“This fellow welcomes sinners and he even eats with them.”
The “fellow” is, of course, Jesus, who is once again in today’s Gospel (Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32, NRSV) demonstrating his refusal to conform to the norms and standards of polite society.
In the time of Jesus, the rules for meals, food and what is called “table fellowship” were detailed and complex. They had to do with “purity” as the Jews understood God to have demanded it. But they also had to do with social identity, social boundaries and social conflict.
The Pharisees were scandalized by Jesus’ behavior because he rejected those rules over and over again. Whenever Jesus was at the table, regardless of whose house he was in, all who had come to hear him preach and teach—tax collectors and sinners, truly immoral people—ALL were welcome.
Moreover, Jesus not only modeled radically inclusive behavior, he taught it. The parable of the prodigal son is one such teaching, and I daresay its message is difficult for us to swallow.
We certainly like parts of it: The father’s compassion warms our hearts, and we pray that we might be similarly compassionate. Most likely each of us has gone astray at some point in our lives, in a way that helps us identify with the wayward son, and we repent and pray for forgiveness.
But the story doesn’t end there. Jesus just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He had to introduce the troubling matter of the elder son, the one who was faithful, who tended the flocks and worked the fields and did all he was supposed to do… while the younger son squandered his inheritance.
Here’s the picture: We are standing outside a huge tent in the ancient Middle East. A fabulous party is going on inside. We can hear musicians playing and people laughing. The smell of roasted calf wafts on the evening breeze. A steady stream of servants carrying trays piled with fruit, baskets of bread and jars of wine enter the tent.
The elder son stands outside, refusing to go in. He is indignant, and who can blame him? Even though he has been faithful, good and hard working, the father has never thrown a feast in his honor! He feels cheated, disgraced, angry, resentful.
The father comes out and pleads with the son. I really do love you, he says. In fact, everything I have is yours. But that’s your brother in there! He was dead and now he’s alive again. Come, celebrate with us!
Who does each of us identify with in this picture? Or, perhaps the better question is when has each of us been in each of those positions?
I doubt any of us has any trouble remembering when we have been the younger son who has sinned and needs forgiveness. I’m sure each of us has also been the one to forgive and to invite someone who has sinned against us back into fellowship.
But the position of the older son is a good bit harder for us to deal with. After all, he is in the right! He earned his self-righteousness! He shouldn’t even be expected to share the same tent with his unworthy brother, much less a feast celebrating that brother’s return.
In fact, it’s not the older son and his behavior that makes us uncomfortable. What makes us uncomfortable is that Jesus didn’t make him the hero of the story!
In truth, even though our rules for sharing food have relaxed, we have invented all kinds of ways of separating ourselves from those we deem less worthy, and of drawing a wall of exclusivity around our precious righteousness. That’s self-righteousness. We take righteousness, a gift from God to be expressed in our love for each other, and turn it into self-righteousness, a thing of our own ego created by our uncanny ability to divide the world into us vs. them, good people vs. bad people, saved vs. sinner, right vs. wrong.
And we, dog gone it, are right! So.., we’re not going to give our money to that organization because it serves people who make irresponsible decisions. We’re not going to support that legislation because, no matter how many people it might help, it just might help someone whose manner of life we deem wrong. Or, we’re going to go over there and form our own church or order or club or whatever, because this church or order or club just insists on admitting unworthy people or just won’t behave the way we think it should.
A Presbyterian pastor by the name of Timothy Heller has written a wonderful little book about this parable. It’s an easy read and I highly recommend it to you.
Second, Heller shows that this story is about two lost sons. Not one, but two. We have long focused on the wayward younger son and almost completely ignored the self-righteous older son. Yet WE—the good church people—are more likely to be lost like the older son.. than like the younger son.
Very few of us have gone out and spent the family inheritance on loose living, drunkenness and prostitution. But we have stood at the gateways to our communities and churches, our comfortably middle-class way of life.. and passed judgment on the poor, the immigrant, the prisoner.
It seems to me that the main agenda of most Christians most of the time has been, and is, to tame the Gospel message. I think we really, really, really want Jesus to be middle class. We really, really wish we knew if he was Democrat or Republican! We are sure he is “on our side” in international conflicts.
And then we are confronted with teachings like this one, which portray the Kingdom of God as radically non-hierarchical and radically inclusive.
Will we stand outside the tent, pouting and petulant, reassuring ourselves that we stand on principal and that we have earned our right to be offended? Or will we accept the forgiving love of the father, lay down our self-righteousness, and enter into the feast with all of the other sinners?
AMEN
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