LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST
2601 54th Avenue South St. Petersburg, FL 33712
On land originally inhabited by the Tocabaga
727-867-7961
lakewooducc.org
lakewooducc@gmail.com
Date: August 13, 2023
Scripture Lesson: Luke 15:11-32
Sermon: Transaction Cancelled
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
The novel entitled The Colony by Audrey Magee takes place on an island off of the coast of Ireland in 1979. The island is about 3 miles long and one mile wide so the residents form a very close knit community. One character has lost her husband, her father, and her brother in a tragic storm as they were fishing and their boat went down. Several times in the novel, which was recommended at an LUCC monthly Book Talk gathering, there is reference to waiting for the three men to return. Though months, even years have passed, there is still this lingering faint hope? expectation? possibility? that one day, one of the men will wash back up out of the sea. Their presence is still part of the fabric of the community and so is their absence.
In the story we heard today from Luke, there is also a lost loved one. The father knows nothing about what has happened to his son. He only knows that the son has left turning his back on his family and faith. The request for the inheritance was essentially wishing the father dead. So this son is not only gone, but lost – to the community, family, morals, values, and culture that he was part of.
We are told of the father catching sight of the returning son from a long way off. This father figure, who has been abandoned, has not given up on the son, on the son’s return. We can imagine the father looking for the son, maybe even every day. One day in one direction. Maybe the next day in another direction. The father has no information to go on. Still, it seems the father looks, with hope? expectation? possibility? for the son to return.
We are told that the father saw the son from far away. How did he know the son? Was the gait still the same? The hair color? The demeanor? The height? But a parent knows such things about a child. A parent has the intimate knowledge needed to recognize the one coming, even from far off.
Then we are told that the father runs to greet the son. Embraces him. Kisses him. It was unseemly for an elder land holder to run. A landowner waited for people to come to him. Seek him out. Yet we are told of this father running to meet the son. The son barely begins his prepared speech and the father cuts him off. You’re home! We must celebrate! The best clothes are placed upon the son. And a ring. This is no hired hand, this is an heir.
And the father in the story also goes to his other son who is resentful and angry. The father seeks him out. Listens to him. Affirms him and his place in the father’s heart and household.
It seems that the love and joy of this father for both of his sons is irrepressible.
In the Gospel of Luke, this story is presented as being told to a group of religious officials who are complaining that Jesus eats with tax collectors and sinners. Tax collectors were rich and powerful people who were not accepted in the faith community, and sinners were outcasts, usually poor or sick, who were not accepted in the faith community. Jesus had a reputation for socializing with the wrong people on both ends of the economic spectrum.
And here we are given an allegory that seems to portray a God who eagerly accepts all. Wherever they are on the spectrum. The wayward son and the steady, loyal son. This is a portrait of a God who is a both/and God not an either/or God. A God with open arms, awaiting all. Not a transactional God opening a gate only for those who qualify, who can pay, who have earned their way, through their religious observance perhaps. This is a story in which every person is beloved. And there is nothing you can do about it.
This God figure doesn’t make the younger son grovel, offering bread and water, sackcloth, ashes, kneeling, and tears. This God responds with exuberance: a fatted calf, a new robe, jewelry, dancing, merriment. This is an irrepressibly joyful God eager to welcome all, especially those who have been lost.
We get the New York Times each Sunday, and my spouse, Jeff, reads it all week, often while we are sitting together at the dining room table. I am probably doing the crossword. And he gives me a curated version of the weekly paper; telling me about the things he thinks I will find interesting. A couple of weeks ago, he was telling me that apparently about 80% of Americans say that they believe in God. Frankly that surprised me. A little more investigation shows that only 56% believe in God as described in the Bible. [https://www.newsweek.com/fact-check-do-80-americans-believe-god-1782664]
Well, who is the God described in the Bible? Do those 56% believe in God as portrayed in this story from Luke? This prodigal father figure? Or do they believe in the punitive God of other stories in the Bible? Is it the creator God they believe in? Or is it the God who raises Jesus from the dead? What are the attributes of the God of the Bible that people believe in?
I will tell you this. If 56% of the people in this country believed in the God portrayed in this story from Luke, this would be a very different society. We would be a people of lavish generosity and hope. The government would be looking out for the wellbeing of all residents. There would be no prison industrial complex, no school to prison pipeline. Prejudice and bias would be much lower. There would not be a group of one kind of people attacking another kind for asking them to move their boat as we saw recently. We would not be in bondage to selfishness, greed, and individualism. Because we would see that it is all grace not accounting.
The God figure in the story from Luke, this is the God of Jesus. This is the kind of God Jesus wants us to worship. This is the sort of God Jesus wants us to see, know, and recognize. This is the God Jesus teaches us to expect and to find – in ourselves. And in each other. A God of prodigal love.
Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic who lived from 1260-1328, said, “God is at home; it is we who have gone out for a walk.” [See Matthew Fox, Original Blessing, p. 161.]
May we make our way home to the God of this story, joyfully awaiting us, eager to welcome us. Home. Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
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