I\u2019ve found my self thinking and talking about this passage from Luke\u2019s historical account of Jesus\u2019 life and ministry a lot recently. It was the passage that had been set for Wednesday lunchtime communion last week at All Saints, and so I spoke on it at the care home communions that I went to as well. And then I realised that it was also the reading for this week here. As I say, I\u2019ve been thinking about it a lot. <\/p>\n
There are some particular challenges of speaking on a passage like this is that it is one that has been written about and spoken on a lot. Firstly, it is really familiar, so familiar, perhaps that it kind of washes past us, we don\u2019t really hear it any more, because we know the story. Secondly, there are so many possibilities \u2013 so much material we could look at. What is the right focus for us, here, today?<\/p>\n
Faced with these challenges, I\u2019ve chosen to focus on two aspects of this story which might not seem to be the main point, which are perhaps ones we don\u2019t get the opportunity to explore as often. We\u2019re going to think about others and mothers.<\/p>\n
Firstly \u2013 others. It seems to me that one of the distinctive features of this story is the recurring theme of people being treated as \u201cother\u201d, as \u201cthem\u201d. It\u2019s where the whole reading starts.<\/p>\n
Jesus is teaching, and there are a whole load of people coming to listen to him and learn from him. This included people who were excluded from polite society, the \u201ctax collectors and sinners\u201d. The religious leaders and legal experts \u201cmurmured\u201d about this. I love that word \u201cmurmured\u201d. Some other translations have, \u201cmuttered\u201d. They\u2019re both great words. Murmuring and muttering. People whispering with disapproval, under their breath, just enough for a couple of the words to leak out, but not so much to cause a scene. Murmur, murmur. Mutter, mutter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis man receives sinners and eats with them.\u201d<\/p>\n
What a revealing statement about how the Pharisees saw the world. The Pharisees were the law keepers, the good guys, the acceptable ones. Them over there, they were the sinners, the bad guys, the unacceptable ones. The sinners are the others, that no self respecting person would have anything to do with.<\/p>\n
In response to this muttering, Jesus tells three stories, all about things that are lost being found, and this morning we\u2019re looking at the third of these. We get the familiar set up, of the younger son asking for his portion of the inheritance, heading off into wild living, and it all going wrong. He becomes one of them. Those others. The sinner who has dishonoured his father, threatened the viability of the family business, and wasted it all in a sinful life style.<\/p>\n
The younger son is one of them, one of the others.<\/p>\n
And how does the father in the story treat this other? He runs towards him, he embraces him, he celebrates his return. He forgives him. He doesn\u2019t deny the sinfulness of what he did, he doesn\u2019t minimise it \u2013 he acknowledges that he had been dead, had been lost. But what is more important to the father is that the son has come home, is alive again. <\/p>\n
And they all lived happily ever after? Not quite. The older brother is not impressed. Notice the language in verses 27, 30, and 32. <\/p>\n
In verse 27, the older brother has asked a servant what is going on and the servant responds, \u201cyour brother has come\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n
By verse 30 the father has come out and is listening to his son venting his grievances, \u201cthis son of yours\u2026..\u201d
\nIn verse 32 we hear the father\u2019s response, his plea to his older son to come in and celebrate, <\/p>\n
\u201cyour brother was dead, and is alive.\u201d<\/p>\n
Do you see the difference. <\/p>\n
The older son is separating himself off, he doesn\u2019t say \u201cmy brother\u201d, he says \u201cyour son.\u201d He is creating distance, he\u2019s making the other son one of them. But his father won\u2019t allow this, he insists on reminding his older son that the younger one is his brother. <\/p>\n
Now do they live happily ever after?<\/p>\n
We still don\u2019t know. There is no resolution to this story. We have to decide the ending for ourselves. Will the older brother accept what his father says? Will he learn to see his brother as his brother. Will he be able to forgive and accept him as his father has? <\/p>\n
Will the Pharisees continue to murmur and mutter about them, the others, the sinners and tax collectors? Or will they learn to see that there is no them. There is only us, in our common humanity, each of us needing the grace and love of God to bring us home, to welcome us home, to rejoice over us. <\/p>\n
The same questions face us. Are there people that we are tempted to think of us \u201cthem\u201d, rather than \u201cus\u201d. What impact does that have on the way we treat people, on how we talk about people? Do we ever find ourselves muttering or murmuring? <\/p>\n
There is no them. There are no others. There is only us. Created and loved by God. Redeemed by Jesus. Sought and welcomed home. All of us.<\/p>\n
So much for others. I also said I was going to invite us to think about mothers. It is, after all, Mothering Sunday today. I was, however, faced with a couple of problems. There is no mother in this story. I am not a mother. So, I asked a mother, my wife Liz, to imagine a mother\u2019s perspective on the events of this story, and this is what she wrote…<\/p>\n
You broke my heart in two.<\/p>\n
I was angry when you left. Angry at you for leaving me, angry at myself for not being able to hold onto you, angry at your father for giving you your share of money. Why did he have to do that?<\/p>\n
Then I was worried. Deeply, heart-rendingly worried. I didn\u2019t know where you were. Your dad said you\u2019d be fine, you\u2019d come back, but for all I knew you could have been lying dead on some back road somewhere. At the centre of my world was this great big ragged pain and I didn\u2019t know what to do with it.<\/p>\n
The days turned into weeks, and weeks into months, and you didn\u2019t even send us word that you were still out there, still alive. What kind of son would forget his mother like that? What kind of mother would raise a child who had no compassion on his family?<\/p>\n
Your brother was a comfort. Always just there, always getting on with his work, quietly. He was angry with you, too, but he was scared as well.<\/p>\n
My heart was a great big hole.<\/p>\n
And then you walked back into our lives.<\/p>\n
Your father was watching for you. He\u2019d always known you\u2019d come back, always trusted. He was all ready to throw the biggest party for you. But me? I was broken. I didn\u2019t think I\u2019d know how to react if you came back. Maybe I\u2019d turn away from you, unable to let this pain go. Maybe I\u2019d shout at you, scream at you, pummel your chest. <\/p>\n
But then I saw you. Saw your dad running to you, and my legs couldn\u2019t hold themselves back, even though the turmoil of emotions inside threatened to throw me to the ground. You were there. My son. You were dead, and now you were alive. All I could do was throw my arms around you, pull you close, just like I\u2019d done when you were a little boy getting up to mischief again. That\u2019s when my heart opened up wider than I\u2019d thought possible. I found room in there besides all the anger, fear and boiling resentment.<\/p>\n
I found love, and it was wide and long and high and deep.<\/p>\n
I was still torn, of course. I was so angry with you. I saw your brother\u2019s pain at the way your father treated you, and I was on his side as well as yours. The two of you pulled me in two and yet there was still love in the middle of it all. <\/p>\n
You were home, and that was all that mattered.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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