FOUNDATIONS FOR PEACE

March 24-26, 2007
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
5th Sunday in Lent
Pastor Tim Smith

15 Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3 Then Jesus told them this parable: 11b “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them.

  13 “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.

  17 “When he came to his senses, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.’ 20 So he got up and went to his father.

  “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.

  21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’

  22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.

  25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’

  28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’

  31 ”‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’” (NIV)

The word “prodigal” means “sinfully wasteful,” and it’s been a nickname for this parable for so long that it almost never occurs in English anymore except as a reference to this pearl of parables, this (as it is called) “gospel within the Gospel,” this earthly story with a heavenly meaning: the Parable of the Lost Son.

Earlier in this chapter Jesus described the efforts and reactions of people who had lost a sheep and a coin. Those parables tell us who the father is in this story. He is the one who lost a son. We could spend time on the details about the father – humanly speaking, we might accuse him of being a prodigal father, since he should never have let his child get away with what this young man gets away with, but the most important comparison with the father is not with human parents, but with God.

We begin this parable by seeing that we have a relationship – a father/child relationship – with God. Whether you happen to be a son or a daughter regarding your gender, you are an heir, and in First Century Palestinian terms, therefore you are a son of God. But like us, the son in the parable was a sinner.

The younger son told his father to give him his share of the inheritance and he left. It should have been the share he got when his father died, and the demand itself was sinful. We sons and daughters like to play fast and loose with our inheritance. Like Adam and Eve in the Garden we want even more than what God has given us.

He lived a wild, prodigal life. “Sinfully wasteful” is how I defined it earlier; and that’s the idea behind the Greek words translated “wild living;” he lived like someone who is not saved, who has left the path of faith.

And then the money ran out. Did he know his money was running out? Probably. This isn’t a detail Jesus really covers in the parable, but he hints at the problem, because not only did the son spend all the money, but a famine happened. Even if he had made friends by spending his cash, the times got so hard that his new friends had to look out for themselves.

He went and got a job feeding pigs. For a Jew, whom God had forbidden from eating any meat from a pig, this had to have been one of the worst jobs imaginable. And still the son was having trouble finding even enough food to live on.

His eyes looked up to the waterless, rainless sky, and his thirst was overwhelming. His hand found its way to his empty pocket, and he had no hope of buying anything. He had hired himself out, glued himself to this stranger who was used to living apart from God, who was a citizen of this faraway country, but the son didn’t think he was even going to make it to payday. His ears were filled with the strange oinks and grunts of these forbidden animals. His reaction to the pigs must have been the disgust that was bred into him from childhood. But then his starving, hunger-crazed eye fell to the manger; the feeding trough sitting there in the dust in the pigpen.

The pig food! The carob pods our text refers to are still used for animal fodder today in the Middle East. They were the most common source of sugar for candy before sugarcane was discovered. The long green-bean shaped pods are resistant to drought, and can last on the tree for years. (Incidentally, the little seeds inside carob pods are so uniform in size and weight and so common throughout the Middle East, that they became the standard unit by which DIAMONDS are weighed – we get our word carat from the seeds of this carob plant¹). But back to our boy, all he wanted to do was sink his teeth into the pig food.

But did he? Again, Jesus leaves that detail to our imagination, since all we know is that he longed to fill his stomach with this food that, if you’ll permit one more detail, is used chiefly today as a mild laxative.

And this is where the miracle happened. This runaway son was flatlining in God’s E.R. when the paddles of the law and the medicine of the Gospel did their work. God calls out to the hovering angels of mercy, “Clear!” And THUMP THUMP, the heart of faith begins beating once again.

How does it happen? How are we turned from death to life? A nurse or a physician would explain how this is possible in a fibrillating human heart. But the heart of faith? This is a miracle that only God can explain. When the running, the wandering, the lost, the prodigal, is turned to look back home again.

The son calculates: I’d be better off working as a servant for dad than out here starving as a slave of death. A roof, steady pay even if it’s humble pay, protection from the elements of the world, finally just something to eat – these basics are where I need to focus all my attention.

When God permits disaster to strike at us, when as it happened to Job the roof caves in and the thieves and marauding armies steal and plunder and even our health leaves us like a rat jumping from a sinking ship then the Lord turns us to the basics. What do I really need?

At this point, the long hard days and weeks of starvation vanish in a single word: HOME. The prodigal impulses are buried in repentance. The sorry heart even practices what it will say to the Father: I have sinned against heaven and against you.

But scarcely have his feet been aimed homeward than the eyes of the searching father fasten on the son, and it is the father’s feet we are amazed by. I didn’t know the old guy could still move like that! The father rushes to the son, and embraces him, and the miracle of repentance has led to the greater still miracle of forgiveness, and son is truly and completely home. His rehearsed speech goes unfinished. His humble request is brushed aside. A robe! A ring! New Nikes! The fatted calf! Bring them all on! THIS SON OF MINE WAS DEAD AND IS ALIVE AGAIN. HE WAS LOST AND IS FOUND. And like the other parables in this chapter, “they began to celebrate.”But the other parables in Luke 15, the lost sheep and the lost coin, are about God’s reaction to finding lost lambs and valuable treasures like, well, like us. But here in the story of the lost son, there is another lost brother.

The older brother doesn’t really judge his kid brother’s shenanigans. When the younger brother wanted his cash, the older brother didn’t take him aside and warn him that it wasn’t a good idea. Instead, he lets the boy go. With him out of the way, maybe dad will focus more on me.

The older brother was looking for a reward for being faithful. He is angry. He has obeyed the father’s commandments. Has he even gotten a cheap party with a few friends? But he has missed the point of the celebration. The celebration isn’t about the son’s good deeds. It isn’t about the son’s obedience. It’s simply about the son’s return.

The lost younger son hasn’t deserved the lavish love of the father. But rather than grumble about the way he is treated, we’re amazed, not only by what he is given, but we pull back from the narrative and remember that this is a parable and that therefore God is talking about us!

The father gives the robe – like the coat of many colors given to Joseph by Israel himself, not because he was a more obedient boy or a more faithful boy or even because he was an especially deserving boy. He gave this sign of his favor because, and only because, he loved him. The robe of righteousness that we have been given was not given because we obeyed or were faithful or because we deserved it – anything but – but it was given to because of grace, simply because God loves us.

The father gives the ring – a sign of authority like the ring Pharaoh gave to that same Joseph ² now in Egypt, to carry out the father’s will in the world. And we have the authority from God to carry his gospel into the world, not because we have special worthiness, but because of grace, simply because God loves us.

The father gives the shoes, the sandals – a sign that the son was not to go barefoot as the servants did, but that he was certainly once again a part of his household. The boy who was lost was once again the father’s son. And we are sons and daughters of our heavenly father, with all the privileges that go with that status, not least of which is the miracle of prayer, to be able to speak and know that God himself listens to you and me, and he also promises to give us an answer to every one of our prayers. Not because we deserve to be listened to as if we have wisdom God wants to hear, but because of grace, simply because God loves us.

And the father gives the meal – a way for the son and those with him to actually eat and drink in the forgiveness of the father. And God has given us a meal that is a way for us to eat and drink down his forgiveness; a way for us to experience with all of our senses the miraculous truth of forgiveness. Our bodies and our souls are fed by the Lord’s Supper as the pledge from God that we are his dear children, forgiven, restored, and welcomed home, not because of anything we have done, but because of grace, simple because God loves us. Amen.

_____________________

¹ Source: Wikipedia.com

² Genesis 41:42.

March 17-19, 2007
Luke 10:25-37
4th Sunday in Lent
Pastor Donald Sutton

Luke 10:25-37

25) On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26) “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27) He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28) “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” … 29) But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” 30) In reply Jesus said: “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stripped him of his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him half dead. 31) A priest happened to be going down the same road, and when he saw the man, he passed by on the other side. 32) So too, a Levite, when he came to the place and saw him, passed by on the other side. 33) But a Samaritan, as he traveled, came where the man was; and when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34) He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35) The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’ 36) “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” 37) The expert in the law replied, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus told him, “Go and do likewise.”

Introduction

God’s word we consider today deals with a number of things including love. We hear God’s law summed up with “Love God …love your neighbor as yourself.” Some consider love as an attitude or emotion and it is. But love is more. Love is an attitude that expresses itself in action. The parable we consider today, the Good Samaritan, is a lesson that Jesus used to teach ….“Let Love Act.”

1. Jesus Did Because All Needed This

Jesus let love act, because as he showed an expert in Jewish law, all needed this. This teacher of the law had probably heard Jesus teaching many things and perhaps wanted to challenge Jesus too see how good Jesus was and to check how good he, the expert in the law, was in the eyes of Jesus. So this expert asked Jesus, “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” 26) “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?” 27) He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’” 28) “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.” 29) But he wanted to justify himself, so he asked Jesus, “And who is my neighbor?” To show the legal expert both the meaning of “neighbor” and the extent of true love Jesus told the parable of the Good Samaritan.

Jesus told of a man, beaten, robbed and left for dead along the road to Jericho. A priest came by and saw this victim of crime laying along the road. Now remember that a priest was one who worked in the temple of God and with the Word of God. He should have known about caring for others in need. But he walked right by. Too busy? Too messy? Don’t want to get involved? ….Next came a Levite. The Levites were men from the tribe of Levi, the tribe from which the priests came. The Levites were those who assisted the priests. The Levite should have known to help the dying man. But the Levite walked right by. Too busy? Too messy? Don’t want to get involved These Jews wouldn’t help a fellow Jew in need.

But finally a Samaritan stopped. Keep in mind that Samaritans were foreigners or mixed-race Jews. Full-blooded Jews didn’t usually associate with them. If Jews wanted to really insult someone, they called him “a Samaritan” as some Jews did to Jesus (Jn 8). The result was racial strife between Jews and Samaritans. If the Samaritan played out the normal relationship between Jews and Samaritans, he might have stopped to spit on or kick the Jew lying and dying along the road. But this Samaritan “when he saw him, he took pity on him. 34) He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, took him to an inn and took care of him. 35) The next day he took out two silver coins and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’”

The points that Jesus made to the expert in the law were these: 1) Your neighbor is anyone who needs your help whether he is like you or not, or whether you like him or not. 2) Loving your neighbor involves action that is committed and sacrificial. 3) “You, dear expert, need big time help. You think you have done enough to earn eternal life. But in reality you fall far short because you are sinful as is evident in your view of your neighbor that falls short of God’s view of the same. Your love for your neighbor falls short of what God wants. As a result your love for God does the same.”

This man had to be shocked by what Jesus hitting him with. How does God’s law God’s law affect you? Doesn’t it challenge us to think about our neighbor? It challenges us to think about those in our lives who are beaten and left for dead along the road of life. It challenges us to think about the extent of our love when we help others.

Who is your neighbor? For you is it only those who are like you in economics, racial background, skin color, language, religion, geography, health or interests? What about those who are different? Have you ignored people as your neighbor because they are different? What about those are lying along the road of life because they are disadvantaged, diseased, destitute, aged, dying, have done sinful things that have messed up their lives, or didn’t have the opportunity to know Jesus?

Have we refused to view them as our neighbor or walked by along the road or life because we lacked in love or perhaps stopped along the road of life and mouthed some words of love – “You poor thing” or, “You need help” – but then did not let love act and really help to the extend needed. Have we failed because to help would mean to make some sacrifice or put forth extra effort?

With the parable of the Good Samaritan doesn’t Jesus show us our failure in love and our need for help just as he showed the same to that seemingly self-righteous expert in the law? We have not loved others as God wants and therefore have not loved God as he wants. The devil and our sinful nature are trying to leave us where Jesus once found us, beaten, robbed, and lying along the road of life. According to his justice, God should walk right by and leave us for eternal death.

But God didn’t. The Son of God in the person of Jesus walked along our way to Jericho. He saw us beaten by the devil, robbed of righteousness, and dying of sin. Being the perfect priest and perfect Levite he loved and had compassion on us. But his love was more than just an attitude. Jesus let love act. He set aside his glory and humbled himself to become the perfect servant and savior. He stopped along the road of life. He cared for us with cleansing for our wounds by shedding his blood on the cross for as John wrote, “There is cleansing in his blood, the forgiveness of sins” and Isaiah prophesied, “by his wounds we are healed (53).” He wrapped us in his righteousness as he gave us his Spirit and through the life the Spirit worked dressed us in his robed of righteousness. He provided us comfort in our pain as he bought us peace with God through his satisfaction of God’s law both in his living the law and suffering its curse. He brought us into the household and family of God that we might be God’s children for time and for eternity. He sends his angels to care for us. He promises to be with us guiding, providing, protecting, preserving, strengthening, encouraging, and working all things for our good. He assures us that nothing can separate us from his love.

Once the Jews who rejected Jesus insulted him by calling him “a Samaritan (Jn 8).” With deepest gratitude, respect, and on-going praise we can call him our “Good Samaritan” because he let his love act.

2. Do the Same

Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.” He said this to show the expert that there was much missing in his righteousness and that he had fallen short of God’s glory. In dealing with our failures in love and our tendencies toward self-righteousness, Jesus’ words do the same.

But for the person who sees his or her sin, sorrows over it, and clings to Jesus, the Good Samaritan who has brought us forgiveness, peace and eternal life, Jesus’ parable and his command guide us. They remind us who are neighbor us. It includes not just those around us who are like us. It includes those who are who are like us but also those different than us in economics, racial background, skin color, language, religion, geography, health or interests. It includes those who are disadvantaged, diseased, destitute, aged, dying, have done sinful things that have messed up their lives, or didn’t have the opportunity to know Jesus.

It includes people who are in nursing homes, hospitals, and shut-ins. It includes the lonely, the mourning, the depressed, the dying and disabled. This may be the person working at the machine down the way from you, sitting in the desk next to you or living in the dorm with you who are hurting and need help in terms of words of care, kindness and encouragement. These may be people who need the gospel because they have never heard it whether they are people with whom you can share that gospel personally or provide the means for others to do so elsewhere. These may be people who have sinned and strayed from God. In some cases these people need physical help. In some cases these people need emotional help. In all cases they need spiritual help – the soothing and cleansing of the gospel of Jesus.

Paul wrote, “Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people….(Gal.6:10) ” As the Good Samaritan let his love act, do the same. Don’t do it thinking you have to do this to earn eternal life, but because Jesus has earned it for you. As Jesus let his love act for you, let your love act for others. As Jesus didn’t stop at sacrifice in loving you, let love act in sacrifice if need be for others. As Jesus stopped to help your stop to help others, stop along the road of life to help others.

Sometimes that can challenge us. Being patient with others, putting out extra effort, rearranging priorities, paying for things you didn’t plan and more can challenges our sinful natures and puts pressure on our human and material resources. Sometimes it can leave us weary. But our Lord ensures us, “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint (Is40).” St. Paul reassured people that when they do godly things, “The God of peace will be with you.” Amen.