Sibling Rivalry

Yesterday I did something new, hopefully I will do it again. I memorized the gospel text, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32, the story of the prodigal son. As I have talked about before I have been playing with Biblical storytelling. I have been trying to read the gospel text more dramatically, putting more emphasis on the emotions conveyed in the scriptures. As I was preparing for this sermon, I realized just how much emotion was in this story of the prodigal son. The father was jubilant at seeing his younger son. The younger son was scheming to go back home in order to survive but was probably truly repented when his father put his arms around him and kissed him. And the older brother was truly, truly angry at the father. Those emotions do not come out when this story is just read out loud, but when I was up there running, rubbing my chin in a scheming way and yelling, those emotions are conveyed.

It was also interesting to watch people react to me. I started at the pulpit like normal but then moved out of the pulpit after a few words. Most people started reading along with the text and after a bit would look up at me, notice I was not in the pulpit, look down again at the text, look up at me again and then just put the text down and listen. Since we had lost an hour of sleep the night before, I think people were a little slower than normal noticing that I was not just reading along. And at the end, when I said "the Gospel of the Lord" there was the longest pause. I'm not sure if people thought that they should applaud or if they were waiting for me to bow or if they forgot their response. Maybe they were just stunned - it is one of the longer gospel text.

But the biblical storytelling went over quiet well and I do hope to do it again - especially for text that have so much emotion.

But now onto the sermon. Below is the text that I wrote for yesterday's sermon. It is not quiet the sermon that I preached. I realized on Sunday morning before worship that I just wasn't quiet happy with what was written but I figured between the biblical storytelling, communion, singing Amazing Grace and the work of the Holy Spirit, people were going to hear the gospel. So I used this text as a starting point and kinda went from there. Read it, enjoy it but add much more about forgiveness and you will then pretty much have the sermon that I preached.

During my first two weeks of seminary, we had a prolog course. Basically it was two weeks of introducing us to the variety of topics that we would discuss within the four years of seminary. At some point during these two weeks, the powers that be invited a few seasoned pastors to impart their knowledge upon us hopeful future pastors and church leaders.

During this discussion, a question came up about preaching and the use of the lectionary, the three year rotation of readings which we follow in the Lutheran church. One of these seasoned pastors said that if it wasn’t for the lectionary he would probably preach on the Prodigal Son 23 times a year. And I just remember sitting there thinking: 23 times a year?! Are you kidding me, what could you talk about that often!

Now granted I have to tell you first about my personal bias against this text. I was a camp counselor for two summers. Each year there was a theme and each day of the week there was a bible text that we would talk about with the kids that explored that theme. This allowed the kids to learn a variety of stories, but it also meant that for 13 weeks one summer every Wednesday I would do a bible study on the Prodigal Son and for 13 weeks every Wednesday I would see the same dramatization of the Prodigal Son performed that was based on some song. This repetition causes you to grow a little weary of certain text and makes you realize that you don’t want to preach about the same topic for 23 weeks within a year.

But my dislike for this parable is not just because I overdosed on it one summer, it is because it continues past verse 24. If the son came home and was forgiven and life moved on, it would be a great story about forgiveness and love even after someone basically tells you to drop dead. If the story stopped with the father forgiving him, it would be a great tale about letting your children go out and find themselves, to allow them to make mistakes but be able to help pick them back up if they fall.

But no the parable does not end there, it continues, it continues with a very angry, very upset older brother. Not only does the older brother not want to forgive his younger brother for telling their father to drop dead then fleeing the area and spending all his money. Not only does the older brother not want to forgive, he also gets upset at his dad for forgiving his brother. He sees this as an injustice, the dad has not treated him fairly, forgiving the younger brother after everything that he has done, yet he has been following every command and had never received such extravagance.

The younger brother was only given his future share of the inheritance, what specifically did he do to cause harm to the older brother, to cause such anger? Would the older brother have been so angry if their dad just allowed him to quietly come back home and not have thrown a party? Did the older brother ever even ask for a young goat so that he could have a party with his friends?

It is hard to forgive and sometimes it is even hard to watch somebody else forgive. Was there more to the story? Has this been a repeated pattern of behavior with the younger brother and the older one knew that he would just take advantage of the father again? It can be hard to watch someone who has been abused forgive the abuser yet again, knowing that the cycle of abuse will just continue.

But sometimes it is hard to watch someone else forgive because we know that we do not have that ability to so radically forgive in us. And instead of having compassion for the forgiver, we have anger at them.

When a man walked in a shot a group of Amish school children before taking his own life and the Amish community forgave the man and his family, many Americans were moved at the amount of forgiveness and compassion that the Amish showed. But a few people were outraged, upset, discouraged and even angry that they could so easy forgive the person would took the lives of their daughters.

And our anger over forgiveness isn’t always directed at others, sometimes it is even directed at God. A former co-worker of mine was obsessed about knowing if the guy who pushed the button that drop the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki would be in heaven. For some reason he thought that the guy who actually pushed the button, not the one who created the bomb or flew the plane or order the bomb to be dropped or all the other people who have done evil things during war, that that guy should not be allowed into heaven. My co-worker said that if he went to heaven and the button pusher was there, he would walk right back out. Well I think he might be surprised once he gets to heaven. A lot of us might be surprised once we get to heaven at who else is a child of God.

Because God is the father, God radically forgives us. God forgives us of our sins, God forgives us if we do something that we consider a minor offense: swearing, gossiping, running through a red light. But even when we commit what we consider a major offense, God forgives us: murder, adultery, dropping a bomb on a city, telling our parents to drop dead. When we repent, God radically forgives us.

And God even forgives us for our anger over who is forgiven. God forgive us for having a unbalanced sense of injustice. God forgives us for our jealousy over the forgiven.

We can sit here and keep tally, having sibling rivalry with all of our siblings in Christ, over who has been forgiven the most and then become angry at God for forgiving such offenses. Or we can celebrate with God the Father, the one who radically forgives, because such a person was has repented there sins and has come back to God. Because when we celebrate, we know that there is nothing we can do, no sin great enough, that can separate us from the radical love and forgiveness that is found in Christ Jesus. And that is truly something to celebrate and possibly even preached about 23 times in once year.

Let us pray. God of forgiveness and grace, we know that we are sinners and often times do not deserve your forgiveness. But we thank you for the forgiveness you have given us, and pray that you help us learn to radically forgive others. In your name we pray, Amen.