The prodigal son (March 14, 2010)
By Rev. Steve Bagnall

Most of us are very familiar with the parable our Lord has told in today’s Gospel. It seems clear that the Father in this parable is God, the Father of all humanity. We are His children – sons, if you will. We are created to be members of His household. The parable helps us understand some things about ourselves and about God.

The first thing I want to consider is that this parable presents two ways that we can separate ourselves from God and His blessings. The first way is obvious. Some people are like the younger son. They take all the bounty and goods of this life, all the blessings we have from our Father, and they waste them in sinful ways. These are the people who know what God has to say on a subject, but they don’t really care. I meet these folks all the time.

They know God condemns sexual activity by people who are not married to one another, but they choose to ignore the word of their Father. Others continue on the road of drinking too much alcohol, drugs, not attending Divine service. Some know the Triune God calls all other gods false, and even demons, but they refuse to agree, thinking, and even saying, that there are other ways to God than through faith in Jesus.

These are the people who know God condemns gossip, but carry it on anyway, claiming it is not a “real” sin, or that it’s ok, since they’re speaking the truth. The list could go on forever, but what holds these people together is their decision to reject God and instead to act as their own Father, to reject His authority and instead choose to try to be the only true authority in their own lives, listening to God only when He agrees with them. These people are the prodigals, squandering this life on cheap and empty pleasures and self-importance.

The second kind of person depicted in the parable is the one who believes he doesn’t sin, or at least not much. He’s different from the first son in that he doesn’t wander far from his father. Unlike the younger son, this one cares very deeply what God thinks of him, he just thinks he pleases God. This person believes he deserves God’s blessings – he even gets offended when bad things happen in his life, as though his years of serving God – attending Divine Service and Bible Study should entitle him to an easy road. This guy looks at the sin of the other kind of son and uses it to make himself feel good. “I’m better than that, so I’m good enough.”

This person’s attitude is revealed in the words the older son speaks in our parable: “Lo, these many years I have been serving you; I never transgressed your commandment at any time; and yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might make merry with my friends.” He’s ungrateful, believes not only that he has deserved every good thing he’s ever received, but also that he deserves even more!

One son removes himself from God’s presence so he can go where the sin is; the other removes himself by standing outside of God’s tent, unwilling to admit that all his blessings are undeserved, all freely handed to him from his Father’s table. Both sons reject the Father’s loving gifts, but the Father urgently wants each son to return. When the prodigal returns, the Father sees him a long way off, because He has been waiting, daily scanning the horizon, waiting hopefully for the day when the son will see the foolishness of his sin and return to his father’s love and protection. And when the older son stubbornly refuses His Father’s gifts, instead asking for his due, the Father doesn’t sternly correct his son. He doesn’t point out that the son’s service was not that of a worker who receives wages, but of a son, who cares for the house because it’s all his. Instead He pleads, begs, “Please come in, the honored place is ready for you. Let me give you the joy of this celebration, come join in my rejoicing over your repentant brother.”

As we’ve said, the Father represents God and the sons represent people – they represent us. Which son are you? That question may sum up Lent, not, “Are you a sinner?”, but “Which kind of sinner are you?” Do you come today like the younger son, having used God’s gifts of your time, your money, your mind and abilities in sinful ways, contrary to your Father’s will? Or have you been self-righteous, thinking you have been good enough and God ought to reward you, that you deserve what you have, or that you deserve even better? Or, like me, are you both? That is the sad, solemn question of Lent.

That’s the question of Lent. But know that there is an answer to that question. Lent leads us to see our sin, but that’s only the first step on our Lenten journey. In fact, this Fourth Sunday in Lent is traditionally called Laetare, the Latin word for Rejoice! What does Rejoice have to do with Lent? What does Rejoice have to do with seeing our sins, and with pondering the suffering of Jesus on the cross as a result of our sins. Where is the Laetare in that?

The rejoicing, my friends, is not found in you or your sin. It’s found in the voice of your forgiving Father. He calls to you to leave your foolish life of sin and vice, to return home, to return to His house; His care; His protection. He pleads with you to come into the celebration, to “be reconciled to God.”

Imagine in your mind’s eye the younger son kneeling, sorry, casting himself on the mercy of the Father. This is you. Today you have knelt before your Father and cast yourself upon His mercy. Your Father in heaven has heard your confession. And for the sake of the third Son, the only begotten Son, for the sake of the Son who never sinned, the Son who really was good enough, for the sake of the Son Jesus Christ Who paid for your sin and mine on the cross, for His sake God is reconciled to us.

There’s the Laetare – the rejoicing of Lent. The Father’s forgiveness is complete and joyous. And now He calls to you, invites you into His tent, to receive the contentment of living according to God’s Word and knowing the Father will provide and lead and forgive and save you. He invites us to the joy of reconciliation and family with one another; He bids us welcome to the joy of the feast – here on the altar and finally there in eternity. Come to the feast, o forgiven sinner; come to the feast and Laetare – Rejoice! Amen