This is a two-part sermon series offered to the Wharton Hungarian Church of Wharton, NJ in June of 2022
Mel Prestamo, Ruling Elder PCUSA
Part 1: Finding the Lost
The Bible is referred to as the greatest story ever told. These three parables of Luke 15 can be called the greatest story within the greatest story. I have heard it referred to as “the Gospel within the Gospel”. These three parables provide so much meaning and richness, so much insight into how Jesus views God, that for me, each time I read them, I find some new and deeper meaning. For me, Luke 15 is the prism through which we can understand what Jesus wants us to know about God.
First, let’s build a picture of the circumstance that Luke places us in. Jesus is teaching tax collectors and sinners in the courtyard of the Temple. Around him, observing this very disapprovingly are some Pharisees. They are taking a very dim view of Jesus’ interaction with these sinners. You have to understand that the Pharisees considered these people, that they labeled “sinners”, as trash that needed to be avoided at all cost. They are called “People of the Land” – not a compliment. The Pharisees were strict followers of the Law. And they saw these sinners, these People of the Land, as living outside the law and they needed to be avoided and not interacted with. We would understand these parables more fully if we noted that the Pharisees did not rejoice with God when sinners repented and returned to God; just the opposite; the Pharisees would say that there would be joy in heaven when these sinners were obliterated before God. They looked forward not to the saving but the destruction of these sinners. So having these “People of the Land” within the Temple and a Rabbi sitting and teaching them was completely abhorrent and out of character for them.
So now with that backdrop, let’s take a look at these parables. The first thing that I want you to observe in these parables is that Jesus is showing us the ways that we can get lost. Thus far, I have found four that I am going to share with you today and next Sunday.
First is the Parable of the Lost Sheep. We hear this story, and we take it for granted, that Sheep get lost. But to give you an idea of how Sheep get lost, let me tell you this story. My wife and I were on a vacation to Scotland a couple of years ago. On the countryside in Scotland there are Sheep everywhere. I think there are more sheep in Scotland than there are people. We were on a road along a shoreline when we spotted a group of Sheep on a grassy mound offshore surrounded by the rising tide. What had happened was that the Sheep, in search of food, had wandered onto this lush spot offshore during low tide. They had their heads down following the food and took no notice of where they had wandered off to. What was once a lush feeding area exposed by the low tide with a path back to shore had been reversed and now the tide had started to come back in and oblivious to it all these Sheep nibbling with heads down were now trapped and completely surrounded by the rising tide with no escape back to dry ground.
It was actually quite comical. But it does provide a real-life picture of what Jesus was describing in this story. Sheep wander off with their heads down nibbling here or there just following their noses and they don’t realize where they have wandered off to and suddenly, they can be in need of rescue. That’s when the hero in our story comes on the scene. The Shepherd leaves the flock behind (knowing that they are in the safety of the pen) and goes out searching for the lost Sheep. Now let’s understand one thing. There were two types of Shepherds back in the day in Palestine. There were shepherds who were dedicated and totally committed to the safety of their flock. And then there were hirelings who were paid as daily workers who would bolt at the first sign of trouble. And there we see a contrast between Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and the Pharisees who really didn’t care for the flock at all. It is the task of the Good Shepherd to bring the lost sheep home safely even at the risk of his own life. Now this hunt for the lost sheep could be dangerous and life threatening. So, when the Shepherd does find the lost Sheep he rejoices. He lifts it upon his shoulders and carries it home and calls to the people to celebrate now that he has returned with the lost Sheep.
Sometimes, that is how we can get lost. We can lose sight of where we are and where we are going in life. We put our noses to the grindstone, and we go plodding through our nine to fives never looking up to see where we have wandered off to. More importantly, we lose sight of whose we are. We get overcome by necessity and we allow our work to become the most important thing in our lives, and we forget that we are a beloved of God. Suddenly, we find ourselves lost in an unfamiliar country of business or in relationships which distracts us from who we should be; or one that sends us spiraling off in a destructive direction. Either way, we lose sight of whose we are. And because we forget whose we are, we lose sight of where we are going, and we find ourselves far-off lost and alone. We may be nibbling contentedly and our bellies may be full, but we have lost contact with the part of life that provides us real security, real connection and purpose.
Years ago, when my wife and I moved out to Jersey from New York, we took a deep breath and said to ourselves, OK we are out from the watchful eyes of parents and family and now we are free to live as we liked. And while we putted around tending to our new house, the children and our jobs, we lost sight of our relationship to God and a church community that would support us. We forgot whose we were. Then one Sunday afternoon our six-year-old daughter Robyn came running into the house from playing with her friend Adrienne next door. Adrienne had been enrolled in Sunday School and she told our daughter all about Jesus and the things she had learned about him that day. With a sense of alarm and urgency, Robyn came running into our home yelling out, “Mommy, who is Jesus and why is He Adrienne’s friend and not mine?” I looked at my wife and muttered, “Damn, he’s found us.”
Have you found yourself lost there? What you need to know is that Jesus, the Good Shepherd, is searching for you and when he finds you and brings you home, God will be celebrating upon your return. That is the message that Jesus is delivering to the sinners circled around him and to the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law. But for the Pharisees and the Teachers, this is an abomination. They could not see, not even for a moment, why any of these sinners would be of any value to their God at all.
Now, let’s look at the second parable. In this story, the coins would have been Silver Drachmas, very valuable possessions. In ancient Palestine, it would not have been difficult to imagine a peasant losing a coin inside their home. The house would have been dimly lit – one window. The floor would have been beaten earth covered in dried reeds. So, to search for coin in these circumstances would have been truly like looking for a needle in a haystack. It is not hard to imagine a woman lighting a lamp and sweeping the floor and sifting through the straw to find a lost coin.
The coin could have been money for food or a part of a young woman’s dowry. In ancient Palestine a betrothed girl would have been given a necklace of ten coins as part of her dowery. So, you can understand her panic if she should lose one of the coins. So, she searches frantically and when she finds it, she would quite understandably rush out to her neighbors and call out gleefully to them to come celebrate with her. Jesus says, God is like that. That God would search for us like that. Isn’t that an amazing image – God on hands and knees searching for something that valuable, – you.
I have a friend who told me this story about his life. Growing up through his Senior year in High School, his father was the center of his family life and was the anchor of his own life. Before the end of his Senior year, his father died suddenly. His family and he himself were unprepared for the loss. It was a shock to all of them but personally for this young man it spun him off untethered and unable to find that center for his life. He wandered through his college years not knowing what his direction or purpose should be. It was not until he met and married his wife and after several years of a difficult relationship that through counseling, Jesus found him to bring him home. This was a young man who, through no fault of his own like the coin, was lost. He had fallen into the reeds of the flooring. But Jesus tells us that God is relentless. That God will doggedly search for you and when God finds you God will lift you up. And then, what does God do? God calls to all in heaven and on earth to celebrate. “I have found that which had been lost!” This story may not be about a pearl of great value; but we can be as precious in God’s eyes.
Now this was the thing. No Pharisee would ever dream of God like that. A Jewish scholar once admitted that this was a completely new teaching about God – that God would actually search for us. No Pharisee would ever conceive that God would go out and search for sinners. We believe and understand it because we know the end of the story – the story of Jesus’ saving love and grace and his conquering of sin through the cross. But to the Pharisees, this was an alien concept. They could understand a sinner crawling back to God and in a self-abasing way begging for forgiveness; but they could not conceive of a God that went out searching for sinners to be made righteous by God and made heir to the same inheritance of the kingdom that they claimed.
So, what do we learn about getting lost in this parable? In this story about the lost coin, we hear a lesson about getting lost through no fault of one’s own. Sometimes in our lives, we find ourselves adrift. We lose contact we family and friends. We find ourselves in a wrong place, in unfamiliar surroundings. It wasn’t planned. We made no conscientious choice. But suddenly we are in a place with no sense of where God is.
In each of these scenarios, Jesus tells us that God will risk all and expend all energies to search for and find us. Jesus tells us that God will search the wilderness for us if we wonder off. In the second, we see how God will frantically sweep out the house to find us if we some how fall into a crevice or corner. In both cases, Jesus finishes each parable speaking of heaven’s reaction to the return of the lost. Far different from the disapproving sneers of the Pharisees, it is with rejoicing and celebration. And here is revealed a wonderous truth about God. God is kinder than we are. We may give up on a sinner, but God does not. Sometimes, it can be far easier to return to God than to come back and face the criticisms of families and friends.
This is the new image of God that Jesus was trying to bring to the people. It was not that God had changed. It was that Jesus was giving them a new vantage point from which to see God. It was a view point they had never had before. The sinners listening to Jesus could receive this Good News with joy. It is truly sad that the Pharisees and their dedication to the Law prevented them from understanding who God is and experiencing that same joy. It is a painful and almost tearful irony. These men, dedicated to the Law, are blinded by it to the point that it prevents them from knowing the God that gave them that Law.
So, my friends, let’s us wrap up this first half of our study of Luke 15. The conclusion is that Jesus is revealing a God in deep love with its creation. God knows us, our hearts, our shortcomings, our propensity to fail. God knows all of that. And with all of that baggage that we carry, Jesus wants us to know that we are important and that wherever we wander off to, or however we get lost, Jesus tells us that God wants us to come home to be with God. God does not cast off. God does not condemn. God so loved the world that he sent the Son and that Son wants us to know the Father, God as he knows him and these parables open a door to give us a beginning glimpse of God’s love.
End 1
Part 2: The Prodigal Father
Ok, let’s do a quick recap of what we learned from the parables in Luke 15 last week. We can get lost. We can do that in a variety of ways, but God does not abandon us. God loves us and wants us to be with God. We learned that God proactively searches to find us and when we are found, all of heaven rejoices with God.
We saw how the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law did not understand that. Their sentiment was that all would be better off if these sinners that Jesus is fraternizing with would just die and go away.
So, Jesus continues his teaching and tries again to reach their hearts.
Now, he uses a story about wealth, about family, about two sons who demand their inheritance. In this story, Jesus is putting the squeeze on the Pharisees. He points a finger and puts them right in the center of the story. But be careful, don’t lose sight of the fact that we are in there, too. So, let’s dive into the story of the Prodigal’s Father.
That’s a curious word, Prodigal. What does it mean? Prodigal means to be recklessly lavish, to go overboard, to spend without limit, without care. Remember that definition for later. Oddly enough, in the context of this parable, it has nothing to do with being lost.
In the story we see in the younger Son what happens when we are lost because we, by our own choice, turn and walk away from the father. Now this is a marked difference from the two previous stories of getting lost by happenstance or wondering. Here, Jesus makes it clear that we can choose to be lost.
Perhaps, we get lost by turning in on ourselves – brooding in self-pity. Or we can let friends distract us and pull us in tangential directions. Or perhaps we think we are not getting what is owed to us and we stomp off in search of “something” more befitting our position, importance and stature.
Although I believe we need to read these stories as a trilogy so that we can get the full scope of Jesus’ lesson, it is the story we call the Prodigal that usually gets the most attention. The curious thing about this third story is that it is not really about either of the sons, at all. It is more about the word Prodigal and how it describes the Son AND how it describes the Father. In this story how the Father reacts is different from the previous two. Here, the Father, God, is not a searcher or a rescuer. Instead, the Father is patient. The Father waits for the time when we, the wandering lost, look up from the woeful choices we have made to see God’s face again. In this story, we see God as the Father as being patient and watchful; and then being welcoming, loving, full of mercy and forgiveness.
If you recall, the story begins, “There was a man had two sons…” It is only in part a story about the younger son. This son chooses to reject the way of living that has been handed down as a sacred legacy. The Pharisees understand legacy. Their positions in the community and the Temple are assured by legacy.
This son’s actions are a betrayal of family and community. It is a disrespecting of all that the Pharisees would have deemed important within a Jewish family. I am sure that the Pharisees are looking squarely at the sinners before them and pointing judgmental fingers. In the context of the story, this son’s actions are a denial of the basic tenets of the Jewish faith and Law. He has violated a commandment by disrespecting his father and the law by demanding an inheritance that he is not entitled to. The Father in this story would have been justified in having the son beaten senseless, disowning him, kicking him out of the family and denying him any inheritance at all. The Pharisees would have approved of that. That is the God they could approve of. That is the God that fits their reality.
We can read into it that this son is also denying the spiritual reality that we belong to God. We belong to the Father. And when we choose to walk away from that, when we lose sight of this and we make choices to go off on our own, we are denying whose we are. We are denying the God that loves us and yearns to have us in a righteous relationship with God.
But back to the story. It is also a story of the Elder son. He dedicates his life to the discipline of doing everything that is expected of him, to a life of following the letter of the law. Sound familiar? Now Jesus is placing the Pharisees in the middle of this story. The Elder son stays at home working the fields and serving the Father in the Father’s house. In the Elder son, we see how we become lost in the law, in religious practices, lost in being so focused upon the letter of the law that like sheep we wander off into the law, into being so focused on the things of religion that we lose sight of its purpose and our relationship with God. We forget about Jesus’ compassion and mercy and sacrifice and get lost in doing the “things” that are expected of us.
While we know that Jesus began the day teaching the Tax Collectors and Sinners, now he is speaking directly to the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law.
What happens when the wandering son returns home? Remember, he has been rehearsing his confession all the way back. “Father, I have sinned against heaven and you. I am no longer worthy to be your son. Treat me as one of your workers.” So, after the Father has hugged and kissed him, he begins to speak his well-rehearsed apology. But what happens? The Father hears the confession, yes. He has compassion for the contrition but ignores the rest. He sweeps the groveling aside and lifts his son up. He turns to his workers and immediately starts giving instructions.
Give him a Robe – this would signify that his honor in the household had been restored.
Give him a ring – this would display to all that his authority in the household had been restored.
Give him sandals – this would show all that he had been received back into the household as a son and not as a hireling or a slave for they did not wear sandals. All of this to ensure that everyone would know that this son’s position and his inheritance to the Father’s house had been restored.
All of this is to restore this wanderer, this sinner to his prior status. There is no demand for groveling, no ultimatum, or suggestion of probation. There is only forgiveness. That is not to say unconditional or that there is no contrition. The Father knows and sees into the son’s heart.
And, what comes next? A joyous and raucous celebration. It is a celebration that is prodigal – that is lavish and reckless. Lavish is obvious, the fatted calf has been prepared for the feast. But why is it reckless? It is reckless because the Father is putting is reputation in the community on the line by welcoming this outcast back and restoring his position in the family and community.
This is the God that Jesus wants not only the tax collectors and sinners to see – that they are welcomed back into the Father’s house, but the Pharisees, as well; that they are called to offer these sinners the same forgiveness and then join in God’s celebration in receiving them back home. This is the Father that Jesus wants us to see and emulate; to see as sinners that we are welcomed back into God’s house when we repent, but also to emulate, to rejoice with God anytime a sinner returns to God. This is the reckless course that God wants from his spiritual leaders.
But there is bump in the road. Upon the return of the younger brother – that sinner, the Elder brother refuses to welcome him in and does not participate in the rejoicing and celebration of the Father but rather resists the father’s invitation and pleading and refuses to go into the father’s house. This is the very picture of what is happening in the Temple. These sinners are pressing in to hear Jesus, but they are being judged and shunned by the Temple Elders who are refusing to acknowledge that God would welcome them in, restore their inheritance and celebrate. No, this is not possible.
The Pharisees, in the Elder brother refuse to see or be a party to the Father’s joy that these sinners are coming back into the Father’s house. The Pharisees follow the law. They pray and praise God. They make the proper sacrifices according to the Law. They keep the Sabbath according to the Law. They do EVERYTHING that the law requires of them. But because of this, they are lost in the Law. They have lost sight of the God that entrusted them to be a Chosen People. They don’t see or understand the Father.
And there is the fourth way that we can become lost. We become lost in the law. The law becomes a path to righteousness. But there is a problem with the law. The law can NOT make us righteous before God. There is no way that we can by our own deeds stand before God and declare ourselves to be righteous. The Book of Job tells us that. Only God can make us righteous; and God does that through the Christ; through God’s own saving mercy, love and grace.
But here, the Temple Elders are angry! In their eyes, this is nothing less than outrageous!
So, now we get to the heart this parable. It is not the Elder brother who has been aggrieved by the younger son. It is the father who suffers a most insulting indignity, who loses a son in the most disrespectful of circumstances. So, it follows it is not the Elder brother [or the Pharisees] who have the authority to judge. It is the Father who makes judgement. And God’s judgement is that God does not write off this sinner or deny him his inheritance. No, the Father is Prodigal. Remember the definition that I offered earlier, that the Father is recklessly lavish in pouring out forgiveness and mercy.
Here’s another way in which the Father is prodigal. Now the Elder Son refuses to be a part of the celebration. What does the Father do? The Father goes out to the Elder Son and pleads with him to come in and join the rejoicing. This, too, is an act of reckless love. In the community, before all who would be watching, the Father is risking his own pride and standing to go out and solicit a party guest to come in after that guest has refused the invitation. But the Father does not stand on protocol or on our own notion of what is proper. The Father risks his standing and goes out and begs the Elder Son and the Pharisees, who stand in judgement in the Temple listening to Jesus, to join the rejoicing. Yes, even now, with the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law, God is being recklessly lavish with them. God does not give up on them either.
The Father is recklessly lavish with patience, and caring, and love and is most recklessly lavish in receiving the sons back into the household. God pours out God’s love, and mercy and caring without limitation. God is a giver of mercy and forgiveness where none is justified.
That is what Jesus is calling the Temple Elders, the Elder Sons of the story, to be. He is telling them to reach out to these sinners and be patient, be caring, be loving, be welcoming, be merciful and be forgiving even when mercy and forgiveness may not seem justified. Jesus is telling them AND us to be more like the Father.
End 2
