My friends all told me not to preach the sermon I was going to preach at my Dad's memorial service. They told me that the content was great but the text was clearly causing problems, and encouraged me to simply say the things I wanted to say from a different source. It is hard to do when you have been trained as an expositor but I did the best I could.
But below is the sermon I wanted to preach it honours a man I called Dad for revealing my heavenly Dad to me in ways that I had previously missed. So here goes:
They say that one of the ways we understand God is through how our parents parented. I am grateful and blessed to have been parented by a less than perfect but incredibly Godly man who revealed God to me in too many ways to enumerate. The way I want to get there is by looking at a chapter in Luke's gospel where Jesus is talking to a group of Pharisees about what God is like. The picture he gave them was a picture that Dad gave me. The picture was given because Jesus clearly did not think that the Pharisees were revealing God the way they should have been. So inherent in the message today is a challenge to be God to the world the way he wants us to be. We claim to be the Body of Christ and we need to be faithful to who he was, not who we want him to be.
So when we look at the text Jesus tells three stories. The first is about a shepherd that goes out to look for a lost sheep while leaving the other 99 roaming about the hillside. My Dad did that during the first part of my brother's and my lives. He was gone as much as he was home. He left us to seek the lost and bring them home. He was doing what his heavenly Father asked him to do. He left that which was most important to him to seek those who were insignificant and even unknown to him.
I have a friend who told his son that he was the most important boy in the world but no more important than any other boy in the world. I'm not sure that is a message I would communicate to my son, but it is a God-like message. My Dad lived that out for me. I could be no more important than any other breathing human. I didn't learn this well until late, but my Dad helped teach me this awful and yet wonderful truth. I am not, nor should I be the centre of God's world.
In the second parable Jesus talks about a woman sweeping out her whole house to find a lost coin. That is so not me. I lose something and most the time I shrug and say, "I guess I wasn't supposed to have it anyway." or, "It'll show up." The exceptions to this are when I am completely stimied without whatever it is lost; like lets say -- my keys, or my wallet when I am already completely out of gas. This is the picture Jesus paints of God frantically looking for what he lost.
Now I am going to make a suggestion here that the pharisees would not have heard this as "God lost individuals searches for them and rejoices when they are found." No, they would have heard, God lost a relationship with his people and is searching for it and when he re-connects he rejoices.
Right up until his last day, when people were coming to see him, Dad would have moments of joyful recognition. William, a grandson he hadn't seen in a long time came in and Dad's eyes opened, his face lit up and all he could say was,"Oh!" but everyone new the expression of delight because Dad loved that way. God loves that way. He loves loving. He loves relationship and he can get pissy when he doesn't have it. Many of us would simply say, "Its karma, baby..." but in reality all it is is God getting pissy cause we keep giving Him the finger.
The last parable of the three that Jesus tells is one of my favorite passages of Scripture. Remember who Jesus was telling the story to and for what reason. He wanted these religious folk to catch a glimpse of who God really was and hence who they should be.
The story itself is simple. The younger of two sons goes to his father and tells him that he wishes he were dead and he wanted all his share of the money now. His Dad, because he loved him, let him go. Off he went, blew all the money on coke, booze, gambling, and women, and discovered that when it was all gone so were all his "friends." Though he was a good Jewish boy, he pulled down a job slopping pigs. He was so hungry he even ate what the pigs were eating. Finally he figured out that he'd be better off going and facing his old man, telling him that he didn't expect to be his son anymore, but that he'd really appreciate it if he could be one of his Father's slaves. They had it better than he did in his current state.
So he gathered his strength, swallowed some of his pride and headed for home. I can see him trudging home practicing the speech in his head. "Dad, I f'd up. Please let me just come and live as one of your slaves. I won't screw up again." As he was walking toward home. While he was still a long way off actually, his Dad saw him, gathered up his robes so he wouldn't trip and took off running to meet him. When he got to him he practically fell on him and embraced him.
The son started to blurt out his now well rehearsed speech, but the Father shushed him. "Sshhh son, you were lost, but now you are found. I am just so glad you've come home." Then he turned and yelled to his slaves, "My son is home, go get some clothes, get him out of these rags. Then slaughter the cow so we can throw a party. My son is home!"
Many of you know that in so many ways I have been the son in that story. My Dad has been the Dad. later in the story when bad things are said about the younger son, he doesn't listen. He forgives. He holds. He blesses. He chooses to forget. My Dad was this for me.
Now Jesus told the story to the religious establishment. They were the Christian Coallition of their day. They created the moral measuring stick that was used to measure the morality of the day -- much like the modern day church has done in this nation. We need to hear it too. Because like them, we love our place in the world more than we love the world.
We're supposed to be like the Father in the story. We're supposed to be the Father in the story to the world. And we fail, and we go about our own agendas, and we become the Prodigal son ourselves.
At the low point of my life, when I came to the realization that I was completely failing, and had no hope of succeeding, when I faced my own falaciousness, and saw that I was but another hollow man, a counselor in Philly gave me a book by Henri Nouwen. It was entitled, The Return of the Prodigal. It came into being because of a painting by the same name by Rembrandt
As I left that community that was so important to me, everyone signed my copy of the book. Chris, one of my friends there, a youth pastor from the mid west circled the son, drew an arrow and labeled him "the church". It has taken me until now to realize how right he was.
All those that listened to Jesus tell this story would have connected the prodigal with Israel, who had been beaten exiled, and her Temple destroyed. Jesus was telling them that they needed to come back to God. We are not so different though, are we. We are a lot like they were.
The deal is simply this, when you have been a prodigal, you can't stay there. You have to become a Father too. You have to give away that which has been given to you.
As the Church universal we need to move from being the prodigal, to experiencing the Father's love, to becoming the Father for those who are orphans and without hope themselves, the powerless, the lame, the lepers, cripples, widows, and outcasts -- the addicts and alcoholics, the proud and the haughty, those who are now high but will be brought low, and those who are low and looking for a hand up. We need to be the Father. We claim to be the Body of Christ and yet we live as the Pharisees. It has to change.
It is time for us to recognize the slop we are eating and come home.
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