Episode 50: 6/17/09

Readings:

Psalm 119:25-48
Deuteronomy 4:32-40
2 Corinthians 1:23-2:17
Luke 15:1-2, 11-32

Sermon:

When the movie Sweeney Todd, the Demon Barber of Fleet Street, came out on DVD, my youngest son was repeatedly warned that he was not allowed to watch it, that it was too scary for him and he would have nightmares. He promised he wouldn’t, not even if my older kids rented it and saw it. But sure enough, one night when they rented the DVD and were watching Sweeney Todd turn his victims into meatpies, my son was hiding behind the couch, watching every gory detail. And sure enough, he had nightmares for weeks, and my older children would tease him by sneaking up behind him and shouting "Meatpies!" at him. When I took him to get a haircut before Christmas that year, he ran screaming out of the salon, crying that he didn't want to be made into a meatpie. Needless to say, he has never lived that down, and every time he goes in for a haircut now, the stylist laughs and reminds him of that incident, that was funny for her but embarrassing for him.

This is a relatively small incident, but then my son is only 7 years old, and faces a long lifetime in which he will make his share of poor choices and suffer regrets, hopefully none more serious than this, but almost certainly they will happen. And no matter how far he will think that he has put them behind him, they will have a way of sneaking up on him and coming back to haunt him, just as they do for all of us.

In tonight’s Gospel we read of another younger son, one who makes such a mess of his life that we remember it to this day, more than 2000 years after Our Lord used his story as both a warning and an encouragement. For here we see a young man whose bad choices bring him to the brink of destruction but whose forgiveness and restoration give us a glimpse of our Heavenly Father’s deep abiding love and mercy.

We see the Prodigal Son demand his inheritance from his father and then proceed to blow it on fast living and loose women, eventually leaving him penniless and friendless when he can no longer afford to be the life of the party. We see him reduced to fighting with pigs for scraps of food, destitute and desolate, longing for the family he left behind but not daring to believe that he would ever see them again. But he does at last wind up his courage to return home, offering himself to his father not as a son but as a servant. His father, however, is overwhelmed with joy to see his lost son return and runs out to meet him and hug and kiss him and welcome him back.

Not everyone is so happy to see him, however. His older brother, the good son who never gave his father a moment of worry, shows that all is not well behind his well-behaved façade. His angry outburst at his father’s joy was probably not the product of a momentary irritation, but of deep resentment built during the period when his brother was missing, when his father must have seemed to mourn the lost boy more than he appreciated the one who stayed home. While he might have been content to see his brother punished and degraded on his return home, he could not stand the sight of him being fully restored to his place in the family, as if nothing had ever happened.

Scripture doesn’t tell us what happened next, but I often wonder what it was like for the Prodigal Son after that happy homecoming. Did he have nightmares of those bad days that were now behind him, but undoubtedly remained deep in his memory? Did the neighbors point and stare at him, whispering behind his back? Did his brother sneak up behind him and oink like a pig when he wasn’t expecting it?

These are all possible, but the one thing I am sure of is that his father never brought his past misdeeds up again, never threw it in his face to shame him or to threaten him if he ever messed up again. No matter how much the world might mock him and his memories haunt him, he could find peace and comfort in his father’s love and grace.

Jesus uses this parable to teach us some deep truths about human nature and our own lives. While many of us can identify with the good brother, believing we have lived righteousness and blameless lives, and that God owes us a fatted calf, or at least a little goat and a party, in God’s eyes we are all prodigals, as lost as can be, on the brink of death until that moment when His Holy Spirit convicts us of our sins and brings us face to face with our impending doom, then guides us to repentance and our way back to the Father. While we may fear that our sin is so great that it could never be forgiven, Our Lord rushes out to meet us and welcome us home, wrapping us in His loving arms and embracing us in His grace and mercy.

But not everyone is happy to see this miraculous reunion. Our enemy, Satan, is going to do everything is his power to see that we do not enjoy our new lives as redeemed sons of the Father. He may hold us up to mockery and scorn, and he will use our memories to haunt us and make us doubt that we are truly forgiven. Especially after periods of peace or of spiritual growth, he will sneak up on us and whisper our misdeeds in our ears, making us burn with shame and feel sick with guilt, reliving the past that we can never quite leave behind us.

We may even feel that this is from God, that He has forsaken us and that all hope is now gone. But these are the despicable tricks of the Deceiver, of the Enemy who is furious that he cannot have our souls in the next life and so determines to make us miserable in this one. This is never from our loving Father, who desires to bring us to repentance but never to despair. Once we are forgiven, we are forgiven forever, our sins removed as far from us as the east is from the west (Psalm 103:12).

In today’s Epistle St. Paul reminds us to forgive and comfort each other so that Satan may not defeat us with his schemes. No matter how well-behaved we may be on the outside, we all have our sorrows and regrets that can sneak up on us in unguarded moments and can threaten to overwhelm us with grief. We need to remind ourselves and each other that we are loved and cherished sons and daughters of a great and merciful Father, and that none of Satan’s slings and arrows and meatpies need ever distress us again.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.