Coming Home through Repentance

¹Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. ²And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

³So he told them this parable: ⁴“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until he finds it? ⁵When he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices. ⁶And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ ⁷Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.

⁸“Or what woman having ten silver coins,^£ if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? ⁹When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’ ¹⁰Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

"This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." Is this the encapsulation of Jesus' ministry on earth or what? “All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them," says the Gospel of Luke.

I once asked a friend wether he'd been to church lately. This was a guy I'd grown up with and spent much of my late teens and early twenties doing all manner of immature and crazy stuff with. However, despite all of that silliness, we'd often go to church together. I'd been out of town for a while and I asked him if he'd seen any of our other friends and if he'd been to church lately. He responded by saying, "Nah, I haven't been too proud of how I've been living lately, I don't think I'm going to church anytime soon."

On a day like today especially, when we have a Deacon's dinner happening after church, the Pharisees and Scribes would have been infuriated by how Jesus would have responded to that friend of mine. Jesus would probably have gone right out to his house, knocked on his door and said, "What are you doing here, stewing in your own guilt and afraid of all the miserable gossippers at your church. Let's go anyway and break some bread together while we're at it."

Those Pharisees and scribes, the miserable gossips and self-righteous nasties that every church has known at one time or another, would have hated to see Jesus coming with my friend in tow. But that's what his ministry was all about, wasn't it?

The fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.. This is a derogatory, scornful comment the Pharisees and scribes are tossing around regarding Jesus, but it was exactly what Jesus was all about. Jesus hears thei grumbling, their cursing under their breaths even as he sees the "tax collectors and sinners coming near to him." And he tells them three parables. The parable of the one lost sheep out of one hundred, the parable of one lost coin out of ten and the parable of the Prodigal and his brother. I didn't read that last one in its entirety just now because I thought perhaps you all probably know it intimately already.

Let’s open up to it now. Luke 15: starting from verse 11. I’m not going to read it all, but describe most of the action: The son wants his inheritance early from his father. His father gives it to him. He goes off and squanders it all in "dissolute living" and ends up destitute. One day, dreaming about stealing food from the pigs he's found himself tending, he realizes he never had it as good as he did at his father's house and decides to go back and ask forgiveness. He does, and his father accepts him, slaughtering his finest fatted calf and hosting a great party for all his household…And they live happily ever after, right? Not quite. Did anybody notice what I called this parable a moment ago? Some call it "the Parable of the Prodigal Son," others call it "the Parable of the Prodigal and his Father," others call it “the Parable of the Forgiving Father," but in my bible, in the large text heading above verse 11 calls it “the Parable of the Prodigal and his Brother." Who was the most unsatisfied person in this story? Who was it that resented the most in this parable?

Was it the Father who had half his kingdom squandered by a foolish son? Was it the son who squandered everything and ended up with the pigs?…Not quite

The Sunday School teacher was reading this story of the Prodigal Son to his class, clearly emphasizing the resentment the older brother expressed at the return of his brother. When he was finished telling the story, he asked the class, "Now who was really sad that the prodigal son had come home?" After a few minutes of silence, one little boy raised his hand and confidently stated, "The fatted calf."[1]

So who was it that resented the most in this parable? Was it the fatted calf? Maybe. But if it was, then the older brother, who stayed home and helped his father, who never ran away from his father, who never strayed from the path his father laid before him wasn’t too far behind that poor cow on the resentment meter.

It was the older brother who sounds most like the Pharisees and the scribes. It was the older brother, who was never a prodigal person, one who squandered or wasted or who was recklessly extravagant with his father’s money and financial fortune.

No, the older brother was not prodigal, he wasn’t wasteful with his father’s riches. But he was the one who resented the tragic events of this story the most, and in so doing, perhaps he showed himself to be no less prodigal, no less wasteful, and no less squandering of his father’s grace than his younger brother was of his father’s fortune.

Think of this. We have no reason to believe that the father in this story was any less loving, gracious or benevolent to his older son than he was to his younger son. But when the prodigal, the lost boy returned home in tears, and their father accepted him, the older, supposedly wiser, son, the one that stayed so close to his father, realized what was happening, he hated what his father had done. He had learned nothing being with him all these years, while his brother was off destroying himself. He had squandered his opportunity to learn from his father just as foolishly living in his father’s shadow as his brother had done so far away from home.

From verse 25 of chapter 15, “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. ²⁶He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. ²⁷He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ ²⁸Then he became angry and refused to go in.” “His father came out and began to plead with him.”

Pouting and angry, the older son has none of the joy and none of the value system his father does. He values money and reward and materialism even as his younger brother did. He’s no less resentful and petty and hateful than the Pharisees and scribes who see Jesus at work. He’s no less intimidating and menacing and hypocritical as the church gossips my friend was so afraid to face in the church coffee hour.

Let’s pick up the story again at verse 28, “Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. ²⁹But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. ³⁰But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ ³¹Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. ³²But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

“He was lost, and now he’s found.” The great irony of this is that the elder son is lost and pouting and alone and seething and angry and needs his father’s love now too! And does his father yell at him and express his disappointment saying to him, “How dare you! You live in my house, I allow you to use my resources to increase your own wealth. Your flocks are thousands now too, your land is rich and your harvests plentiful. What are you complaining about!” No, he goes out to his angry elder son and invites him into the party as well. “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. We had to celebrate…come celebrate with us.”

Like the young maiden who burns the night oil and sweeps the house clean looking for her lost coin. Like the shepherd out looking for his lost sheep. Like the father who forgives his repentant prodigal boy and throws a party for his long lost son, that same father goes out into the abandoned courtyard of his house and pleads with his other son to come home and repent of his anger and his resentment and his hatred for his brother.

Jesus’ three parables tell of things lost and things found. How much were each of these things worth? A silver coin also known as a drachma? Each coin, according to one biblical scholar was worth about “10 days wages and many month’s saving.”[2] Was it worth losing sleep and wasting oil and a frenzied search in the middle of the night?

How about a sheep? What was one sheep worth? Whatever its value, was it worth risking the safety of the 99 other sheep to go after the lost one?

What about a sinful foolish boy? What about an angry, spiteful, hateful man? How much are these worth?

How much is one human being worth? If we could somehow break down the chemical composition of a human body we would get enough iron for a nail; enough sugar to fill a sugar bowl; enough fat for seven bars of soap (that may vary from person to person), enough phosphorous for 2,200 match heads, enough potassium to shoot a toy cannon, all mixed in with a little lime, a little magnesium and a little sulfur so that even in today's market a human body is valued at about $3.50.

But what gave the prodigal and his brother their value is that they belonged to someone. They had a father. If I hear that there are 5,000 runaways every day in America that will not cause me to blink an eye. But if I hear that my child is one of them, there is nothing that I will not do to see that they are found.[3]

A prodigal son? Two sons? What is each person worth? My friend who was afraid to come to church? A member of a church angry at God or the pastor because the church has spent money or time or precious resources reaching out to a not so clean, not so perfect, not just right person who happens in off the street? What are these worth?

They are worth Christ on the Cross. They are worth Jesus sacrificing himself to express his love, his concern and his caring for each person his father created.

“This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” said the Pharisees and scribes jealously. He not only ate with them, he also gave his life for their salvation, for their resurrection, for their lives. During Lent we too have opportunities to repent of our anger, our resentments, our jealousies. During Lent and always we too have opportunities to repent of how we may have squandered the inheritance so lovingly accumulated for us by our father in heaven. During Lent and always, we too can sit with our Christ who loves us and wants to heal us and feed us and nurture us back to health and wholeness.

Also during Lent and beyond we have opportunities to invite sinners like ourselves to a table to eat with us. We too have opportunities to forgive our sinful brother, who has squandered what God has given but has returned to seek our loving father. We too have opportunities to repent of our sin and all that separates us from our father’s love and alienates our grieving and lost brothers and sisters from ourselves and perhaps from our God.

I pray that we too, might repent, might return home and find the banquet table of our loving savior God and sit with him, be nurtured by him and transformed by his love.

[1] “Who Resented The Prodigals Return?” Staff, www.eSermons.com march 2004 , from “eSermons.com illustrations@ministersmail.com: Sermon for March 21, 2004” e-mail to Ara Heghinian, March 16, 2004

[2] F.B.Craddock. Luke: Interpretation - a bible commentary for teaching and preaching. 285. John Knox Press: Louisville, KY. 1990.

[3] “How Much Are You Worth?” Staff, www.eSermons.com, March, 2001. from “eSermons.com illustrations@ministersmail.com: Sermon for March 21, 2004” e-mail to Ara Heghinian, March 16, 2004.