Lost and Found

Jesu Juva

St. Luke 15:1-3, 11-32                                                        

March 27, 2022

Lent 4C                                      

Dear saints of our Savior~ 

          A man had two sons. You know this story. The older son inherits the land; the younger son inherits enough money to go off and buy land somewhere else. The older son is dutiful, a “good son,” a “religious son,” who does everything his father asks. But the younger son is impulsive, independent, headstrong. He’s the one who gets in trouble.
          It’s a parable of repentance and rejoicing. Jesus told this parable to people who were grumbling about the company He kept. Jesus had the audacity to sit and sup with sinners—you know, the losers, the riff-raff, tax collectors, street walkers. Not the types you see in the synagogue or in the temple.  Jesus sinners doth receive—dirty, despicable sinners. Jesus ate with them; and the religious elite hated Him for that.

          He told them a parable.  A man had two sons. The younger son couldn’t wait for his father to die. He said, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” In other words, “Dad, you’re worth more to me dead than alive, and since you don’t look like you’re going to keel over any time soon, just sign over the inheritance check now and let me hit the road.” In other words, “Dad, drop dead.” And the father granted the request.

          It didn’t take son number two very long to hitch a ride off to a distant country, far away from his father, his brother, his home. And far from home and family, that young man did what so many young men have done. He squandered everything. We don’t know how. “Reckless living,” it says. No details provided. Wine? Women? Gambling? Who knows? What it boiled down to was no money. Inheritance gone.

          To make matters worse, a famine broke out in that country. Problems always seem to come in bunches, don’t they? (You lose your job, the kids get sick, the car breaks down…Happy Monday!) The young man had no money and no food; he’s broke and homeless. He gets a job slopping hogs—which is about as bad as it gets for a good Jewish boy. Pigs were unclean, remember. And you know you’ve hit rock bottom when pig food starts to make your mouth water.

          Hungry, broke, lost, stinking like a pig sty, “he came to.” “My father’s hired servants are better off than this. They have food and a roof over their heads. I’m going to go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.” And off he went back home.

          He probably wondered whether his father would take him back . . . or whether he would turn his back on his son. Would he be disowned?  There were no guarantees on this young man’s road of repentance. No assurances that his plan would meet with success. He just went to the only place he knew: He went home.

          That’s what repentance is—returning home, where you belong. You’ve been away in a far country. You stink. You’re broke. You’re hungry. You’re alone and ashamed. You want to be home again. You want to be in your Father’s house, where you belong.  If you know what that feels like, then good—because that’s repentance.

          When he was still far off, just a little speck on the horizon, his father saw him. You see, he’d been watching, looking down that road every day for his son. He recognized the boy. He had compassion. He ran down the road – something no self-respecting middle-eastern father would have done – and ran up to him—this boy stinking of pigs—and he embraced him and kissed his filthy cheeks. And the boy can barely get his little speech out. He only makes it halfway through: “Father, I’ve sinned against heaven and before you…” while his father nearly smothers him in his arms and is calling out to the servants for the finest robe and the family ring and shoes for his blistered feet. And he’s ordering servants around to kill the

fattened calf and call the musicians and gather the people for a party. My son, my son, my son. He was dead and he’s alive again; he was lost and he’s found. And the music started and the wine flowed and the party began.

          There are no deals to be made in the arms of our heavenly Father. No quid pro quo.  No penalties to pay.  No interrogation (“are you really, really sorry?”).  And any confession we make, is made in the embrace of our Father’s forgiveness. We don’t earn our way home with promises to “make things right;” we are simply received, welcomed home with open arms.

          This parable really is first about Jesus Himself. Jesus is the Son who left His royal throne, the home of His Father, emptied Himself of all the perks and privileges of being the only Son of the Father, took on our human Flesh and humbled Himself in the lostness of our death. Jesus didn’t squander the inheritance; we did. We all did. We all do. You do.  “Reckless living” is what we do best. Jesus stepped into the pig pen of our sin, our mess, our muck and mire. He was baptized into it. He was crucified in the midst of it. He was buried in it. And having risen from the dead, He goes back home to the Father to be received at His right hand, with a Eucharistic feast thrown in His honor.

          This parable is about you too: You the penitent. You who are sorry for your sins.  You baptized into the Son of God. You in Christ embraced by the Father. You clothed in Christ and forgiven, called to be a child of God. You are that prodigal son—lost and found, dead and alive. God’s Son has found you, claimed you, redeemed you, raised you, clothed you, fed you, forgiven you. It’s because of Jesus that the Father loves you and embraces you and welcomes you. You don’t reek of your sins; you smell like Jesus. You’re not soiled with the mess you’ve made, you’re washed whiter than snow with the blood of the Lamb.

          Don’t forget, there’s an older brother. He’s not at the party but out in the field, doing his work. He hears the sounds of celebration. He smells the roasted meat. He approaches the house and asks a servant. “Hey, what’s going on?” And the servant tells him, “Your brother has returned, and your father is throwing a party for him. He’s safe and sound.”

          And the older brother is furious. He refuses to come near the party. He wants nothing to do with it. Even when his father comes out and pleads with him, he won’t. He says, “Look, I’ve slaved for you all these years, I’ve done everything you asked me, I’ve never gotten into trouble, never done anything wrong, never disobeyed a single command, and you never even gave me so much as a goat so I could party with my friends. But when this son of yours, who wasted everything on prostitutes slinks home, you throw a party for him.”

          But the father won’t let him off so easily. “Son (notice that the father never disowns his sons), you’re always here, always with me, everything I have is yours. But it’s good, right, and salutary that we should celebrate. Your brother was dead and is alive, he was lost and is found. We had to celebrate.”

          And there the story ends. We’re left hanging. Will the older son join the party or not? Will he join his younger brother to feast at the expense of his father’s prodigal mercy? Or will he stew in his anger and resentment outside of a party to which he’s invited? Will he rejoice at the lavish grace of a father who forgives both his sons, the good one and the bad one, who welcomes home the lost, who justifies the sinner?

          At the end of the parable, which son is lost? The commandment keeper. The religious son. The one who did all the right things for all the wrong reasons. And in the end, what keeps him out of the party? Not the father! He’s begging him to come. Not his brother! He has only himself to blame if he’s excluded.

          Jesus told this parable to the religious elite, who imagined that they didn’t need to repent and who looked down on those who did.  We who are lifelong Christians—we who have literally grown up in the Father’s house—we run the same risk when we begin to imagine that a place in His house is earned—that sinners need to clean up and smell nice and pay off their debts before they are welcomed home in the church.  Only those who see themselves as sinners will rejoice in the repentance of a sinner. Only those who see the rebel in themselves, will join this party of rogues and rebels and sinners called the church.

          Jesus our Brother, the Father’s Son, He went to the depths to save us. He was lost but is found. He was dead but now lives forevermore. And you are found alive in Him. And the Father simply has to celebrate.

          In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.