
"But since that time," he went on, "I have become a Christian. I know that God has forgiven me for the cruel things I did there, but I would like to hear it from your lips as well. Fraulein" — again the hand came out — "will you forgive me?"
And I stood there — I whose sins had again and again needed to be forgiven — and could not forgive. Betsie had died in that place — could he erase her slow terrible death simply for the asking?
It could not have been many seconds that he stood there — hand held out — but to me it seemed hours as I wrestled with the most difficult thing I had ever had to do.
For I had to do it — I knew that. The message that God forgives has a prior condition: that we forgive those who have injured us. "If you do not forgive men their trespasses," Jesus says, "neither will your Father in Heaven forgive your trespasses."
I knew it not only as a commandment of God, but as a daily experience. Since the end of the war I had had a home in Holland for victims of Nazi brutality. Those who were able to forgive their former enemies were able also to return to the outside world and rebuild their lives, no matter what the physical scars. Those who nursed their bitterness remained invalids. It was as simple and horrible as that.
And still I stood there with the coldness clutching my heart. But forgiveness is not an emotion — I knew that too. Forgiveness is an act of the will, and the will can function regardless of the temperature of the heart. Jesus, help me! I prayed silently. I can lift my hand. I can do that much. You supply the feeling.
And so woodenly, mechanically, I thrust my hand into the one stretched out to me. And as I did, an incredible thing took place. The current started in my shoulder, raced down my arm and sprang into our joined hands. And then this healing warmth seemed to flood my whole being, bringing tears to my eyes.
"I forgive you, brother!" I cried. "With all my heart."
For a long moment we grasped each other’s hands — the former guard and the former prisoner. I had never known God’s love so intensely as I did then. But even so, I realized it was not my love. I had tried, and did not have the power. It was the power of the Holy Spirit.
Corrie ten Boom
Holocaust Survivor
That, my brothers and sisters, is reconciliation. It is the essence of Christianity. Is there someone out there you need to be reconciled with?
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for having reconciled us to yourself. We ask that you send your Spirit upon us to enable us to reconcile with each other. When we are like the Prodigal Son, help us to repent and to seek reconciliation. When we are like the father, help us dispense mercy generously. And when we are like the older son, help us cast off our resentments and jealousies and our feelings of superiority. Enable us to humbly seek and accept reconciliation with those you have generously forgiven. Send us your Holy Spirit to help us forgive as well.
We ask this in the name of Jesus, our reconciler and our Lord. Amen.
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