Scripture: Luke 15:11-32
10.25.2020
As y’all know, I spent last weekend in God’s Country, NC at the blessed wedding of my father to his long-time partner Jeanne. Ms. Jeanne I should say, as my boys call her. And because my father, just as his father before him, and his father before him, and his father before him, have only ever lived outside of Robeson County for mere periods of time, that will always be, regardless of wherever else the Spirit might call any of us, my beloved ancestral home. Moreover, it was my home, home for the better part of my childhood and my roots run exceedingly deep there, just as it is for many who call any geographic location home for the better part of their lives. And so there is always something that is incredibly comforting about being back there, in this case, if only for a breathlessly quick weekend. I don’t need the maps app when I am there. I can recall thousands of little snippets of stories on virtually every street corner, bend of the river, inch of school, and table of restaurant and the all come flooding back anytime I return. Now, on this specific occasion, because of the ongoing viral threat in the country, we dramatically minimized our stops in any one space, limiting our time in the sanctuary for the wedding to no more than probably 45 minutes from the time we entered the holy realm, to the time we exited back into the world, and, for the most part, relegating us to the view of a farrowed tobacco field that sat just outside our hotel room. All that being said, on the last night that we were in town, feeling the need to feed the boys one more time before retiring for the evening, we ordered take-out from my favorite eating establishments in town, Yanni’s Bravo Pleasant’s Pizza, an eatery with a name that marked the history of it’s three separate owners at three separate times that was now run by Yanni (aka Johnny the Greek). This was an acceptable choice for all of us because I could get their addictive Greek salad dressing—a magical concoction of mustard, dill, olive oil, and I think like the pixie dust of angels and my wife and kids could get their baked fried ravioli—a dish that I am convinced could only be invented in Robeson County wherein ravioli is handmade stuffed with ricotta, then boiled, then breaded and fried, then baked in a dish with marinara and cheese. It’s possible that that could give a coronary if you made it a habit of eating it say multiple times a week but, you know, as a treat it’s probably ok. Anyways, so I called in the order and went to pick it up only to realize that when they made it, they had neglected to use marinara and had instead used a meat sauce, something that you know is not going to fly in our house, so I called, alerted them to the mistake and then headed back out there to get a corrected order—keeping in mind that everything in Lumberton is like 5 minutes from everything else. And upon pulling back up to the restaurant, I was actually greeted by Johnny the Greek himself, who wanted to apologize to me. Now, you need to keep in mind that its probably been 8 or 9 years since I had last been there, and well over 20 years since it was my and my friends standard Friday evening hangout spot. And yet upon getting out of my truck, he recognized me immediately, asked about my family, asked about my father and mother, and told me to give them all his best. There is something magical that happens when we come back home, when we are recognized, accepted, loved, and cherished for just who we are. Something magical that happens when time can freeze for 20+ years as you are transported back into a relationship that has been lying dormant for roughly as long as it was previously alive. Something magical when the stories of you and your home become woven together again and again leaving little to no discernible seams. Something magical when everything just feels right. And so its s that that undergirds the message that first arose at the moment that Adam and Eve left the garden, the moment that in our brokenness we experienced separation from the God of love, the moment that the world became a scary and sinister place where we had to hoard our goods, and where we would fight battles over land and plunder, where we would find in one another not fellow travelers on a journey, not brothers and sisters in humankind, but competitors, threats, enemies. It was a message carried by zephyrs in the valley and in the pelting of raindrops breaking up the stillness of a lake at dawn. It was what Elijah heard after the wind and after the earthquake and after the fire. It is the central message that moves through all religions and, indeed, all humanity. It is the spirit of God saying to all of us over and over again, “It is ok to come home."
In our scripture for this morning, we encounter Jesus trying to explain this to folks in his time and, I imagine, having gotten some confused looks, chose to tell it in the form of a parable. And it would have sounded something like this. So one day, there was a man, an impetuous man, perhaps 17 going on 37, who had grown somewhat impatient with life on his father’s estate, perhaps believing that a bird in hand is better than two in the bush, maybe just wanting to live strictly out of his id for awhile as we all are tempted to do from time-to-time. Whatever the reason, there was a young man who went to his father one day and not wanting to wait for him to pass on to claim what was rightfully his, asks for his inheritance. Now, if you have ever been a parent, maybe a close aunt or uncle, you know that one of the hardest things in the wrold to do is to watch your child, your niece or nephew, doing something that you know is going to both go colossally wrong, but will also be a learning experience while at the same time not stepping in to stop it. So it is that the father in this story, knowing his son, knows that this is not going to end well for the young man, but acquiesces all the same and the man soon leaves with his share of the inheritance. I should stop here and say, did you know that roughly 70% of lottery winners end up filing for bankruptcy within 5 years of winning? Statistically speaking, coming into a large sum of money is worse for your overall financial health than is never having won anything at all. Though, as a side note, if one of you should decide to swing over to Georgia and win the lottery, your local church would like to remind you that an investment here is an investment in God. But I digress…This young man, is given a large sum of money and immediately heads off to the big city to enjoy his newly found wealth. And before we are too hard on the man, I have to confess that if I had come into a sizable fortune when I was just out of high school, or college, or grad school, or…never mind. So this young man heads off to the city to enjoy the fruits of his fortune and he quickly blows through it engaging in what Jesus called, “loose living” and soon finds himself on the streets and settling for a job as a farm hand tending the pigs on a wealthy man’s farm. Even then, he finds himself with less to eat than the pigs that he is tending, to the point that the husks left by the pigs look appetizing to him. Now, if you have read anything about recovery from addiction to just about anything you will read about those who were successful reaching what they called “rock bottom” at which point you have what they call a “moment of clarity.” That is, once you have pushed all the people who love you out of your life in pursuit of whatever your addiction is, once you have lost all the stuff that distracts you from the fact that you are an addict, once you have nothing, only then can you finally hear the still small voice whisper to you, “it’s ok to come home.” Now, Jesus continues and tells us that this young man, after working on this pig farm for some time, “comes to his senses,” and realizes that those who work for his father are treated far better than the treatment that he is receiving in his current situation and so he formulates a plan. He knows that his actions, in the strictest sense of the prevailing cultural attitudes of his day, have rendered him unable to call himself his father’s child. The shame and dishonor he has brought upon his family combined with his spending of his inheritance in advance have made it impossible for him to return as a child in his father’s house and so he decides instead to beg for a job from his father. And in his head he practices the speech that he will give his father, “I’ve sinned against God and against you; I no longer deserve to be called one of your children. Treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ and finally satisfied that his words will soften his father’s heart to the point that he can become a worker in his father’s fields to at least be compensated with a reliable three squares a day, he takes off for home. And we are told one day, the man’s father, probably overseeing the work being done on his land, peers out onto the horizon and in the distance sees his son crest over a faraway hill and the father promptly takes off in a dead sprint towards his son. And the reunion as described by Jesus is beautiful, it is that moment that we all look for, that moment of melting into sheer, pure, unadulterated, love. And the father covers him in kisses and robes and rings and you have to imagine that the young man did not anticipate this scenario when he was trying to envision what it would be like to be hired on as a worker in his father’s fields. But he steadies himself and gives the speech that no doubt had been playing like a loop in his head for the whole of his journey home. “Father,” he says, “I have sinned against God and against you. I no longer deserve to be called one of your children.” but the father can no longer even hear what the son has said to him. He is too busy sending people all around to prepare for a party of, wait for it, biblical proportions. And there will be music and dancing, jubilation and even the fatted calf. And the language that the father uses is stark and poetic in the moment and yet at the same time and it casts a vision into the future for all of us. “This son of mine was dead and has come back to life.” Now Jesus, also well aware of the keen sense of justice that people often have for other people introduces a third character, the older son. And we all know his story too. It is the story of all of us who believe that we are good, of our own accord. That we have achieved some degree of righteousness in our lives and we cannot bear to see the father have such a reaction to the young man coming home and being welcomed back. All this time, he had stayed, never even having a party with his friends, faithful to the last. And isn’t that how we tend to be from time-to-time. Don’t we seek to cover up our own shortcomings on the backs of others. Don’t we find someone else that we can look down on to feel better about ourselves? And they have names with which we are all familiar: addicts, the greedy, people in jail, people who commit horrible acts against society. We find ourselves justified in our own lives by saying, “at least I am not that person.” And knowing that the father looks on the older son, as well. Reminding him of the bigger picture. Reminding him that he had a brother who was lost, presumed to be dead, and now he has come back and is never, ever leaving again. Reminding him always and forever that it is ok to come home.
Now, I’m going to let you in on a little secret. As with virtually all the parables of Jesus, we are and will be, at some point or another in our lives, all of these characters. We are the older son who believes himself to be faithful to the core but then looks down on the one who hasn’t been. We are the father and we will have countless opportunities in this life to forgive and allow people to experience the joy that arises when we have experienced true forgiveness, real acceptance, and most importantly, we are the younger son, who goes off to the city and blows through all the blessings of this life until, he believes, he can no longer be allowed to even enter into his father’s presence.
I’m going to let you in on another little secret. We all have, every one of us, things in our lives that we believe prevent us from knowing and experiencing the full power, the full force of God’s amazing love. We all have, something in our lives from our past that we cling to, like the chains of Jacob Marley that weigh him down for all eternity, something that we believe makes us unlovable in the eyes of God and each other. That we believe would damn us in the eyes of all of humankind. That makes us unworthy to call ourselves children of God. We all have something like that. Since the beginning of time, we as a species have sought to go it on our own, getting into whatever trouble we have gotten into in the process, and then being shamed with feelings of guilt and self-loathing that keep us from experiencing the love and light of God. Unfortunately, it also keeps us from seeing the beauty that is right in front of our eyes. It keeps us from seeing the movement of God in our lives and in the world. And in the West, our culture, our society is very good at telling folks everything that is wrong with them. A nip here, a tuck there, a new car, a new phone, new clothes, a new house, something is always wrong that needs fixing and there are plenty enough products in the world that can do that for you. It is a steady voice that is louder than all the others that tell you that your sin, your brokenness, you life is messed up. And on our own, all we can manage is to cover the voice, drown out the sounds, focus on something else, anything else. But more important all that keeps us from hearing the still small voice, the voice that says, “I forgive you. I accept you. I love you.” It keeps us from hearing that we were once dead and can be alive again. It keeps us from living the lives we are intended to live. The lives of abundance that we can experience. It keeps us from hearing, “it is ok to come home.” At our session retreat a couple of weeks ago, we set forth the goal of finding a singular vision for all that we do in this place. Each week, even in the midst of pandemic, but surely in the time that will follow pandemic, there are opportunities for service, for worship, for fellowship, for study. And knowing this, the prevailing experience of the folks in that room was that Cahaba Springs was a place where you could be at home. Where there was love and acceptance. Where there was kindness and comfort. Where we could and would welcome everyone who came in the door as a brother and sister in the faith, on the journey, as a co-member of the human race. And knowing and believing that, we, the session are seeking to make sure that everything we do in this place is infused with those feelings. That’s where you come in. Because for this to work, for this effort to be successful, we are going to all have to sign on to this understanding of this holy space. We are all going to have to be willing to welcome in those with whom we might disagree, those who don’t look like us, or act like us, or speak like us, or love like us. All who enter into these doors can and must feel as if they have entered their spiritual home, because all have been made one in Christ Jesus and in that oneness, we are called to be home for one another on this side of the Jordan until that day that we are all called to come back to our true home—that moment where we will find a place at the table, and hear Jesus saying to each one of us, well done good and faithful servant, come enter into the joy of your master and the home that was created for you before the foundations of time were laid down.
Returning to the sanctuary of the church in which I grew up for the holy union of my father and Jeanne was only one more moment in which I saw and perceived the movement of the spirit in that space. That space was where I first heard the call to ministry through the words of my grandmother sitting in the third pew from the front on the right. The very same place that I would sit a year later to say goodbye to my grandfather and another year later where I would say goodbye to that grandmother. It’s the same place where I would make friends that would last a lifetime and that I would have 20 sets of parents looking over me. It was where I first found acceptance and comfort in this life that felt so chaotic and strained. It was and will always be for me, my spiritual home. But the thing is, there is nothing magical about that building, that room, those folks. They were just doing what God calls all of us to do and it is the experience that many in this space have of this place. And it is a gift. A gift of God to us, and of us to the world. To reach out into the brokenness of this community and see the one that passes by you today who needs more than anything in this life to hear someone tell her, tell him, that it’s ok to come home and from the folks in this spiritual community of the faithful that you can come home to Cahaba Springs. Let’s be those people today and everyday as we are Christ’s hands and feet in a world that is hurting believing that if we just do that, then everything else will take care of itself. Thanks be to God. Alleluia, amen.