4th Week in Lent, 1st Cong UCC, Rock Springs, WY

God, Founder of Extravagant Welcome
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational Church, Rock Springs, WY 3/14/2010
Luke 15: 1-3, 11-32


Today’s parable found in the Gospel reading is one of the most popular story’s found in the teachings of Jesus. It is a story that I learned early on in Sunday school and have heard frequently from the pulpit over the years. And it should be told and retold often, for it is one of the best story’s relating the act of reconciliation. It is a story that allows the reader the ability to relate with all three of the characters. With this story being so familiar to me and wishing to seek view points of others on this parable, I found myself calling my son one afternoon and asking him for his understanding of this story. I had hopes he would spur some new light on this story that I had yet to see within my own reading and study.
We had a great discussion over this parable, which to my way of thinking is the whole purpose of a parable to begin with; that of being a springboard toward discernment. The view that my son Steven, presented centered on the act of “repentance” by the younger son, thereby invoking “reconciliation” by the father. The story speaks to each of us, as a sinful person needing to recognize our sinful state (that out of step relationship to God) before we can receive the forgiving grace of God. I can tell you this is the point of view that I received growing up and one that you will hear in many Evangelical pulpits when this parable is dealt with. And I think it is a reasonable way of dealing with this text as it is subtitled, “The Prodigal Son”, for the subtitle of this parable presents the focus to be on the younger son.
One of the observations that I immediately relate within this parable is the fact that the son’s view is not necessarily the view of his father. I learned many, many years ago, my way of thinking wasn’t necessarily the way that any one of my three children would think. My standards and viewpoints were not automatically their standards and their view points. I shared with you my son’s viewpoint on this parable, which is very consistent with a large portion of Evangelical Christians in this country. Let me share with you now, my viewpoint of today’s text.
There are certain Biblical scholars as well as theologians like myself who believe the title of this parable, “The Prodigal Son”, completely throws off the focus of what the story is trying to say to us. The story’s focus and main character in this teaching is stated at the beginning, “A certain man had two sons.” The real focus of this story is that of the father and of his behavior. So if we were to change the subtitle of the parable from “The Prodigal Son” to “The Prodigal Father”, it will be a little easier for us to examine what is going on and rethink the meaning of this parable.
About four years ago, the United Church of Christ presented to the public a vision of who we are as a faith community, with the “God Is Still Speaking” campaign. This vision is truly a mission statement and one that all of our churches can grab hold of should they chose to do so. Out of this campaign the phrase, “A church of Extravagant Welcome” has become our battle cry! It just so happens that this coming April, there is going to be a new commercial about “who we are” being aired. Not on any of the Prime time T.V. stations which pretty much refused to show them originally, but rather through the internet, such as through YouTube and other hosts that use the “internet” as mass communications.
The Lectionary Commentator suggests that the word “Prodigal” can be interpreted as “recklessly extravagant”. You see, this parable is a story about “reckless extravagance”, a story of the high cost of being extravagant. It’s not just a story of how the younger son recklessly used up his inheritance in a far off land, but a story of “reckless giving” by the father toward his son’s. Yes, I said son’s, for it is an often over looked fact that both boys received their share of inheritance from their father at the same time. The study guide for this week’s lectionary text that is on the UCC website sums it up this way, “Yes, the son wastes his inheritance on a good time in a distant land, but the father seems just as free and even wasteful in lavishing his wealth on a son who comes home not in sincere repentance but in calculated self-interest.”
I would like to share just a few points found in this story from a historical cultural perspective as a way to see more clearly just how extravagant the father was in this story and how it can more easily relate to us in our own lives. Once, when members of the news media brought up to Prince Charles the prospect of his ascending to the throne of England, he stopped the conversation cold when he said, “Gentlemen, you are speaking of the death of my mother.”UCC study site. You see, when the younger son was demanding his inheritance, the message that was being sent to the father was, “you are dead to me, and I want what is mine.” The older son would normally act as a mediator of this riff between the father and younger son, but chooses to remain silent and also received his share of the inheritance. This suggests that the relationship between the older son and his father was lacking as well, for the original listeners would have expected to hear the older son verbally refusing his inheritance until his father had actually died.
The younger son breaks ties with the larger community by “going to a far off land.” When the younger son is coming back home asking for food and shelter, it is seen by the larger community as a offense, for this son had gone off into the land of the Gentiles and wasted his wealth (or more directly, wasted his birth right) among the gentiles.
There was an established practice that all the members of a family continue to live on the estate after the father’s death. This was ignored by the younger son leaving for the far off land and also through the older son’s expressing offense with this father’s invitation to his younger brother to come back and live on the estate. The actions of both sons were serious breaches of social norms in that culture.
Lastly, the act of the father going out and “running” to greet his youngest son was unheard of at that time. It was considered inappropriate behavior for a man of that age and stature to have been running in public, let alone the impropriety of giving ones personal wealth to the heirs before he dies.
These are just a few of the main cultural expectations of the day that the first listeners would have used to filter the story that Jesus was telling them. The story in itself was spoken in response to the religious leaders of the day, who were questioning the recklessly extravagant behavior of Jesus as he was sitting and dinning with sinners and tax collectors, or what I like to refer to as “those types of people that are not thought good enough to be associated with the ‘polite society’.”
So where are we at today, within the context of this story? Are we guilty of being recklessly extravagant? Are we the father who is running out to greet our child who is coming back home? Are we the older son who is willing to accept our sibling back home but on our terms? Are we the younger child who is coming back home with selfish motives? I suspect we are pretty much all three of these people at various times in our lives.
One last observation that I would like to mention in the return of this younger son, is when the father welcomes back home his son and the son accepts this welcome, the message being delivered to us is the father no longer is dead, but has come back to life again. This is a part of the Easter story, that of resurrection, a new life that comes through the act of “reconciliation.”
The message I hope we at First Congregational are giving to Rock Springs, is the same message that of the larger family of the United Church of Christ is speaking, that of: “God is the founder of Extravagant Welcome.” We have heard the message and I hope we not only wish to continue to proclaim it but also to try and live it. The cost is not cheap! It cost the father his life in the eyes of his children, but once there is reconciliation, there is rebirth, a resurrection in the life of that relationship between parent and child.
Not everyone will be willing to pay the price for this type of reconciliation, for some the cost of being open and accepting, that of turning loose of our prejudices is too extravagant. There are those who can only provide reconciliation with conditions, just like the older son, and that is just the way it will be.
The “Good News” is, God always comes running to greet us when we are ready to come back home; even when our return is cloaked in self-serving motives. God reconciles us back into the family with “unconditional love.” So one of the costs for us in providing an extravagant welcome is the “letting go of the conditions” that we want to place on others in order for them to be a part of this family of God. Let us all become “recklessly extravagant”, let us all become like the father of in this parable, let us become “Prodigal’s” of love! Amen