Fourth Sunday in Lent
Joshua 5:9-12 (NRSV)
(9) The Lord said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt.” And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
(10) While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho.
(11) On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain.
(12) The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NRSV)
(16) From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way.
(17) So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!
(18) All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation;
(19) that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us.
(20) So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.
(21) For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (NRSV)
(1) Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him.
(2) And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
(3) So he told them this parable:
(11b) “There was a man who had two sons.
(12) the younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them.
(13) 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.
(14) When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need.
(15) So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed his pigs.
(16) He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything.
(17) 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!
(18) I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you;
(19) I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.’”.
(20) So he set off and went to his father. 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.
(21) 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.”
(22) But 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.
(23) And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate;
(24) for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.
(25) “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing.
(26) He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on.
(27) He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’
(28) Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him.
(29) But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all 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.
(30) But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’
(31) Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
(32) 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.’”
So, earlier this week, Eimy got an email from a friend at work. She told me about it when she got home. The email said simply, You are wonder woman! You wonder where your keys are, you wonder where your shoes are. You wonder if the bills were paid, you wonder if you turned off the coffee maker.
Eimy thought I should include that email in my remarks this morning, but I hesitated, because truth be told, she is a wonder woman. And for that gift, I am, and will be, forever grateful.
But, I did want to start this morning with family. Because it is the bonds of family that our Scripture speaks of this morning. Anytime I get a scripture that is well known, it is both a blessing and a curse to come up with a message. Today, with our reading of the prodigal son, we have what is one of the most well known stories of the Bible. Even more so, it has come to have meaning in our larger society, even outside of church. Most people, even if they have never been to church, know the story of the prodigal son. It is likely that more sermons have been written on this parable than just about any other one. It is truly difficult to find words to speak that haven’t been spoken before. Yet, with all that in mind, here we go.
“Blood is thicker than water.” That is something I remember my father saying quite often. He would use that phrase in different contexts yet, I always knew what he meant. No matter what else you may do in life, your family will always be your family. And no matter what other priorities may come about, no matter what happens to you in life, you always do for family. There are no exceptions to this rule, at least not any my father could think of.
Yet, growing up, it was always just something my father said. Yet, looking back, I can see that it is something he lived. When my sister was born and had serious medical problems, whatever sacrifices it called for, they were sacrifices that had to be made. My mother leaving her career to stay home and take care of her, a sacrifice that had to be made. My father taking upon himself working endless hours so we could pay for food and medicine, even though he was a truck driver and would be gone most weeks and we could see him only on the weekends, a sacrifice that had to be made. When my sister had to have surgery and was in the hospital for weeks, even over my birthday, my father would come home to my grandmother’s house where I was staying to give me a small remote control race car even though his presence was needed at the hospital. A sacrifice that had to be made. All of these sacrifices had to be made, and they were, without thought or second guessing, because, when you get to the heart of it, you do for family, not because they deserve it, not because they want it, not because they even need it, but because they are family and family is the bond that, in life, is what ties us to each other and forms the backbone of our society.
“Blood is thicker than water.” Of course, it is a bit easier to live out this ideal when the issues you are dealing with are life and death of a family member. When the issues are more day to day, sometimes it can get harder to live out the responsibilities and obligations of life when we find ourselves disagreeing with each other, maybe on the opposite side of the argument from our mother or father, sister or brother, neighbor or friend.
While I have painted a picture of my father here that is true to form, it does glance over some of his more human characteristics. Like, for example, when I went away to college and came back with some different social and political ideals that he wasn’t too thrilled about. To make a long story short, the word brainwashed was thrown out a couple of times. At one point, in the midst of a heated argument, I remember him walking down the stairs in a huff and as he walked out the basement door, he screamed back at me, “You are nothing but a democrat.” For my father, and much of my family, that was the ultimate insult. Nothing was worse.
Yet, even though we would disagree, at the end of the day, blood is thicker than water. At the end of the day, you do for family.
On tuesday, I have a project due for a class I am taking called “Pastoral Care and Counseling in Contexts.” This particular class begins to introduce us into the world of counseling in the context of pastoral relationships. The professor, an extremely smart individual who came to ministry through psychological counseling, is a firm believer that your interaction with people in your life is a reflection of where you came from. So, as the first big assignment in this class, we have to do a genogram. I had never heard of a genogram before this semester, but it is kind of like a family tree, but a bit more involved. You draw a family tree, but you include a lot of other information. Age of death, cause of death, disabilities, illnesses, migrations, separations, divorces, etc etc. After that, you include information about the types of relationships. Estrangements, hostile or violent relationships, abuses, family “secrets”. Just about anything that happens among families that affects people in one way or another.
I have spent the past couple of weeks working on this project and it is quite a sight to see four generations of both my family and Eimy’s family. To see it in that form, it gives you a frame of reference that you don’t normally have. Looking back over our two families gives quite a picture into our lives. Just as the professor wants us to realize that where we come from affects where we are going, seeing our families’ histories really drives that point home. As I look back over my side of the family, I can see some patterns that I never really thought about before. For example, while I know which members of my family have been divorced, it didn’t dawn on me until I put it on paper how stable my family has been. Of all my aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, there are only two divorces in my family. In fact, my father and his brothers were each married once. My mother and her sisters as well, were each married only once. While the lack of divorces is a good thing, it also speaks to the idea that life can be difficult and sometimes we just have to plough through and make the life that we have and not let petty differences break us apart. As we look over Eimy’s family, the one major pattern is migration. Not only has Eimy migrated here, her parents, her paternal grandparents and all of her aunts, uncles and cousins on her fathers side moved from Colombia to Ecuador. On her mothers side, there are a few who still live in Bogota, Colombia, many others have migrated to other parts of Colombia. Still others have moved out of the country entirely. One lives in Caracas, Venezuela. Eimy’s mom of course is in Quito. Another uncle lives in Fort Myers, Florida.
So the understanding of how migration affects families is strong in Eimy’s family, and the idea of sticking it out and not letting our differences break us apart is strong in my family. Eimy and I each bring these qualities to our family. While we have ventured out in our own, individual lives, those values that we learned venture with us, they become part of who we are and how we live.
Our story this morning, the prodigal son, is a story, a parable that has been dissected in every imaginable way. We can look at it through the eyes of the father, the son who stays home, the one who goes away. We can look at it through the slaves of the father, or the people in the far away land who the son came to know. Yet, this morning, we look at it through the lens of the family. The prodigal son was, just that, a son. He was a son who thought he knew better, and who realized later how wrong he was. He went back to his father, the father was his father. And as his father, he loved him anyway and was overjoyed to see his lost son return. The brother, was the brother who questions decisions, who believed that he had been wronged, who suspected that life wasn’t fair. In other words, this family, the father, the son and the brother are us. We are that family and we each can relate to one of these characters in some way or another. And when we do that, we remember that blood is thicker than water.
Not only are we that family, but God is the head of that family, of our family. He is that father that lets us take what is his and use it for our purposes. He is the one that waits patiently for us to see the error of our ways, and he is the one that rejoices when he sees us coming, even though we are still far off. Because, no matter what we have done, we still belong and there is still joy when we return.
In life, we many times try to do it our own way. We try to strike our own path. We try to control all the uncontrollables. But, in the end, we can’t control them, not on our own.
In my senior year of high school, I had a difficult time. I had been gone the year before, so all of my friends had changed and so had I. I had to take the required classes that juniors have to take, but I had to take them as a senior, so I wasn’t even around a lot of the friends I had had before. It was a difficult time, and I found it hard to find a place again. Then I went on to college and had to start all over again. My girlfriend at the time was in high school with me and she came to Bucknell with me too. Her and I would talk a lot and I would tell her how much I learned from my year as an exchange student. Her father had died of cancer a few days before I left for south america, and now, a few years later, my father as well had just been diagnosed with cancer, so we would talk about that and she helped me get through it. We would talk about future plans. I was excited about returning to Argentina during my junior year, and I loved my classes and we would talk and I would say how much I wanted a life that was different than the one I knew. It was at this point that she said something that has stuck with me ever since. She said, “It is great that you have all these dreams and ambitions and hopes. But, whatever you do, don’t ever forget who you are and where you came from.”
That advice has served me well. Because for all of the changes that have happened in my life, my family has always been there, in good times and in bad, when I deserved their love and when I failed miserably at deserving it.
The prodigal son, he comes home. There is celebration, not because the sons actions in life deserved the celebration, but because in the end, he remembered where he came from. He remembered that blood is thicker than water. He remembered that what he deserves is irrelevant in the eyes of the father. The son had come home.
On this Sunday as we draw closer to that day when Christ will sacrifice himself, let us remember that at the end of the day, we are to remember where we came from, even if the place we come from is a total wreck. Even if the place we come from is filled with filth, and sin, and anger and hatred and violence, even if the place we come from is so horrible that there are no words that could truly describe it, if we remember where we came from, and return back to that home, the father will be there waiting. That will be a celebration we definitely won’t want to miss.
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