Coming Home

The Rev. Whitworth Ferguson III
Manassas Presbyterian Church
Manassas, Virginia
March 18, 2007
Fourth Sunday in Lent

Coming Home
Luke 15:11-32
2 Cor. 5:16-21

There was a man who had two sons.
The younger of them said to his father,
“Father, give me the share of the property
that will belong to me.”
So the father divided his property between them.
A few days later the younger son gathered all he had
and traveled to a distant country,
and there he squandered his property in dissolute living.

Let’s stop right there and look at this young man.
In less than fifty words, Jesus tells us so much,
and yet leaves so much unsaid.
The young man demands his inheritance from his father;
Demands it.
Demands it there and then.
No discussions, no conversation.
The father’s wealth consisted of goats, sheep,
camels and cows.
It was not money in the bank, not retirement accounts,
not even a home.
It consisted of things all around him.
But this young man wasn’t interested in being a farmer,
he wasn’t interested in looking after flocks or herds.
He was after a good time, and so he wanted money,
cash: silver and gold.

The very act of demanding his inheritance was so callous, so cold.
He was wishing his father dead, saying to him in effect,
“I don’t have the patience to wait for you to die,
give me what will be mine,
give it to me now,
and give it to me in cash.”

What was driving this young man?
Why was he doing this?
Did he hate family?
Did he look to the future and see such bleakness
that he shuddered with fear?
He must have felt so completely stultified,
so desperate to get out, get away.
Perhaps he was filled with a powerful urge
to experience life at its fullest,
like “those who go down to the sea in ships” (Psalm 107:23)
Whatever his motives, he was willing to leave his family,
his home,
everything;
And he didn’t care who he hurt in the process.

But of course, when a person of any age acts rashly,
acts purely from emotion,
acts without thinking through the consequences,
trouble usually looms on the horizon.

When he had spent everything,
a severe famine took place throughout the country,
and he began to be in need.
So he went and hired himself out
to one of the citizens of the country,
who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs.
He would gladly have filled himself with the pods
that the pigs were eating;
and no one gave him anything.

The young man went to work, hired himself out,
hired himself out for the only work he could find,
work that was degrading:
a Hebrew looking after pigs,
animals considered to be unclean.
But it was work, and a starving person
will do just about anything to fill his belly.
He was so hungry that he was tempted to eat
the food given the pigs.

But when he came to himself, he said,
“How many of my father’s hired hands
have bread enough and to spare,
but here I am dying of hunger!
I will get up and go to my father,
and I will say to him,
'Father, I have sinned against heaven
and before you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son;
treat me like one of your hired hands.'”
So he set off and went to his father.

He “came to himself”.
He woke up; the scales fell from his eyes.
He understood what he had done.
In coming to himself, the young man “repented”,
to use a word we hear a lot during Lent.
The word “repent” simply means
to turn from one way to another,
to turn from the life one is leading to a different life.
The old ways have passed and a new life has begun.
He had had enough of his prodigal ways,
his wild life.
He was ready to go home;
He was ready to go home even if it meant he would no longer
have a place of honor as the second son.
He was willing to go back, even if it was as a servant.

Can you picture the young man at this point:
gaunt from hunger,
his skin burned from the sun,
his clothes filthy and tattered,
his sandals falling apart from wear.

It is this figure that approached his father;
after an absence of ….how long?
Had it been months, or had it been years?
How long he had been away did not matter.
All that mattered was that
he was coming home
coming home, repentant,
seeking forgiveness.

But while he was still far off, his father saw him
and was filled with compassion;
he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him.
Then the son said to him,
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”

“I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
Just words?
Was the young man trying to “spin” his image,
to use today’s terminology?
I don’t think so; I think this was genuine.
Rembrandt’s magnificent painting of this scene
portrays the young man on his knees before his father
his face buried in his father’s robe
as his father embraced him with
a sense of tenderness that you can feel.

… the father said to his slaves,
“Quickly, bring out a robe – the best one –and put it on him;
put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
And get the fatted calf and kill it,
and let us eat and celebrate;
for this son of mine was dead and is alive again;
he was lost and is found!”
And they began to celebrate.

There was joy in the house,
joy in the father’s heart,
for his son had come home.
The father who had lost his son found him.
Yet how easy it would have been for the father to have said,
“You are no longer my son. Leave and don’t ever come back!”
He could have said, “You hurt me so deeply
that I am not sure I can forgive you.”
He could have said, “Explain yourself first,
and then perhaps we’ll talk about forgiveness.”

But the father said nothing;
he just embraced his son, enveloping him in love,
as he welcomed him home.
Unconditional acceptance,
unconditional love,
unconditional forgiveness.

But of course, that’s not the end of the story.
The man had two sons,
and Jesus turns our attention to the older son,
the one who remained at home,
the one who had always been faithful.

Now [the] elder son was in the field,
and when he came and approached the house,
he heard music and dancing.
He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.
The slave replied, “Your brother has come,
and your father has killed the fatted calf,
because he has got him back safe and sound.”
Then the elder son became angry and refused to go in.
His father came out and began to plead with him.
But he answered his father,
“Listen! For these years, I have been working like a slave for you,
and I have never disobeyed your command;
yet you have never given me even a young goat
so that I might celebrate with my friends.
But when this son of yours came back
who has devoured your property with prostitutes,
you killed the fatted calf for him!”

The older son was filled with bitterness and resentment,
fueled each day as he worked under the hot sun,
harvesting crops and tending animals.
The older son had been the dutiful son,
mindful of his responsibilities to his father,
and to his name.
The law assured him that he would inherit a “double portion”
of his father’s estate as the firstborn son. (Deut. 21:17)
But the wealth came with a price:
it came with responsibility,
duty, obligation.
The very idea that he might venture out
was never an option for the older son.

Yet how many times, do you suppose,
did the older brother’s mind
turn to the younger brother,
envious thoughts filling him
as he thought about what the
younger brother was doing,
the parties, the women, the wine:
all the fun the older brother
imagined his younger brother was having.
With each day resentment grew,
bitterness increased,
anger boiling over, aimed less and less at the brother,
and more and more at the father.
Thoughts filling his head:
“Where has my faithfulness got me?
What is my reward for having been obedient all these years?”

But the father responded so gently to the son:
“Son, you are always with me,
and all that is mine is yours.
But we had to celebrate and rejoice
because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life;
he was lost and has been found.”

We don’t know how the older son reacted to those words,
but probably not well;
He probably dismissed his father’s words
and went off to his room angry, brooding, sulking.
Did he hear “all that is mine is yours”?
If he had, it probably wasn’t good enough.
He wanted to be rewarded for his faithfulness,
for his obedience.
Just one goat for a party with his friends:
was that too much to ask of his father?

This story has become known as the
“return of the prodigal son.”
But it is much more than that.
It is the story of two brothers,
and in reality it is our story,
for there is a little of each brother in each of us.

We all have a bit of the younger brother in us,
the one who longs to break out and experience life to the fullest.
Don't we all think, from time to time,
that the grass looks considerably greener
in another person's yard?
It was Henry David Thoreau who wrote those famous lines
from his experience on Walden Pond:
“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately,
to front only the essential facts of life,
and see if I could not learn what it had to teach,
and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. …
I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.”
(Walden, 96-97)

And at the same time we all have some of the older son in us, too:
we have our responsibilities, our obligations, our duties
to families, friends, to this community,
to the world at large.

It wasn't just the younger who was lost;
both sons were lost.
The older was as lost as the younger.
He was caught up in his responsibilities and duties,
caught up in envy
caught up in anger,
caught up in resentment.
and more than a little self-righteousness.

The difference between the two is, of course,
that the younger recognized that he was lost,
recognized that he needed to turn away
from how he was living his life,
recognized that he needed to look to new life.

Only the younger one repented.
And through repentance,
only the younger one was able to experience
the amazing grace that comes through forgiveness
and redemption.

The father extended amazing grace to both his sons,
but only the younger son recognized it and accepted it.
and felt it and knew it.
And because he repented,
because he received forgiveness,
because he knew the promise of redemption,
his old life was gone,
a new life had begun.

A life that would make him more like his father
with each passing year.
Having received grace,
he could offer grace;
Having received forgiveness,
he could offer forgiveness;
Having received redemption,
he could offer redemption.

The writer Henri Nouwen once said,
“As long as we belong to the world,
we will remain subject to its ways
and expect to be rewarded for all the good we do.
But when we belong to God,
who loves us without conditions,
we can live as he does.” (Return of the Prodigal, 125)

To live as God lives;
to live as Christ lives:
Offering mercy
offering grace,
offering forgiveness
offering love.
Unconditional
unconditionally.

That's crossing the threshold
and coming home,
to a place where the old ways have passed
and new life has begun.

Amen