"The Prodigal Daughter and Her Mother" by Charlie Mackesy |
March 6, 2016 - 4th Sunday in Lent
“A Forgiving
Table”
Luke 15:1-2,
11-32
Now
all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes
were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
11 Then Jesus said,
“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 the 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.’”
Letters to
Prodigals by Debie Thomas (used with permission)
To the Boy
Who Ran:
I begin with you, because you're the strangest and least
accessible to me. Impetuous. Careless. Demanding.
So selfish, you take my breath away.
On the face of things, you and I have nothing in common.
I've never run away, or squandered an inheritance, or broken my parents'
hearts. Neither have I felt the ardent, tear-soaked embrace of a lovesick
father — human or divine — welcoming me home.
Maybe this is why I dislike you. Am I envious because God
is generous? Am I hurt because the Father's love is a wild, unfettered
thing, unpredictable and unfair? Yes, I am.
YES. I AM.
I wish I knew for sure that your penitence was genuine. I
wish I had a guarantee that you understood — not just in your head but
with your whole heart — just how much fear, destruction, and sorrow you
caused. I'm okay with forgiving you, but only if you're sorry beyond
language. Only if you bleed repentance.
I also wish I knew for sure that you pulled your act together,
once the party was over and the fatted calf was eaten. Did you get up
early the next morning and pull your weight in the fields? Did you
apologize to your brother, or ask after the health of your Father? Did
you humble yourself, and make peace with the villagers? Did you
understand that really, there could be no such thing as going home? Not
in any simple way? Everything — everything — would have
to change.
This is a problem, of course — my lack of charity. I
want to accuse you of having no empathy — of not giving a damn about how
you ripped your Father's heart out of his chest — but here I am,
completely uninterested in empathizing with you.
So I'm digging down, trying extra hard to reach you. Who
are you beneath the labels? Beneath "Prodigal," beneath
"Sinner," beneath "Poster Boy for God's Great
Kindness?" I grew up in the Church, a quiet Good Kid in my Father's
shadow. I don't have a dramatic conversion story like yours. What
could you possibly have to teach me?
"Dying of hunger." That's how your story
describes your final days in that far-off country. When your costly
adventure was over, when your funds ran dry, when your so-called friends
abandoned you. There among the pigs, covered in filth, you finally
realized who and what you were. "Dying of hunger."
May I give you a new label? A new name? One that I can relate
to? Aren't you, at the very core, The Hungry One?
It was hunger, wasn't it, that first lured you away from
a good life and a good Father? A gluttonous hunger, maybe, but hunger
still. For freedom? Self-expression? Meaning?
Peace? Something in you — something wild and insistent — needed
feeding, and your Father, in his vast, unorthodox wisdom, understood.
I can't hold the long view as skillfully as he does, but I
suppose his letting you go makes a savvy kind of sense. You couldn't
return home without leaving. You couldn't taste resurrection without
dying. Maybe we need to know hunger — know it on the tongue, in the
gut, like a fire in our bones — to truly savor the Feast.
The Father understood. What a remarkable thing that
is — his deep, patient knowing. He respected the hunger that pulled
you away. He knew a wiser, sharper hunger would bring you home.
Was it admirable? What you did? I don't know.
But there is this: even though it cost you, even though it wounded your family,
you honored your hunger. I can't speak to the rightness or wrongness of
your decision — I dare not — but maybe there is something in your
story I should attend to. I usually ignore my hunger. When I can't
ignore it, I hide, minimize, and vilify it. Is there a chance my hunger
wants to point me to God?
Your journey ends in a passionate embrace. Unrestrained
welcome, overflowing joy. Were you grateful? I will never
know. It seems your Father didn't much care; he just wanted to feed and
clothe you.
There's so little of your experience I can relate to, much less
applaud. Despite my best attempts to reconcile my heart with yours, my
envy remains. Your Father ran to welcome you. He cared for
nothing in this world so much as having you safe and snug in his arms. No
matter what the preachers say, this is not everyone's visceral
experience. To hear we are loved is one thing. To feel ourselves
embraced is another.
But at least you and I have this in common: I know what it's
like to hunger. To hunger for love, for depth, for passion, for
joy. And I know what it's like to imagine an exotic Elsewhere, a more
perfect nourishment miles away from my Father's all-too-familiar table. I
know what it's like to "come to myself" in the broken, impoverished
places of my own foolish fashioning, and to long for the warmth and sustenance
of a home.
I don't like you. But maybe we're not so very different
after all.
To the Boy
Who Stayed:
I won't lie; my sympathies lie most naturally with you.
Your story haunts me. Your resentments mirror mine. Whenever I
think of you standing — appalled — outside your Father's house, your
brother's easy laughter ringing in your ears, my heart breaks. I see you
sore and sweat-stained after a day in the fields, longing to go inside for a
shower, a meal, a bed. Longing for so many legitimate things, only to be
thwarted by a song and dance that grates on the ear. A robe, a ring, and
a fatted calf. Not intended for you.
Theologians tell me I'm supposed to look at you and see
self-righteousness, arrogance, and unholy spite. But I don't. I
look at you and see pain.
I'm an oldest kid, too. Used to being responsible, staying
home, and getting things done. By temperament, I'm careful, I like order,
and I don't mind work. But I'm a stickler about fairness. I care
about fairness a lot.
I am also, to be fair, a seether. I don't confront;
I seethe. Just like you.
Tell me. How long did the bitterness fester? How
many weeks, months, or years did you suffer in silence, mistaking restraint for
righteousness? Did your Father shrink as your anger grew? Did every
word he spoke, every request he made, every sigh he sighed, feel like
daggers? Did you ever lie in bed at night and wish you had the courage to
leave? Yell? Hit?
Or was it another kind of courage you lacked? The courage
to cry? To plead? To confess a need so insatiable and so secret, it
made you burn with shame?
What would have happened if you'd looked your Father in the eye
and said, "Yes. I know that all you have is mine. But it's
not enough. I can't fathom why, but your "everything" is
not enough for me. I can't find contentment. I can't make my way to
love. In your very Presence, I am lost."
I know these are terrifying things to admit to yourself, much
less to say out loud. But what if you had said them? What if you
had said, "Something in me is broken, such that I can't embrace or enjoy
what's mine. Please help me. Wrap your arms around me. Hold
me. I am full of hatred — for myself most of all. Please teach
me how to love."
The challenge of your story — the challenge that tears at
me — is that you have rightness on your side. You are right
to call for justice. Right to ask why your brother's sins incurred no
consequences. Right to ask why your own loyalty seems to count for so
little.
You are right to find your Father's version of love a bit much,
a bit scandalous, a bit risky. Because it is. You've understood the
point of your own story better than anyone. Yes, your brother squandered
his inheritance. Perhaps, by hoarding and withholding, you've also
squandered yours. But the real Prodigal in this story is your Father, is
he not? Over-the-top, undignified, and hair-raising in his love? Of
course you're right to be appalled.
I don't know why your Father never gave you a young goat.
Or threw you and your friends a spontaneous party. I wish with all my heart
he had; it makes me angry that he didn't. Was he waiting for you to
ask? Were you, in turn, waiting for him to initiate? I know that
mingy, self-protective mindset so well: "If I have to ask for it,
then it doesn't count."
Maybe it does. Maybe there is something essential to be
learned in the asking.
"We have to celebrate and rejoice." This is your
Father's final word to you as you stand out in the cold, your arms crossed,
your fists clenched, your heart bleeding. Did you know, dutiful firstborn?
Did you know you have to celebrate? Did you know that joy is a
must in your Father's house? That partying is a duty?
How astonishing, that you lived within arm's reach of your
Father all these years, and never glimpsed the merriment that is at his
core. "We have to celebrate and rejoice." He
insists. But there you stand, you lover of justice. 100%
right — and 100% alone.
What will it take for you to believe this craziness? Some
lessons can only be learned in the thick of laughter. Some hearts
will only be healed at the Feast.
But here's your vindication: the power in this story is
yours. Your brother is inside already; it seems he's done breaking hearts
for the time being. Your Father stands in the doorway, awaiting your
company. You get to write his ending.
What will you do, as the music grows sweeter?
What will we choose, you and I?
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