“Come To The Party”
Text:
Luke 15:11-32
© March 18, 2007 by C. Edward Bowen
Did
you ever have a haircut that didn’t turn out quite the way you wanted it
to? Did you ever have a haircut that you
weren’t real happy about? Well, that’s
exactly what happened recently to a woman out in the state of
Maybe
you don’t shoot out someone’s window if they do something to tick you off – or
maybe you do, I don’t know! But what do
you do when someone does something that upsets you? What do you do when someone wrongs you in
some way? What do you do when someone
sins against you? In the Apostles’
Creed, we end by saying, “I believe in the Holy Ghost, the holy catholic
church, the communion of saints, the
forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and the life
everlasting.” As Christians, we know
that the forgiveness of sins is supposed to be a central part of our
faith. But while we may say that we
believe in forgiving sins, for most of us, the truth is that that’s not always our
most favorite thing to do.
Today
we listened to one of the most well-known and one of the most well-loved
stories in all of the Bible, a passage in the Gospel of Luke that is commonly
known as “The Parable of the Prodigal Son.”
And while that parable certainly has something to say to us about the
meaning of forgiveness, if we listen carefully to that story that Jesus told, I
think we’ll discover that Jesus is trying to teach us even something more about
what it means to be his disciples.
As
we look at the parable, we see that it begins with a request – or maybe we
should say that it begins with a demand.
Because we’re told that there was a certain man who had two sons. And one day the younger son marched right up
to his father and said, “Dad, I want my share of the inheritance right here,
right now. I can’t sit around here
forever waiting for you to drop dead. So
if you don’t mind, would you just fork over my money to me now so I can get out
of here and get on with my life!”
Well,
how do you think the father replied to that little brat? Did he slap the kid? Did he yell at him? Did he send him to his room without dinner? No, instead of doing any of those things, the
father did what his son asked! The
father got out his checkbook, and he emptied out his account, dividing
everything he had – all his wealth – between his two sons. So he handed a check to the younger son who
had asked for the money, and he handed a check to the older son as well.
Well,
right away the next morning, as soon as the bank opened, the younger son ran in
and cashed his check, stuffed his pockets with $50s, and $100s, and $1000 bills
– and then he jumped on the first train headed out of town. He didn’t really care where the train was
headed, as long as it would take him far away from his dumb old father and
brother.
Eventually
the train pulled into a big city and the boy got off. But with that money burning a hole in his
pocket, he went through it in nothing flat – staying at the most luxurious
hotels, dining at the finest restaurants, buying all the best and most
expensive kinds of clothes he could find – he spared no expense.
But
then one morning he got up and went to buy a Krispy Kreme donut for breakfast.
But when he opened his wallet, to his shock and horror he found that it
was empty. He turned the wallet upside
down and began to shake it, but nothing came out. He had spent it all. He had no more money – it was all gone.
This
is terrible, the boy thought to himself.
No money. Nowhere to stay. Nothing to eat. So he picked up a newspaper that he found on
a park bench and began to flip through the want ads in search of a job. Someone was looking to hire an accountant,
but he knew that he had never been too good with numbers. There was a hospital looking to hire a nurse,
but he realized that wouldn’t work either, since he couldn’t stand the sight of
blood. Finally one ad in particular
caught his eye. It said: “No skill necessary. No experience necessary. Now hiring.”
Well, the boy figured, that kind of job was right up his alley.
It
turned out, of course, that the job they were hiring for was for someone to
feed some farmer’s pigs. Not exactly the
job he had always hoped for, but a job’s a job he told himself, and so he took
it. But after just one day at work
there, between the smell and muck, he knew that this wasn’t for him. But what was he going to do?
“I
know,” he said to himself. “I’ll go
home. There’s food there. There’s a warm bed for me there. Yeah, I’ll just go home. But wait a minute! I can’t go home. After telling my dad to drop dead like I did,
he might not be too thrilled to see me.
“So
think! Think! How can I pull this off? I know – I’ll walk in the front door, with my
head down, tears dripping from my eyes, and I’ll say, ‘Sorry, sorry,
sorry.’ And then, just when dad starts
to soften up a bit, I’ll pull out my resume and tell him about all the
experience I got in the food service industry, and he’ll be sure to hire me to
work for him. No, he won’t treat me like
a son anymore, but that’s OK – as long as I get the job. That’s all that matters.”
So
the boy started off for home. And along
the whole way, he kept rehearsing what he was going to say and do. “Sorry, sorry, sorry,” he kept saying over and
over again. He practiced his crying. He kept editing his resume – to make it look
like he had really done something with his life.
Well,
after days and days of walking, the house finally came into view. And so the boy took a deep breath and got
ready to put on the performance of his life.
But before he knew it, there was his father, waving his arms, and
running and leaping and skipping out to greet him. And before the boy could even finish saying,
“Sorry, sorry, sorry,” before he could get his tear ducts working, and before
he could pull out his resume, his father hugged him and kissed him and yelled
out, “My son’s home! It’s party
time! Call Pizza Hut! Tell them to send over a dozen of their
finest stuffed crust pizzas right away.
Hire a band! Get one of those ice
sculptures brought in. Invite the whole
town – because we’re going to have a party like we’ve never had before!”
But
that’s not the end of the story. Because
as you might remember, this is a story about a father who had two sons. And just as the party was getting underway,
the older son showed up and wondered what on earth was going on. What was with the music? Why were there so many cars parked in the
driveway? Why were all those balloons
tied to the lamppost?
But
just then one of the hired hands came along and told him, “It’s a party! Your brother’s back. And your father is throwing a huge party for
him.”
At
that moment the father then came out of the house, with confetti all through
his hair. The older son looked at him
and said, “A party?! Dad, have you lost
your mind? It’s one thing to let a
dirty, low-down ratfink like that son of yours come home. But throw a party for him?! Celebrate his return?! And who’s paying for this? This is out of my pocket. Dad, you already gave away all of your money
to the two of us – and that son of your burned through his share of the
inheritance, so why should I be stuck footing the bill for a party for him?”
But
the father looked him in the eye and said, “Son, don’t you understand? We have to celebrate – it’s the right thing
to do. Your brother was lost, he was as
good as dead – but now he’s found, now he’s alive again! So won’t you come? Your brother’s at the party. Won’t you come to the party too?”
What
are we supposed to make of this parable?
It’s probably not too much of a stretch to say that the father in the
story is supposed to remind us of God.
And when it comes to the way that the father welcomes his son home, it’s
telling us something about the way that God forgives people, even when they mess
up big time. It says something about the
way that God continues to love people, even when people seem to go out of their
way to turn their backs on God and walk away from God.
But
what are we supposed to make of that older son?
Because if the truth be told, most of us here probably can identify with
him. After all, while his younger
brother ran off to sow his wild oats, the older brother spent his whole life
following the rules, doing what he was told, trying his best to be a good son,
a good person. And most of all, the
older son stayed loyal to his father – in other words, symbolically we’re told
that he stayed loyal to God. And so if
you spent your whole life trying to be a good Christian and do what God wants
you to do, are you really going to want to do handsprings and throw a party
when some lousy sinner hits rock bottom and finally decides to wander home?
But
one of the things the parable seems to be saying is that if we want to be
Jesus’ disciples, that’s precisely the attitude we need to have. After all, Jesus spent a lot of his time
throwing parties for sinners and hosting big shindigs to let people know that
even if they’ve screwed up their lives and given up on God, God hasn’t given up
on them. And so if we want to be Jesus’
disciples, we need to be ready and willing to do the same kind of thing.
But
what exactly does that mean for us?
Well, first off, ask yourself:
Who in my life do I know that’s like that prodigal son? Who in my life do I know who has wandered
away from God, whose life isn’t all that it should be? Who is some friend or neighbor or family
member or co-worker or someone else that I know that fits that description?
Then
ask yourself: Am I willing to hope that
that person might come home to God? If
so, then begin praying for that person.
Pray for that person every day for at least a month, that God might
touch them in some way and create in them a desire to change the direction that
they’re headed.
Next,
while you’re praying for that person, invite them to the party, invite them to
come and share in what God’s doing in the world. Invite the person that you’re praying for to
come to worship with you and to stay for lunch, or invite them to come with you
to a church group that you’re a part of, or invite them to join you in taking
part in some service project or activity that the church is sponsoring.
And
don’t be discouraged if that person doesn’t accept your invitation right off
the bat. Just keep inviting them. After all, chances are that while that
younger son was living it up in that distant city, he wouldn’t have accepted an
invitation to come to a party back at home.
But at the right time – in his case, when he had hit rock bottom – that
invitation was the best thing anyone had ever offered him.
And
lastly, besides praying for people and inviting them to come home to God and to
join in the party, we need to prepare ourselves to pay a price to make it
happen. It might be an emotional price
that we’ll have to pay. Maybe the person
that God wants us to pray for and invite is someone we don’t like, someone we
don’t approve of, someone who has wronged us in some way over the years. And so just like that father asked his older
son to set aside the hard feelings he had toward his brother, there are going
to be times when God is going to ask us to pay an emotional price by setting
aside the hard feelings that we have so that we might do what God wants us to
be doing.
Or
maybe we’ll be called upon to pay a financial price. There are some churches that come right out
and say, “We want to invite people into our church because we need more money
coming in to pay the bills.” Guess
what? That’s not a terribly effective
way of bringing people home to God.
Instead, as individuals and as a church, are we willing to give of our
time, our energy, and even our money to do what it takes to reach out and to
show concern and to welcome people to the party that God wants to have? After all, it was the older son that ended up
footing the bill for the party for his returning brother.
Or
maybe we’ll be called upon to pay a price by changing in some way. Instead of just focusing on our own ideas and
our own way of doing things, are we willing to change so that others might be
welcomed in? In the parable, what the
older brother wanted was a party of his own, with just his own friends in
attendance. But the father tried to get
his son to see that he wanted him to change those plans and come to the party
where everyone was welcome.
Are
you willing to commit yourself to doing what Jesus asks us to do in this
parable? Are you willing to do what you
can to help welcome people to the party that God wants them to be a part
of? If so, then think of someone in your
life who you should be praying for, and keep praying for them day in and day
out. Then invite them to join with you
in taking part in some aspect of the life of the church. And if at first they decline your invitation,
wait for another opportunity and invite them again. And finally be willing to pay a price. Be willing to forgive and get over those hard
feelings. Be ready to do whatever it
takes to bring back those who have wandered away.
Jesus
devoted his life to reaching out to the lost, showing people that despite what
they’ve done with their lives, God still loves them. If we are to be Jesus’ disciples, then we
have no choice but to do the same. There
are people all around us every day who don’t have Jesus in their lives. But that can change. And you can be the one who can help make that
change happen.