March 10, 2013
Lent 4
Joshua 5:9-12
Luke 15:1-2,11-32
(prayer)
I am coming up quickly on the big five-oh (as far as candles on the cake go) – just 44 days to go – so I think I am almost old enough to claim the entitlement of saying…
“(sigh) kid’s today – they don’t know how easy they have it!”
[video Louis CK on Late Night With Conan O’Brian – 2005]
I am victim of Louis CK’s scorn too.
I have done that with my smart phone (ugh…) as it is slow to react to my whim of the moment. Yes Louis, the speed of light is not fast enough sometimes. I have be ‘disappointed’ when I couldn’t find a wifi hotspot when I wanted it (you know up at the pulpit here I sometimes can't even connect to the church network because the router is way down in the office)… I have also been disappointed when I have trouble locating a bank machine… or a late night place to get a jug of milk… or a 2am hamburger joint.
We live in a "feeling entitled" society.
I’m reminded of the Queen song:
I want it all; I want it all;
I want it all. And I want it now.
We have gotten to that point as a society: We want it all. We want it fast – and we want it now.
It must be so hard for those of you who lived in the era of wartime or depression rationing. How pathetic we must seem to you.
In fairness, living in a 9/11 generation – with never ending talk about economic disparity – it is easy to see how this current time of history engenders a certain level of hopelessness and live-now thinking.
//
The world has changed and I doubt it’s going back very soon and certainly very reluctantly, if circumstances force it to.
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Each generation (certainly in our part of the world) since WW2 has grown its sense of that entitlement. The most frustration thing (as a person looks at the situation) is that part of that entitlement is an apparent inability to appreciate the amazing opportunities this era of human existence affords. If I had played the entire Louis CK clip, you’d have heard him start off by saying “everything’s amazing… and nobody’s happy”.
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We have it 'pretty good' living in this time and place - as our smartest minds and entrepreneurs have fed our appetites for every gadget and app possible. It has changed the general mindset from generations past.
And (ph’whoa) how we love to complain!
· Edmonton and its pothole complaints. On the radio the other morning I heard a song: "Mayor Mandel, he had a town, eieio... with a pothole here and a pothole there..."
· Weather must always be warm and sunny. Oh how I hate the TV news banter when the newscaster passes the camera off to the meteorologist saying: “So, Bill, have you got some sunny weather for us this weekend for a change?”
· Full variety, perfect, made to order, fast and now.
We don’t want to wait.
//
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There was man who had two sons. He was a wealthy land owner and his boys had known nothing but the privilege that comes from living among the servants and hired hands of the estate.
Both of these kids had issues with ‘work’ – the older one was all work, the younger one was all play.
The story (commonly known as The Parable of the Prodigal Son) is one of those biblical stories that a lot of people ‘kind of’ know even if they don’t have much to do with church. The word prodigal comes from a Latin root word that means Lavish. Lavish is not necessarily a negative word – it can be a-kin to “generous”. But by the middle ages, prodigal (even in Latin) was associated with a sense of "wastefulness": in other words, lavishness and short-term-selfishness combined: not so positive.
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You heard the story earlier. It is part of a series of three parables of Jesus that the gospel of Luke lumps together because of their common theme – things that are lost, getting found.
The first parable (at the start of Luke, chapter fifteen) is about a man who looks after 100 sheep and one gets lost. The shepherd refused to give up and searched every valley and wood until it was found. Then he told everyone and there was a community celebration.
The second parable is about a woman who had 10 coins (perhaps her savings, or some necklace or headdress adorned with the coins, maybe a family heirloom or a wedding gift). One of the coins was discovered to be missing, and she searched every nook and cranny of her house until she found it. We've all had that experience some way, I’m sure.
And then (using the exact same language as the first parable), the woman called together her friends for a party.
Finally, there is today’s reading – a father with two sons, one of which got ‘lost’ in his own selfishness and greed and utter prodigalness.
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One of themes I have preached on before when looking at all three of these 'Luke chapter fifteen' parables is that each one represents a different way of getting lost.
1. Losing one out of a hundred sheep could be a result of being overwhelmed: too many things to keep track of.
2. Losing one of ten coins could be a result of neglect: it’s not too many to handle – just maybe they weren’t being cared for closely enough.
3. But ‘getting lost’ like the prodigal son… is a choice – a conscious decision to turn away from family and obligations. He is lost to his father, the moment he leaves; the son doesn’t realize that he (himself) is lost until the money runs out and the fair-weather friends flee.
The Joni Mitchell song comes to mind here:
Don’t it always seem to go,
that you don’t know what you’ve got ‘till it’s gone.
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The story of the prodigal son is filled with disturbing moments:
ÿ To ask for his inheritance while his father was alive, was basically like saying – ‘Gee dad, I wish you were dead’. (now, I suspect that every kid has probably thought that at least once, but to say it out loud and really mean it is particularly disturbing.)
ÿ Then there are the exploitive desires of the ‘new’ friends who were more-than-happy to tag along on the ride of riotous living as long as they could. Then, when the gravy train was dry, they ran in search of a new trough to eat out of.
ÿ And then there is the son literally eating ‘pig’ food after the money is gone. This is an unpleasant image in any culture, but for the Hebrew audience of Jesus to hear about a young Jewish man eating with pigs (who were considered ritually unclean), it must have been especially disgusting!
ÿ Also disturbing is the reaction of the older son (when his brother finally comes home) – refusing to come in to the celebration even after his father explained his reasoning. Up until that point the older brother is cast in a good light – but we see a less than favourable part of his character in the form of his very hard heart. He can’t offer forgiveness first to his brother… and then to his father.
//
As I said: this story is commonly called The Prodigal Son. It could also be called The Prodigal Father. The older son would like that title, as he saw it as overly lavish to waste such a celebration on his brother – who had disowned the father and wished him dead; who had never worked as hard or as faithfully as he had. Where is ‘my’ party?!
Really, it makes little sense, what the father did. No one would fail to understand him, if his broken heart was hardened toward his selfish, greedy, lazy, prodigal son. It would be a logical response. What the father did was (in fact) illogical!
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That’s exactly what Jesus wants his audience to think. If the younger son character is you and me at our worst, the older son character is really you and me at our best – we’re the ones who would never treat our parent like that. We strive to work hard, to feel fulfilled, to be respected: to seek justice, love kindness and walk humbly with our God.
God (in the story) is of course the parent character: the Father of Grace and Forgiveness.
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In the first two “lost” parables, the ‘moral’ of the stories was something like… there is more rejoicing in heaven over one person who repents that 100 people who need no repentance.
I would sum up the stories with this statement – We are never too lost for God to give up on us. God will find us and welcome us home!
We are never too lost for God to find us and welcome us home!
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The call to those listening to Jesus teaching – either in person in the early first century, or in the millennia since, reading the story passed on in Luke – is to not be surprised by the lavish grace and forgiveness of God. We are challenged to not necessarily feel entitled to this graciousness of God, but to humbly appreciate the lavish generosity of God, which too often would defy the logic of our human interactions.
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I would argue that is should not just a personal goal to be a humble recipient of grace, but to be humble as a society – we shouldn’t act as if we can do anything, at any time – to appreciate that there is impact now and down the road to our choices and actions.
I mean, look at the Alberta economy and this past week’s provincial budget – until very recently I didn’t even know that the Oil Sands were a unique commodity on world oil markets – “Western Canada Select heavy crude oil”.
We have behaved ‘societally’, as if we could grow and expand forever. But the harsh realities of supply and demand economics have priced Alberta bitumen at half the cost of other lighter or more desirable oils:
It’s an issue of supply because we have encouraged lots of development at the mining stage (OVERdevelopment, some would argue); and it’s an issue of demand because of limited refineries and the fact that some people are exercising the choice to not to be customers of so-called the tar sands.
Our sense of entitlement, like that of the prodigal son, can lead to forced humility. Although, I am not sure whether our planet has the ability to be as forgiving as the father in Jesus’ parable.
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It is a marvelous piece of Gospel to be taught that God loves beyond our ability to love, that God welcomes beyond our ability to welcome, that God forgives and redeems beyond anything we might deserve.
Thank God for illogical, amazing grace.
[no prayer]
#266VU “Amazing Grace”
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