March 18, 2007

Denise Kelsall

Lent 4     Luke 15:11-32

The Prodigal Son – who hasn't heard that title or story or understood its basic meaning!

As the story goes a ratbag son tells his father to 'get lost' or 'get stuffed' to use modern lingo. He demands his inheritance 'right now' – gets it, takes off and blows the lot. Just a lovely shallow good-time guy who wants it all immediately. Who, probably after big-timing it with lots of riotous parties drink, drugs and women, whatever gives him the next high – sinks to an all-time low and swinish level ending up with nothing, as nothing. Maybe scraping food off the streets, or searching through rubbish bins along with various feral animals who come out after dark – living a most ugly and abject sort of existence. Anyway – he comes to his senses and realizes what a fool he has been or more cynically, where he is better off – and he knows that its better back with his Dad… any way!

This young man – this prodigal and profligate son reminds me of many young people today. I'm not playing the blame game but our society is ridden with a sort of 'have it now' mentality – as Freddy Mercury sang 'I Want it All.' How many times have we said ourselves 'there's no tomorrow' or 'life's not a dress rehearsal' and other similar sayings as an encouragement to possess or do immediately whatever it is that we are desiring or thinking – 'put it on the credit card' we say.

Well, there weren't any credit cards in 1st century Palestine. An agrarian society, land was at the heart of everything – and honour, particularly in such a close-knit society. Land and honour. I guess things haven't changed much in that part of the world.

The father would have been desperately wounded and shamed in front of his friends and neighbours. Just as we are shamed, wounded and frightened if our children go off the rails, or do things we would regard as unthinkable. Certainly to have a child demand part of your property almost as a right and revile you at the same time would be quite astounding and utterly devastating. That's what this parable does – reveal the astounding and the destructive, while asking us who we are and where we stand.

So the son returns, to flagrant and astounding love, – where he had been prepared to grovel or to take the lowly place of a hired hand or servant, he is restored or one could say elevated to his original status as his fathers son. He is received with open arms, eagerly met and embraced, loved and welcomed as one risen from the dead. He is feted. Incredible, isn't it?

This parable works on so many levels. It is not just about repentance, or restitution and restoration. It asks us to look closely at ourselves too. I think we would all have a sneaking sympathy for the older son – there he has been, slaving away diligently for years and doing the right thing by his father, honouring his family – being respectable and obedient. Isn't that the ideal we believe in? Who knows what crises he may have undergone or sacrifices made in supporting his family. Then back comes this rebellious profligate brother who has spent all the money, had all the fun, caused untold grief and shame to the family and he gets treated like royalty. No telling off, no dark looks, no apologies demanded, no accountability, no nothing – all he has to do is turn up. What a joke – what a fool am I the brother must have thought. He was furious and it's totally understandable, isn't it. How dare he just walk back like that and how dare the father forgive him so easily? And now they're having a party!!!

Being a parent is complex and difficult at times – and it is also a place where one learns and recognizes the deep and instinctive unconditional love that is modelled in this parable. The love of this father, the love that reveals the radical nature of God's love and forgiveness the love that is at the heart of things – the sort of love that that meets us before we get a chance to say we're sorry, the love that is implicit in repentance itself.

What interests me here is where the church stands as to the theology of this parable, and how we do it, or how we don't do it as church – and also the perception that secular people have of church. Since I have been studying theology and moving towards ordination I have been constantly fazed and amazed by public perception of church and what the reactions are to my chosen life. I have had all sorts of responses ranging from real interest and delight, to disbelief and funny faces with 'what for' or 'why would you' – to people shifting away from me rather hurriedly, like I'm suspect or something. I feel that to these people it's because I somehow represent censure or a certain moral stance that implies something unpleasant or threatening.

Many people seem to equate church with sin and condemnation that maybe invokes guilt. It's all about right and wrong, being good and not so good - guilt, being in or out.

So, where is the unconditional love as revealed by the father in this parable and why do we as church live into the righteousness of the older son, for I think that is how much of the world sees us.

Things have shifted so dramatically in the last 40-50 years. On the retreat before my ordination last year Richard Randerson spoke of being stunned, shocked and dismayed when emerging from theological training and ordination. He stepped into a vastly different and rapidly declining church world. On his entry to theological college it was all fine, with the pews full, a strong community and public voice – just 5-10 years later the whole picture had changed with waning attendance, lessening influence and loss of faith publicly and privately.

Up until then church had been a cornerstone of society and held the baton that denoted right and wrong, or goodness and sin. The moral compass if you like. Increasingly the secular world grew at the expense of the sacred, the temporal over the spiritual. Pluralism, philosophy and science challenged faith and the church was diminished.

Now we live into a world filled with anxiety about survival of the planet and we know that we can see into outer space for about 800 light years or some other incredible cosmic statistic – I can't help feeling sympathetic to those young people who read the papers, see the hatred, the ghastly destruction and the astounding beauty, the bombs and the blood, watch people starve and die in the millions, listen to the powerful tell lies and grow rich. It's a wild world we live in.

So I ask – in response, – has the church become merely the repository of a tradition, the rubber stamp of approval or office, the establishment – do we really talk into peoples lives and are we prophetic in calling for justice? How do we intentionally try to live this radical love? A love that does not take offence.

It is good to be at St Matthews asking these questions.