One Father, Two Sons
By Griff
Martin
On Luke 15:1, 11-32
For
the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith
On
the Fourth Sunday of Lent
March
31, 2019
Incarnate and Resurrected God, we ask that you once
again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing new reality we
can all together experience. Make us aware of your presence here in this space
and in these words, God, for if we are present to you then nothing else will
matter, but if we are not present to you then nothing else will matter. In the
name of the Creator, the Christ and the Comforter. Amen.
There once was a father who had two sons….
It’s the opening line of the most famous parable of
all parables – a parable that many theologians have stated contains the entire
Gospel story. One of my favorite writers Mary Gordon says of this parable:
“This story is one of the most important reasons I can think of myself as a
follower of Jesus.” This is a story we all know by heart – or do we?
You see, the story sounded different to the first
listeners than it does to us today in our current time and place.
It’s like if I start a story with the words, “the
morning of September 11,” or “when Mueller turned in his report,” or even
“driving a white bronco.” Because of our specific context, you know immediately
what those stories are going to be about. September 11 is going to be a story
of tragedy. Mueller is going to be a story about political powers and Russia.
The white bronco is going to be about OJ Simpson.
And yet in another context, these phrases might not
carry the same weight they do for us this day. September 11 might just be an
average fall day and Mueller might simply be just a name and a white bronco
might not even refer to a car but to a beautiful horse.
In different times and context, we hear things
differently, as Anna Carter Florence once pointed out to me about this parable.
There once was a father who had two sons… The first group
to hear this parable was made up of Jewish listeners – a group of faithful
people whose entire religious belief was based on what we know as the Old
Testament; a group of people for whom Torah was life and they knew it much
better than we do today.
So when those folks hear “there once was a father
who had two sons,” they immediately know what kind of story this is going to be
and they know they need to buckle their seatbelts. This story is probably about
to get rough because in the Old Testament any story where a father had two sons
meant trouble.
It only takes 4 chapters into our book to figure
this out: Genesis 4, our first biblical family.
There once was a father who had two sons…
The father’s name was Adam and the two sons were
named Cain and Abel. Abel kept the sheep and Cain tended to the soil – a
gatherer and a planter, a carnivore and a vegan. When it came time for them to
bring their offerings to the Lord, Cain brought forth fruits of the ground and
Abel brought forth the firstlings of the flock. Both present their sacrifices,
and for reasons that I can’t ever really fathom, the Lord has regard for Abel’s
but not for Cain’s.
Cain is upset and angry about this situation. The
two brothers go out into the field and Scripture tells us, “Cain rose up
against his brother Abel and killed him.”
There once was a father with two sons, but only
until one of the sons killed the other.
There once was a father who had two sons…
The father’s name was Abraham and the two sons were
named Isaac and Ishmael. The boys come much later in his life by two different
mothers, and the house is not big enough for two mothers. There is jealousy and
envy when Isaac is born, so Ishmael is sent away with his mother. The biblical
text makes quite a prediction about this stating that Ishmael’s hand will be
against his brother Isaac. And that still seems to be true in the Middle East
today; too many wars seem to lead back to the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael.
There was once a father who had two sons, but his
house was not big enough for two sons, so one was sent away and that one vowed
to seek revenge on the other, and that has forever haunted history.
There once was a father who had two sons…
And actually, this father is one of the two sons
from the previous story. The father’s name is Isaac and he has two sons, Jacob
and Esau. And these two sons are twins, and they are fighting literally from
the moment they are born. Esau comes out first, but Jacob immediately follows,
clutching Esau’s heel.
Esau is not the brightest of the boys, and Jacob is
rather tricky and manipulative. So, Jacob finds ways to steal Esau of his
birthright and to straight up rob him of his blessing. This of course angers
Esau, who promises that in revenge he will murder his brother.
There once was a father who had two sons, twins who
fought all the time and who promised to murder one another.
And then I think, somehow someone wisens up and
says, ‘Don’t stop at two sons – keep going. Two seems to be real trouble.’
Stories in the Old Testament that begin with a
father and two sons are rough stories; stories that end with us seeking to find
places of reconciliation with them. They are tough stories.
So, when the original hearers of Jesus’ parable hear
him begin with the line, “there once was a father with two sons,” they brace
themselves. They enter the story fully expecting this to be a story of division
and jealousy and repulsive behavior and even violence, because so goes the way
of two brothers.
The youngest brother has enough of living at home
under dear old dad’s rules; they don’t really seem to fit him. So, he goes and
asks if he can have his inheritance early: “Can I have that which will be mine when
you die – can I go ahead and get that while you are alive?” And the dad gives
it to him and off he goes, and he does exactly what we expect a wild young man
to do with money, he wastes it all and is left with nothing. So, he takes a
horribly low-paying job until he realizes that living as one of his father’s
servants would be better than this, so he heads home. Dad sees him from a
distance and runs to greet him with extravagance and grace, and if that is not
enough, Dad throws the biggest party that his house, that his town, has ever
seen.
Until the older brother comes back home after a hard
day’s word, and he finds a party and he is not sure why. When he asks and is
told it’s because his brother has returned home, he is not too happy about this.
There is some anger and jealousy (actually, there is a lot of anger and
jealousy), and he throws himself a fit and a pity party at the same time. His
dad finds out and off he goes, leaving the party in order to try and bring both
boys under his roof.
There once was a father who had two sons, until one
son ran off with half the money and the other son refused to let him back in.
And what is so difficult about all these texts with
a father and two sons is that they inevitably leave you hanging, and they don’t
really resolve. Abel remains dead and Cain in punished with a long life to
think about what he did. Isaac and Ishmael meet up to bury Abraham, but that is
it (and their descendants are still fighting today). Jacob and Esau meet up
once, but go on their separate ways quickly. And this parable leaves us
standing outside the party wondering if the Elder Son will go back in.
‘There once was a father with two sons’ introduces
stories of tension. And maybe that tension is the point – to make us really
think about division and unity, and then to look around us and find division in
our world, relationships, families and in our very souls. And that really is
not that hard to do.
I could easily point this out in our world. Just
look at all the reactions to the news with story after story. We are clearly
leaving in a nation that could be described as “There once was a nation with
two tribes….” The church at large has some divisions in it – well, actually,
that is the history of the church: Eastern, Western/Protestant, Catholic/Baptist,
Southern Baptist, Texas Baptist, CBF, Alliance, baptist like us that don’t seem
to fit anywhere…and this church has divisions. There are people here who no
longer talk to one another, and they can’t really remember why. We all know of
friends in our own lives who we have not ended things well with. It does not
take much time to point out the divisions in our families. There is not a
family around that at some point does not have a relative they speak of only in
third person terms (That Uncle, That grandfather). And there are divisions deep
within our own souls: our actions don’t match our beliefs, how we act does not
at all resemble how we feel, who we are is so far from who we want to be… It’s
what Paul wrote in his letters: “I do the very thing I don’t want to do.”
And we never really set out to create these
divisions. Actually, most of the time our brains do this without us even really
noticing it, and then we start acting on it and the division becomes a big
deal. This is how we think: when we are exposed to something new, something
that might challenge us, confront us, something we might not like or
understand, we feel threatened and scared and we don’t like that. So, we hold
onto what we know and understand; we call that “good” and we make our home
there, and we call the other “bad.” And there is the division: a father with
two sons, divided.
And the problem is, we do this all the time. We do
this without even knowing we are doing it, and we end up missing so much and
causing such damage.
How God could accept this and not that leads
us to killing our brother and sister.
Our desire for prominence and control leads us to
push our brothers and sisters into exile.
Our need to secure our own future leads us to steal
from our brothers and sisters who live on nothing.
Our fear and envy of God accepting that rebellious
brother leads us to leaving our house.
And all this division is destroying us, and it’s not
what God had in mind. Division has no place in the home of God who is standing
on the front porch with arms open wide ready to embrace whomever comes walking
down the road next. Or, even better, a God who is very much present here in our
world still with arms open wide but arms reaching out to bring the divided things
in our world back together. A God who wants and needs our help in completing
the Kingdom task of unity – the Kingdom task of reconciliation.
It’s the words of our epistle reading this day, 2
Corinthians: “and God has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”
And this is where I think the church has the most
prophetic and hopeful message today: to be people of unity and reconciliation,
it’s the most counter-cultural thing we could do (and the church’s role is
typically to be as counter-cultural as possible). And it does not mean we back
down from our message or that we water down our truths and beliefs; it just
means that we make sure that we are letting love lead the way, which might be
as simple and profound as saying to someone you disagree with, “Hey, I don’t
think we will ever be on the same page or see this the same way, but we don’t
have to hate each other.”
I tried to practice that this week. I have a
lifelong family friend who constantly loves to just let me know how wrong I am
on Facebook, I don’t know that there is much of anything we agree on. But this
week, after he once again disagreed in a manner that was not productive, I
reached out and said, “Does this bring you joy? Because it does not bring me
joy, and I know we don’t see things the same way but there is no need for us to
do this because we have a long history together and I would rather not destroy
that. We don’t have to agree, but can’t we be civil, or at the very least,
silent?”
I mentioned a few weeks ago my captivation with this
book about animals’ emotional intelligence by scientist Francis de Waal. One of
the facts is that in the animal kingdom, it is the norm for rats, dolphins,
wolves, birds and elephants that “reconciliation is, in fact, common and widespread….
The behavior serves as relationship repair, so much so that nowadays if we
discover a social mammal that doesn’t reconcile after a fight, we are
surprised. We’d wonder how they kept their society together.” I wonder what he
would learn studying us these days.
So, what is divided in your world and in your soul,
and what are you going to do about it?
The bad news is that it’s probably hard and
difficult work, but the important and necessary work always is. It’s going to
involve saying those words that seem to weigh a million pounds in our mouth: “I
am sorry.” It’s going to take a lot of deep breaths, unclenched fists and
looser jaws that are willing to say, “you know that really does not matter.” It’s
going to be the work of seeing a bigger picture and being okay with some
uncertainty, and learning to be okay when not everyone sees things the way you
do or I do. It’s practicing that great truth that I have hanging next to my
desk: “it’s better to be kind than be right.” (and I have that hanging by my desk
because it is a reminder that I need all the time). It’s looking for middle
ground. It’s finding the broken pieces and using grace like glue to mend them
back together. It’s death to self.
Again: God has given us the ministry of
reconciliation.
It’s the work we are called to do, because it’s the
very work of Jesus Christ. It’s the work of the cross where God himself spread
his arms open wide and said, if it costs me my life, so be it, in order to
bring unity and wholeness for my people.
Maybe the real irony in all this is how deeply we
have bought into the story where “There was a father who had two sons….” And we
really started believing that actually, we made a lot more sons and daughters. There
was once a father who had all sorts of sons and daughters: Muslim and
Christian, black and white, gay and straight, rich and poor, right and wrong,
liberal and conservative and on and on and on… all while that father, our God,
looking over us and saying “one… there’s only one…. get it together and come
join the party.”
May we be people of the cross with arms open wide,
ready to bring reconciliation and salvation, and embrace a broken world that
needs the cross of our Jesus.
*artwork: Return of the Prodigal Son, by Hans Peter Fedderson, Public Domain
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