The Fourth Sunday in Lent

March 18, 2007

The Rev. Thomas William Blake

What kind of world would it be?

Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32

Since we began putting our sermons online a few weeks ago, we have been giving them titles. This is a new practice for me, although it is a practice commonly observed within Protestantism outside of the Episcopal Church, and one encouraged by many of the great preachers of our time. If for no other reason, it should help the preacher stay focused.

It clearly takes some careful thought, though, to capture in a few words what I preach in the sermon as a whole. There is the risk of over-generalizing, or under-generalizing, of sounding too trite, or maybe missing the point altogether. I remember reflecting on titles in literature classes; they often provided significant and even profound insight into whatever work we happened to be reading. Titles are not to be taken lightly.

That is why I have always been disappointed in the popular title given to the parable just read. Most of us know it as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I don’t know the origin of the title or why it caught on, but I feel that is somehow misses the very point of the parable. Maybe it has something to do with the context of the parable, an earnest response from Jesus to those grumbling about his association with sinners and tax collectors.

Yet, even if such is the case, I still feel that the title misses what Jesus is trying to say. It is the Pharisees to whom Jesus is speaking, not Jesus himself, who are so intent on labeling or categorizing or judging people, prodigal or otherwise. Jesus, by contrast, is trying to point them beyond that.

There is, after all, nothing unique about a prodigal son or daughter. We all know prodigal people. We encounter prodigal people every day. For that matter, you and I ourselves, every one of us, can deservingly be labeled prodigal persons for one reason or another. If Jesus’ story had merely been about critiquing a prodigal son, Jesus would simply have been echoing the Pharisees point of view rather than challenging it.

A better title for the story in my view would be “Parable of the Loving Father.” That, I believe, gets to the very heart of what Jesus is trying to convey. The father sees his son from afar and at once runs to embrace him, refusing to let anything—labels, judgment, anger, a jealous brother, anything—stand in his way. It is a moment of unconditional love and reconciliation otherwise counter to the human experience. It is a gift from God alone, and a lesson and example for us all.

The world needs to hear this parable now as much as ever. Our country is in the middle of a war not going well, and like the prodigal son we find ourselves in something of a vulnerable position. Many among us want to return home, perhaps at some level we know it is the right thing to do sooner rather than later, but it is so hard to do.

There is this gnawing feeling within that just won’t go away; we don’t want to appear desperate; we don’t want to be perceived as losers; we wonder how history will judge us; were we right or wrong to enter the war in the first place? Peace and reconciliation often seem so costly, and we convince ourselves it is easier to put off those ends, or avoid them altogether, rather than risk coming home with our heads down.

The church needs to hear this parable, too. At a recent meeting of Anglican primates, it was evident that some church leaders had become so weighed down with judgment of the American Episcopal Church that they refused even to commune with our presiding bishop. She had, I believe, gone in good faith, genuinely seeking reconciliation with those within our Anglican family troubled by some of our decisions.

Even after our church, in response to the Windsor Report, indicated our desire to remain within the Anglican Communion, expressed regret for any hard feelings resulting from our actions, and at least for the time being agreed—against the moral conscience of many of us—to exclude a whole category of faithful baptized persons from consideration for the episcopate, even after all these and other strides toward reconciliation, some of our brothers and sisters continue to shun us. And I believe that God, the loving Father, grieves whenever we stubbornly refuse to embrace one another.

The Parable of the Loving Father does not speak only to the big issues, though. Perhaps it has even more to say about our ordinary lives right here at home. Maybe like the prodigal son we know what it is like to cover up or at least not speak of something about ourselves—our experiences or identity or whatever else—, for fear of being judged or shunned. Instead, we box ourselves in or strive to put on some sort of façade, for the sake of conformity. And we remain conflicted or divided or not fully present as a result.

Or maybe like the jealous brother we allow ourselves to be overcome with bitterness, and for whatever reason we can’t let that bitterness go; it stays within us and eats slowly away at us. To seek reconciliation, to rekindle right relationship with our estranged brothers and sisters, is to be humble and become vulnerable and risk rejection, and those things frighten us, and we convince ourselves it is easier to walk the other way.

Maybe our skeptical side wants to categorize the loving father as a naïve sort of person. Shouldn’t there be judgment and accountability? Shouldn’t the prodigal son rightly have to grovel at his father’s feet? What kind of world would it be if we simply wiped the slate clean and embraced one another as fellow human beings, seeing within one another the image of God and the manifold gifts of God’s creation?

What kind of world would it be if nations genuinely sought to understand one another better, without assuming the worst of one another, without resorting to war or violence, and without refusing to be self-critical of their own actions and the consequences of those actions on others? What kind of world would it be if we Christians stopped turning issues into idols, stopped fragmenting ourselves in futile quests for purity, and stopped shunning one another, and instead put all our energy into proclaiming the kingdom of God? What kind of world would it be?

In his sermon for Christmas Day, 2006, the Very Reverend Samuel Lloyd, Dean of our National Cathedral, recounted the following story. I do not know of the story’s origin, but Dean Lloyds’ telling of it was so eloquent that any attempt on my part to paraphrase it would fall short of his eloquence. I would therefore like to quote him directly.

“It was December 1914, and the Great War, which we call World War I, was still young, but already the soldiers had spent miserable months in rat-infested trenches along the Western Front. On one side were the English, French, and Belgians, and on the other the Germans. Between the two sides was No Man’s Land, a devastated landscape of dirt and barbed wire. The trenches were so close that the two sides could often scream insults at each other. But as Christmas drew near, something remarkable began to happen.

It started with impromptu cease-fires here and there along the lines, allowing each side to go out to collect their wounded and dead. But then things shifted dramatically when German soldiers lit candles on their beloved Tannenbaum—Christmas trees brought to the trenches to celebrate the season. The English, who often viewed the Germans as sub-human, saw them risking their lives to set up these trees.

The English raised signs saying, “You no fight. We no fight,” or just, “Merry Christmas.” Some Germans started singing, “Stille Nacht, heilige Nacht,” and when the British heard it a few started singing back “Silent Night, Holy Night.” Then the Germans sang, “O Tannenbaum,” and the British answered with “Hark the Herald Angels Sing.” At six o’clock on Christmas Eve, all the shooting stopped. There wasn’t a sound.

Soldiers on both sides began to come up out of their trenches, and started to greet each other. They exchanged gifts, whatever they had—cigarettes, tins containing candies and tobacco. On Christmas Day they played soccer in the shell-pocked No Man’s Land. They traded addresses and promised to stay in touch. There are photographs of German and English soldiers, who were supposed to be killing each other, smiling together into the camera. There, along the lines, those soldiers discovered connection and belonging across the deepest divides imaginable.

One U.S. newspaper called this amazing Christmas “the Wonderful Day.” Peace had broken out in the midst of war, because both sides knew the story of the Child of Peace who came to bring healing to the world.

As Christmas Day came to an end, though, the truce began to fade. There were several reports that when the soldiers were ordered to start shooting again, many of them aimed harmlessly high overhead, and one regiment actually mutinied, saying, “We can’t [shoot]—they are good fellows, and we just can’t.”

Soon the war was on again. But for a time, the soldiers actually experienced the power of Christ’s birth in Bethlehem. And when they did they followed its call to touch, to connect with those other members of the human family. A light shined into the world’s darkness, and there, for a day, people received it.” [End Quote]

I was stunned and rendered speechless when I heard Dean Lloyd tell this story. I had not heard it before, but I will not forget it. It gets to the very heart of the faith we profess and the power of that faith to change hearts. Love is stronger than the things keeping us apart. Nothing we can do, and nothing done to us, can diminish or destroy the unconditional love of our God. And you and I are called to love in the very same way.

Imagine what kind of world if we dared answer that call. What kind of world would it be if all of us, myself included, acted less like prodigal sons and daughters or jealous brothers and sisters? What kind of world would it be if, instead, we acted more like loving fathers and mothers? What kind of world would it be?

Even as we speak God is intervening to make a broken creation whole again. God is intervening to restore broken powers in the world, broken faith within the church, broken relationships among neighbors, and broken families torn apart. What better news could we proclaim than this? It is good news. The kingdom of God is at hand.

Amen.