Year C – Fourth Sunday in Lent – March 30, 2025
Pastor Megan Floyd
Luke 15:1-3; 11b-32
Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, and from our Lord, Jesus Christ, whose abundant grace makes our repentance possible. Amen.
***
This fellow welcomes sinners and tax collectors… and eats with them.
I don’t know what these particular sinners did for the Pharisees to label them as such… but the tax collectors worked for the Roman government… they were agents for the Empire…
For the average Jewish person, the tax collectors were the people who were actively working against your livelihood and your well-being.
They were… not welcome at any decent Jewish person’s table… so the fact that this fellow, Jesus, welcomed tax collectors and ate with them is… well… it’s pretty offensive.
This fellow… Jesus… he sure is a troublemaker… he is always getting the Pharisees grumbling.
And so, Jesus responds to their grumbling with a parable that is even more offensive… on so many levels…
It has a terrible, manipulative son who demands that his father give him his inheritance as if his father is dead to him…
and then squanders all the money on prostitutes and ends up starving, surrounded by pigs… and… he is not sorry about what he did.
He is not full of remorse… he does not repent, and then return to his father…
What drives him to return home… is that he is hungry, and he thinks he can con his dad into feeding him again.
But the hardest thing to admit is that perhaps… the greatest offense in this story… is that the father’s grace is so freely and abundantly given.
Yes, it is grace… that is most offensive here.
***
I confess to you… that I continually find myself identifying with the older brother.
I cannot help my instinctual reaction and impulse that there must be some divine consequence for the actions of the younger son…
I cannot help but overlay the sin of the younger brother with examples of offensive sin in our modern time…
I see in him those who are, today, manipulative and conniving, those who seize power and use it to increase the exploitation of the poor, the marginalized, and the vulnerable.
I see in him those who would squander the wealth and prosperity of generations for their own gain…
and those who are so blinded by prejudice and a fear of the ‘other’ that they are dismantling the work toward equality and equity that others have worked and died for…
and I am offended.
I am offended at what Jesus’ story teaches us about God… that God’s arms are open wide and full of love and grace for all… even the unrepentant sinners.
Even though I am well-versed in how much God proclaims unconditional love for all. I am still offended… this is my sin.
And yet, I so deeply empathize with the hurt the older brother feels when he realizes there is a celebration happening, and he’s not part of it.
I get angry… I confess this to you… I am offended by this story.
Which, of course, means that I am just as much in need of forgiveness and grace as either one of these brothers…
So… if you don’t mind, I’m going to preach to myself here for a few minutes because I am, clearly, captive to my sin and in need of some good news…
***
During Lent, we’ve been paying close attention to God’s urgent call to return… return to the Lord, repent… change your heart… change your mind, and turn your attention back to God and God’s love for you.
And what this parable today illustrates for us is that… we cannot truly repent until we have received, and accepted, God’s grace and love…
The younger son… as I said earlier… what drove him back to his father was not remorse… it was hunger. Had he found a meal, he would likely not have gone back.
Only when he showed up and realized that his father had never stopped searching for him… never stopped loving him… that his father’s arms were open wide and full of mercy and grace…
Only then… did this young son’s heart soften… only then did the transformative power of genuine repentance go to work on him.
Grace is not a reward for our repentance. Grace… makes our repentance possible.
…and our repentance itself is a loving gift from God, given to help us heal… given so that we can be made whole.
Our repentance, made possible through grace, transforms our inward concern for our own needs and gain… into outward love for others and their well-being.
Our ability to humbly come before God and confess that we have strayed from the way Jesus called us to go… to come before God and confess our sin… is only possible… because we have first received… grace.
God is not trying to manipulate us into a fake apology or a disingenuous change in behavior… the offer of grace is not coercion…
God offers us this grace freely… and in so doing, God is creating the conditions for us to be made new.
God will not settle for anything less than a full transformation… a full redemption… a new creation.
But… for this to be so… we must hear this good news first… God loves you, God forgives you, and God’s arms are open wide, and full of mercy and grace, waiting for you to come home.
And once we are home, safe in God’s embrace… only then, can we begin to heal from our sin… to be healed and made whole.
Bathed in mercy and grace, washed in love, we are made new, and therefore, just as we are a new creation in Christ, we cannot help but look at our neighbors in a new way…
We cannot help but see God’s love in them, see the dignity and value in all people, even those we have sinned against… in thought, word, or deed
…and yes, even those who have sinned against us.
We cannot love the world as God so loves the world… until we allow God’s grace to heal our hearts… and to confess that we are as much in need of that grace and healing as anyone else.
We are as much in need of that grace and healing as the lost and wayward children, the con artists, the scoundrels, those who are collaborating with the Empire, and yes… even the resentful older brothers…
…we ALL need God’s grace and healing… God’s unfair and offensive, extravagant and boundless grace…
I need to hear this every day… God loves me… God forgives me… and God’s arms are open wide and full of grace.
***
I still can’t help but empathize with that older brother and the hurt he must have felt when he realized he was not included in the celebration.
He was so wound up about who is deserving of his father’s love… who is acceptable, who is worthy, who is deserving of mercy… that he refused to go into the celebration.
He was so convinced of his own righteousness, and the wrongness of his brother, that he missed the party.
I get it. I understand how he could feel this way… and I also understand that he is missing the point.
You see, I don’t read this celebration as an allegory for eternal life with God…
The celebration is a real party, and it’s happening now…
it is our joyful response to our transformation – the new life and the new creation that comes from true repentance… and for the grace that makes it possible… right here and now… every day.
The offensive celebration… is for the healing of a heart that has gone astray!
For once, we were lost… and now we are found!
The older brother has been with the father all this time… but he, too, has let his heart go astray… he has taken his position in his father’s house for granted,
and has failed to return, again and again, to his father’s embrace of love and grace… he failed to allow that grace to continually renew and re-create his heart.
The older brother has fallen captive to his sin, and he made it all about himself… saying to his father… but what have you done for me?
But his father… who loves him… who forgives him… says to his son, my arms are open wide for you too, and full of grace, just as they have always been… come, and be made new.
Come into my grace… let it go to work on your heart, and be transformed by my love… and then, my child… you, who have been made new, will have no other response but to rejoice.
And so, Lord, I pray to you… guide me… guide us… every day… into your transformative embrace, and let us celebrate with you. Amen.
