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Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text for this morning comes from the Gospel reading about the prodigal son. You may be seated.
Isn’t it ironic how the world views you as a Christian? The world views you as a Christian as the greatest hypocrite. The world views the church as housing the hypocrites of this world. And you know what? They’re right. They are right. We are hypocrites. Let’s be honest with ourselves, with our God, and with one another. And let’s do the godly thing. If we are hypocrites, let us confess our sin, repent of it, and receive God’s forgiveness. And let us not stop meeting together. For here is where God takes hypocrites, forgives them, and then knits them together into a communion of saints.
Remarkable, isn’t it? That God takes a bunch of pagan hypocrites, you and me, forgives us, and then knits us together, forgiven hypocrites, into a communion that he calls the communion of saints. That is fantastic news and good news indeed. So why then does our Lord do such great things? What’s the text say he does? The text says very clearly he receives sinners and… And, mind you, eats with them. He receives sinners and eats with them.
Now, the reason that that is important is because that’s why all of the tax collectors and sinners were drawing near. Notice the text says, not some, but all were drawing near to hear Jesus. Because this Jesus, whom they are drawing near to hear, receives sinners and eats with them. How sad. Because they don’t see themselves as sinners. They didn’t draw near to Jesus. They don’t want to eat with Jesus because Jesus eats with sinners. And they’re losing the great gift of forgiveness in their stubbornness of heart.
Let’s face it, we’re in good company with one another sitting in the pews. It is Jesus who sought us out and found us in our lostness. Brings us back on his shoulders rejoicing. And then rejoices with the community that, hey, look, everyone, that which was lost has been found. That which was dead is now alive. Rejoice with me. And these folks, the religious leaders of the day who were incensed that Jesus received sinners and ate with them, would never know the joy of that restoration, would never eat the feast of reconciliation.
In fact, read the scriptures. Jesus’ entire life was one of habitually and ongoingly receiving sinners, eating with them. And the religious leaders of the day judged that act of receiving sinners and eating with them as being very unpredictable of a true prophet from God. If he’s truly from God, he would not receive sinners and eat with them. That would be predictable. But Jesus is unpredictable in that he does receive sinners and eat with them.
You know who else is unpredictable? The loving father in this morning’s prodigal son parable. That’s not predictable. You have been on the receiving end of your parent wagging their finger at you. When you come back for forgiveness, it’s not always given so freely, is it? We give it, but there’s strings attached when we give it, don’t we? We’ve heard the nagging. We’ve heard the griping. That’s predictable.
What the loving Father did in this morning’s text was completely unpredictable. He did not chastise his son. He did not judge his son. He was not critical of his son. He even called him, my son. That is… It’s unpredictable of a father, but that’s very predictable of the loving father in this morning’s prodigal son parable. And ultimately very predictable by faith of your loving father.
Now, there were four characters in this morning’s parable. Now, you’re thinking, okay, wait a second, time out, there’s three, aren’t there? There’s the prodigal son, there’s the elder son, and there’s the loving father. Where’s the fourth character? The fourth is the very important part of this parable. It’s the community. The community. This parable was told and explained as it happened. And it happened among other people. For when the son is restored to his sonship, he doesn’t celebrate it alone. He doesn’t even celebrate it with just his family. The loving father celebrates it with… The text talks about the entire community.
Now why is that so important and relevant? If you came to your father at that time and wanted half of your inheritance, is he going to write you a check? No. Is he going to give you a gift card? No. Is he going to pull out a wad of cash and pay you? No. He will give you over the deed to the land, that’s yours, and he will give you the animals, that’s rightfully yours. You can’t spend that unless you first sell it. To whom would this young son sell this land and this cattle and animals? To the people within the community. That’s how he got his cash.
And you know he didn’t take top dollar. He took whatever he could get because he wanted the cash and wanted to get the heck out of Dodge. So everybody in the community knew publicly what this son did for his father. And they had to have laughed. And scorned him. Or tisk, tisk, tisked him. Or, like we like to do, did you hear what Bob’s son did or Joe’s son did? And we would share it out of Christian concern, of course.
Yeah, exactly. So the community was highly involved in this life of the loving father, the elder son, and the prodigal son. Hence why that’s the fourth character in this parable. They were intimately involved in this sin of the younger son. Because whether we think so or not, our sins are not alone and private. They affect other people. They affect the person with whom you share the marriage bed. They affect your flesh and blood, your children. They affect the community in which you are knit into, this place. They affect your workplace. So the sin of the prodigal son affected the community in which he was placed as well.
But you know what? You know what really torqued the elder brother? You know what twisted his nose and got him all riled up? It was the fact that the loving father restored the prodigal wayward son with a great feast of restoration and reconciliation with the community. Because while the prodigal son was gone, what did the elder son get told? Nothing.
Oh, you’re the good son. You’re the faithful son. You were so good and faithful. You didn’t leave your father’s side like that low good, no good brother of yours did. The prodigal son’s brother, the elder one, heard all of those great praises and accolades. And when the prodigal son returned home, he thought, justice! And what does his loving father do? But injustice, according to him. For the loving Father received him back. And not just to receive him back, but received him back with a feast. And not just a feast with the family, but the feast with the community. That’s what really torqued the older brother.
Did you notice when the older brother addresses the father, he doesn’t even call him father? When the prodigal son comes home, the prodigal son says, Father, forgive me, for I have sinned against heaven and against you. I’m no longer worthy to be called your son. The prodigal son acknowledges the father as father, himself as a son, and that he’s no longer worthy to be called it. The elder son, by the way, doesn’t even acknowledge the father as father, just says, look, look at the text. You give this feast.
And here I’ve been the one who’s been faithful. And I’ve been the one who has not left you. And I’ve been the one, and the story goes on and on and on. Hit the brakes, everybody, because who left the public feast? Who left the public feast with one place missing where the elder son should be sitting, rejoicing? Who left that public feast looking for that elder son who should be sitting there by his father’s side to come get him and bring him back? The loving father.
In fact, if you compare how the loving father treated the prodigal son with how the loving father treated the elder son, they are exactly the same. The father seeks out the son to talk to him as the father ran to the son who was a prodigal one. The father calls the prodigal son, my son who is dead is alive. The father calls the elder son who is outside and not feasting with the rest of the community, my son, you are my son, he says.
There is no judgment in the father with both sons. There’s no criticism for both of these sons of his. There is no rejection for both of these sons. He treats them exactly the same because he and his love is consistent, unlike ours. His forgiveness is consistent, unlike ours.
So then what do we do? What do we do with such a public outpouring of love toward us here in this place where you’re sitting right now? Because God has told you, I forgive you all your sins. God has said, I’ve reconciled you in Christ to me. God has said, kill the fattened calf and rejoice, for my son who was dead is now alive. To you he has said that.
What do we do then with this feast at which he invites you to come and eat and celebrate not just for yourself, but for the other sinners with whom he has gathered you, rejoicing over them rather than thinking only of yourself, rejoicing over their forgiveness rather than thinking only of your own forgiveness, rejoicing that God has gathered you and knit you into this communion of saints along with them, the elder’s son, the elder’s son, the elder’s.
We don’t know what happened to him, do we? The prodigal son we know. He was received back and the father rejoiced over him and feasted with him. The parable ends and then we don’t really know what happened to the elder son. Did the elder son let go of this injustice that was done to him? Even though he perceived it to be unjust, regardless of whether it was or not, he perceived it as such. Would he let that perception go or would he cling to that perception?
Do we harbor these characteristics of the elder son as well? Your community of fellow believers here at Holy… at St. Paul Lutheran Church, your fellow believers here rejoice over you, rejoice over your presence here, hearing the Word of God like the tax collectors and sinners did. And not only did Jesus receive them, it’s so important to remember what did he do next. Ate with them. That’s profound. Because if there was not a need other than to receive him… a sinner, there would be no feasting.
But Jesus does not. He not only receives them, but he eats with them. There are two parts of that. He wants to make sure that you, as his prodigal child, or you, as his elder son child, are received and rejoiced over and eaten with, with the community in which he’s been placed, you in this place. That’s the goal of this whole parable. It’s the joy at the Restoration Feast.
Notice the text. In the latter part of that text, it says, it is fitting to celebrate. It is fitting to celebrate. That does not get added. The Greek there says it’s necessary, it’s divinely necessary to celebrate sinners coming back to the Father. It’s necessary to celebrate elder sons who struggle with things, welcome them back to the Father and rejoice over them. In fact, it is so necessary. It is as necessary as Christ dying for us on that cross, which was necessary.
It is so necessary to celebrate and rejoice over us as sinners being knit together in this place around that feast of restoration as necessary as his resurrection from the dead. This is the one who receives us as prodigals and as elder sons. And isn’t it interesting, some days we’re prodigals and some days we’re elder sons? Guess that means we’re sinners. Yes, because Jesus receives sinners. And Jesus eats with sinners. And he not only eats with them, he feeds them like little children are fed.
Amen. Come and be fed. You’ve heard the word. You’ve received that forgiveness. Now sup and drink and celebrate with one another what God has done in you and through this feast. In the name of Jesus, amen. The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and your minds on Christ Jesus to life everlasting. Amen.
