Sermon for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, March 30, 2025
Joshua 5:9-12+Psalm 32+2 Corinthians 5:16-21+Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
There is an image floating around social media these days that shows a member of the Chicago Cubs rounding third base while a crowd of his teammates wait for him at home plate with joy and excitement on their faces. Obviously, the runner has hit a walk-off homerun, and his teammates are waiting for him to make it home to celebrate. The caption with this image is this:
I recently read about a man who collects pictures of hitters who had hit walk-off home runs. He said that the reason he did this is because this is how he views us entering heaven.[1]
It's a lovely way to imagine God and Jesus and St. Peter and all the people we have loved but see no more waiting for us to join them. The only problem with it is that I don't think we have to wait until we are dead to receive that kind of welcome home.
"...let us eat and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!" (Luke 15:23-24).
This son has come home, and there is the father waiting at home plate with open arms, ready to throw an epic party. This is not the story of a prodigal son. It is the story of a prodigal father who celebrates with abandon and his two sons who are lost, each in his own way.
What is Jesus up to in telling this story at this point in the narrative? He is on the road to Jerusalem, doing a lot of healing and a lot of teaching. Time is growing short, and the people around him still don't get what he's all about. They are using the old metric of sin and judgment and don't understand that God is just waiting for them to come home, to be restored.
This 15th chapter of Luke is all about lostness, and it helps us understand this story if we set it in context with the other ones about the lost sheep and the lost coin. Luke prefaces these parables with this explanatory note:
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Luke 15:1)
It seems pretty obvious that these grumblers don't know that they are lost, just like the older brother in today's parable doesn't know that he is lost. The shepherd will search high and low for that one sheep, and the woman will search under every piece of furniture for her coin, and the father will scan the horizon day after day waiting for the son who left, but it is the older son he goes looking for when he doesn't show up. The shepherd and the woman and the father are not concerned with what is correct or wise or worthwhile, they just want none to be lost.
In case I have not been clear enough, this does not require anything from us. We don't even have to realize that we are lost. What we do have to do is say yes to the invitation to return, to come to the party, to forget about deciding who is worthy and who is not. It is God who calls all the neighbors around and says, "Rejoice with me" because the one who was lost is now found. Our job is to show up.
And that is hard. There are plenty of people I'd rather not see at this great feast that Jesus talks about. I mean, God isn’t going to let them into this party, right? I'll just stand over here with my arms crossed and a sour expression on my face like the older brother appears in Rembrandt's masterpiece of this scene. It is one of my favorite paintings because you can see the story unfold right there on the canvas: an impoverished younger son kneeling at his father's feet dressed in rags and with one bare foot and holes in the sandal on the other. The father with the compassionate expression and soft hands caressing the young man. The older brother standing to the side looking on with disdain. Those in the background seem not to be quite sure what to make of the scene.
Remember that the younger son wasn't even sincere in his apology to his father. He just didn't want to eat pig slop anymore. Why is his father so forgiving when he has been rejected by one of his beloved children? The older brother was dutiful and obedient. What is wrong with that? The father loves both of his sons. Anyone who has ever been a parent can understand that. The older brother is not bad, but, as Frederick Buechner writes, "The fatted calf, the best Scotch, the hoedown could all have been his, too, any time he asked for them except that he never thought to ask for them because he was too busy trying cheerlessly and religiously to earn them."[2]
And there we have it. The old way of sin and punishment, of trying to earn God's favor, has been thrown out the window. We cannot earn God's love. It is ours already. We cannot lose God's love, because God will look for us until we are found. Sometimes we have to come to our senses like that younger brother, but even that is the working of the Spirit within us. Turn around. Come home. You were lost and now are found. You are a new creation in Christ. God will never give up on us but will come running towards us as we make our way home or will lead a search party of one until we are found.
Yes, Jesus ate with tax-collectors and sinners and Pharisees and yes, even each of us in all our uncertainty and busy-ness and worry - we are all invited to the table. It isn't just the party of the century; it's the celebration of a lifetime. Say yes and come home.
Rembrandt van Rijn, Return of the Prodigal Son (Hermitage, St Petersburg).
Wikimedia Commons
[1] Source unknown although the handle is @bsblr from what was formerly Twitter.
[2] https://www.frederickbuechner.com/weeklysermonillustrations