Sermon: Luke 15.1-3, 11b-32

Sermon: Luke 15.1-3, 11b-32

March 10/11^th, 2013, Woyatan Lutheran Church

I am the middle child of my family.  Now, middle children get a pretty bad reputation in the world of childbirth order and I resent this.  The oldest children are supposed to be the mature ones, the ones who lead the way and care for their younger siblings.  Studies have shown that the oldest children tend to have IQs that are one or two points higher than their siblings and 43% of CEOs are oldest children, compared to the 33% who are middle-borns and 23% who are last-borns. 

And the babies of the family?  Well, they’re the babies, so they’re the cute little ones.  They’re also typically the jokesters of the crowd, since that’s one way of getting attention and mixing up the birth order.  My little brother is certainly the jokester and since he was raised at the end of a line of three of us, his upbringing was not as strict.

And the middle children.  We’re the ones with the issues, since we’re not the oldest, mature ones, nor are we the funny, younger ones.  So who are we?  Researchers continue to be puzzled by the role of the middle children in the family.

So, Jacob, the younger of the two sons, asks his father for his inheritance.  We don’t know if Jacob is the youngest or just the younger of the two sons, because there may be some girls in this mix of people.  I’ve assigned the younger the name Jacob, just for ease in understanding the story.  Jacob’s older brother, Joshua, sticks close to their dad’s side, as the mature, older brother, understanding of family duty is supposed to do.  But Jacob?  Oh man, he’s the wild child that insists that his father give him his inheritance and runs off with it. 

When Jacob asks his father for the share of the property, it’s like he’s saying, “Dad, I wish you were dead, so that I could get my stuff.”  Inheritance is supposed to happen post-death, not pre-death.  But, since Jacob’s father loves him, he hands it over. 

At this point, we all know this story, right?  The Prodigal Son, as it’s often called, is one of the most well-known stories in the Bible.  Boy asks for father’s inheritance.  Boy runs off and spends all the money.  Boy comes back.  Father is thrilled.  Older brother is angry.  The end. 

Or is it? 

I think we know the story, the story about the boy and his brother and the feeling of sibling rivalry, but do we know the story of Jacob and Joshua’s father, the man who loves his children so much, that he’s willing to give up half of his belongings to Jacob before he dies?  That’s the thing with the inheritance—it currently belongs to the father.  That’s his money, his land, his stuff, that he’s still living on, but he gives half of it to Jacob.  So, when Jacob comes back from eating with pigs, which is inappropriate for a good Jewish boy to do, his father is without the money and resources as well.

When we hear the story of Jacob’s life after leaving the family home, we hear that he spent everything, then a famine came and he began to be in need.  Was he broke because of his poor money management?  Was he broke because of the famine?  Was he broke because nobody even gave him the pods for the pigs, nobody in the community helped him out in his time of need?

In my brief time in the Lakota community, I’ve learned about the significance of family.  This is not just my big sister and my little brother family, but “mitakuye oyasin,” the whole family.  We are all related.  When my brother is hit hard with a famine, and perhaps makes less than wise choices, he’s still my responsibility to care for. 

But then, this side of me, the older brother in me, says, “No, no, no.  Jacob, you took from dad, ran off and wasted it at the bar, the casino, Walmart and everywhere else.  You blew the check.  You wasted dad’s money and now you want to come crawling back?  Not fair.”

Who are you in this story?  Regardless of whether you are the oldest or the youngest in your family, or even one of those strange middle children, hear this story and find yourself in it. 

Are you Jacob, the youngest child, who has taken from the parent, the father or mother, the Creator, Tunkashila, and ran away, ignoring that God has created you and wants to be in relationship with you?  Instead of loving God, you ran off and ignored God.  For some, ignoring God comes in the way of an addiction, but for others, leaving God is because you think you’re better than what God has to offer you.

Are you Joshua, the oldest child, who has stayed faithfully by the parent’s side, believing that because you were raised in the Church and because YOU never left God to be alone and figure things out and because YOU never wasted God’s love, that you are exactly the child that God is proud of?  “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command.”  How many times have we yelled that?  God, I have been doing what you told me to do: to love you and your people.  I have been an ambassador for Christ since day one, and yet, you’re going to let this person in, when they’ve been so unkind and so bad? 

Are you the father, the loving parent of these two, the one who welcomes your children back in after they’ve made decisions that you may not love?

And, to be fair, even if you hear this story and hear my descriptions of the characters, you don’t have to pick just one.  As the middle child, I find myself angry at some of the youngest children in our world, the people who don’t do what I want them to.  I also find myself as the youngest child, forgetting that God is GOD and that I am incapable of living a life that is Godly, which is why I am loved and welcomed back in, each time, by Jesus Christ.

This passage begins with a complaint about Jesus.  “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”  Thank goodness, because we are all sinners, whether we run off and away from God or we stay faithfully by God’s side.  Thank goodness that Jesus welcomes us in and dines with us at this Eucharist table and in every meal of our lives, because we aren’t worthy.  We haven’t done what we’re supposed to and we confess these things every week together.

God forgives us.  God welcomes us back in.  God looks for us at a distance, even when we are still far off, and God drops everything to run to us.  When the father in this story runs for Jacob, it’s not something a dignified man would do.  But that’s just it, God doesn’t care what is “dignified” or “appropriate,” because God’s love is so huge and so full, that there is no room for what is expected. 

The parent greets the child and before the child can even squeeze out the words for an apology or even acknowledgement that he has come back, the parent starts preparing a feast.  It doesn’t matter what we’ve done or where we’ve gone, because God loves us this day and every day.  We are never worthy of receiving this party, regardless of whether we stayed around as a good, well-mannered older child, or if we ran off to waste our gifts and turn our back to God. 

God is so eager to forgive us, to love us and to welcome us back with open arms, that God runs to the road to meet us.  Frankly, God doesn’t care what we say when we come stumbling back, hungry, sad and broken.  God doesn’t need us to give some big speech or some announcement of weakness, because it’s not about us.  God seeks us out, whether we have wandered far into another country and ate with pigs, or even if we are sulking behind the barn like dear Joshua, the older brother did.  Regardless of whether you see yourself as the one who ran away from your father, your Creator, your God, or if you see yourself as the one who has been dutifully doing what you thought you were supposed to do, God will drop everything to come find you, child.  God finds us, where we are, and pulls us back into the family, no questions asked and no apology required.  God loved us yesterday, God loves us today and God loves us tomorrow.  Period.  

And for this, we rejoice.  Amen.