Today's Scripture Readings
Joshua 5:9-12 (NRSV)
Psalm 32 (BCP., p.624)
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NRSV)
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32 (NRSV)
Blog Reflection
Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB wrote the following story.
This Lent, my life has been forever impacted by Henri J.M. Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal Son. I read the book as my preparation for this particular blog post. The book has inspired me to ask myself the question: "Am I the younger son, the elder son or the Father?"
Before I continue, I would just like all my blog readers to please bear with me as I am staying with the male pronouns that Nouwen uses. I maintain my support for gender inclusive language. This is one of those cases where I will ask my readers to see yourself in the gender pronouns, and please pardon me for a walk in the past.
In the past when I have read and/or heard the parable of the Prodigal Son, I have tended to side with the younger son and see the terrific compassion for him. However, I have often looked past the elder son and just figured he was some conceited whatever, who got what he deserved. As Nouwen wrote about the elder son in greater detail, I could not help but see myself in the elder son. The elder son responds to his father's acceptance of the returned younger son, and throwing a big party with elder son allowing his resentment, jealousy and competitiveness to come to a boiling point. The elder son is finding his obedience to his father to being burdensome. He is doing everything he is suppose to be doing, and he does not feel like he is getting a return on all of his investment. He just cannot understand why his brother who took his father's inheritance and has returned is being greeted with such welcome and compassion. After all doesn't the father owe him everything?
What the elder son could not see, is that he already had everything. That is why the father's response is so important. The father welcomes both sons back to him. In both instances, the father does not dwell on what either son has done. All he does is welcome them home with great compassion, according to each of his son's personalities. When the father addresses the elder son with "you are always with me, everything I have is yours" he is telling the elder son, he is already close to his father's heart and nothing has ever changed that. All the elder son has to do is put aside his resentment, his distrust, his competition and join his father and his younger brother in the banquet of all of the goodness the father had to offer them.
Nouwen also puts a great spotlight on the role of the Father. The Father represents the compassionate God, who feels our human pain, suffering and torn selves, in the Person of Jesus Christ. While the Father experiences the greatest anguish on our behalf, he is also calling us like a Mother to come on home, and experience the all embracing, extravagant love of the Father. The Father does not ask them to give up their sexual orientation, or to pay back what they owe. The Father does not shame women about having had abortions or used contraception. The Father is not interested in their allegiance to a clerical superpower religion or the Republican Tea Party to prove their conversion. All that the Father does is welcome them home with a warm embrace, gives them new clothes to wear and invites them to share in the heavenly banquet.
I think we have all at some point behaved like the elder son. How many times have you heard someone say of another person(s) who is getting government assistance by way of cash, emergency assistance, food stamps or WIC, "Look I am working 50 hours a week, and I don't get to eat fresh baked bread at home. Why should they begetting all this stuff they did not work for?" Anyone who knows someone who is in need of such assistance, also knows the humiliation, the grief and the self consciousness such people experience. It can feel degrading, dehumanizing and like there is this stone in the pit of your stomach.
I think for this Lent, this Gospel is asking us about our attitudes of compassion, hospitality and reconciliation with others around us. Are we taking a page from the Rule of St. Benedict about receiving all guests as "Christ himself"? Or, are we picking and choosing who we will welcome and be kind to? Are we willing to reach out our arms to embrace those who are wandering without a spiritual home, ready to accept them regardless of their race, color, economic status, gender, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, religion, cultural practices, etc? Do we see reconciliation as our opportunity to make things right with God, on behalf of God and by God's grace working in and through us?
Lent still has another two weeks to go. All of us will be brought face to face with the Cross once again. We will be asked if we want to embrace the Cross so that we may have a victory over the powers of death, to new life in Christ. We will be confronted by the decision to embrace the Cross totally and with complete abandonment of our will out of love in obedience to the will of God. Or will we only pay lip service and leave ourselves at the tomb, like a dead Jesus who never rose again?
The parable of the Prodigal Son is our opportunity to go home to the Father, and to become a compassionate, welcoming and reconciling loving Father/Mother. We are all welcomed to the banquet. God is always with us. Everything God has is ours. But, let us celebrate with God concerning those who have come home. We have all been found. We have all come alive again. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).
Amen.
Prayers
Joshua 5:9-12 (NRSV)
The LORD said to Joshua, "Today I have rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." And so that place is called Gilgal to this day.
While the Israelites were camped in Gilgal they kept the passover in the evening on the fourteenth day of the month in the plains of Jericho. On the day after the passover, on that very day, they ate the produce of the land, unleavened cakes and parched grain. The manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land, and the Israelites no longer had manna; they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year.
Psalm 32 (BCP., p.624)
2 Corinthians 5:16-21 (NRSV)
From now on, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to Jesus. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them."
So Jesus told them this parable:
"There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."' So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate.
"Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"
Blog Reflection
Sr. Joan Chittister, OSB wrote the following story.
Once upon a time, the story begins, some seekers from the city asked the local monastic a question.
"How does one seek union with God?"
And the Wise One said, "The harder you seek, the more distance you create between God and you."
"So what does one do about the distance?" the seekers asked.
And the elder said simply, "Just understand that it isn't there."
"Does that mean that God and I are one?" the disciples said.
And the monastic said, "Not one. Not two."
"But how is that possible?" the seekers insisted.
And the monastic answered, "Just like the sun and its light, the ocean and the wave, the singer and the song. Not one. But not two" (p.195, Wisdom Distilled from the Daily: Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today).
This Lent, my life has been forever impacted by Henri J.M. Nouwen's book The Return of the Prodigal Son. I read the book as my preparation for this particular blog post. The book has inspired me to ask myself the question: "Am I the younger son, the elder son or the Father?"
Before I continue, I would just like all my blog readers to please bear with me as I am staying with the male pronouns that Nouwen uses. I maintain my support for gender inclusive language. This is one of those cases where I will ask my readers to see yourself in the gender pronouns, and please pardon me for a walk in the past.
In the past when I have read and/or heard the parable of the Prodigal Son, I have tended to side with the younger son and see the terrific compassion for him. However, I have often looked past the elder son and just figured he was some conceited whatever, who got what he deserved. As Nouwen wrote about the elder son in greater detail, I could not help but see myself in the elder son. The elder son responds to his father's acceptance of the returned younger son, and throwing a big party with elder son allowing his resentment, jealousy and competitiveness to come to a boiling point. The elder son is finding his obedience to his father to being burdensome. He is doing everything he is suppose to be doing, and he does not feel like he is getting a return on all of his investment. He just cannot understand why his brother who took his father's inheritance and has returned is being greeted with such welcome and compassion. After all doesn't the father owe him everything?
What the elder son could not see, is that he already had everything. That is why the father's response is so important. The father welcomes both sons back to him. In both instances, the father does not dwell on what either son has done. All he does is welcome them home with great compassion, according to each of his son's personalities. When the father addresses the elder son with "you are always with me, everything I have is yours" he is telling the elder son, he is already close to his father's heart and nothing has ever changed that. All the elder son has to do is put aside his resentment, his distrust, his competition and join his father and his younger brother in the banquet of all of the goodness the father had to offer them.
Nouwen also puts a great spotlight on the role of the Father. The Father represents the compassionate God, who feels our human pain, suffering and torn selves, in the Person of Jesus Christ. While the Father experiences the greatest anguish on our behalf, he is also calling us like a Mother to come on home, and experience the all embracing, extravagant love of the Father. The Father does not ask them to give up their sexual orientation, or to pay back what they owe. The Father does not shame women about having had abortions or used contraception. The Father is not interested in their allegiance to a clerical superpower religion or the Republican Tea Party to prove their conversion. All that the Father does is welcome them home with a warm embrace, gives them new clothes to wear and invites them to share in the heavenly banquet.
I think we have all at some point behaved like the elder son. How many times have you heard someone say of another person(s) who is getting government assistance by way of cash, emergency assistance, food stamps or WIC, "Look I am working 50 hours a week, and I don't get to eat fresh baked bread at home. Why should they begetting all this stuff they did not work for?" Anyone who knows someone who is in need of such assistance, also knows the humiliation, the grief and the self consciousness such people experience. It can feel degrading, dehumanizing and like there is this stone in the pit of your stomach.
I think for this Lent, this Gospel is asking us about our attitudes of compassion, hospitality and reconciliation with others around us. Are we taking a page from the Rule of St. Benedict about receiving all guests as "Christ himself"? Or, are we picking and choosing who we will welcome and be kind to? Are we willing to reach out our arms to embrace those who are wandering without a spiritual home, ready to accept them regardless of their race, color, economic status, gender, gender identity/expression, sexual orientation, religion, cultural practices, etc? Do we see reconciliation as our opportunity to make things right with God, on behalf of God and by God's grace working in and through us?
Lent still has another two weeks to go. All of us will be brought face to face with the Cross once again. We will be asked if we want to embrace the Cross so that we may have a victory over the powers of death, to new life in Christ. We will be confronted by the decision to embrace the Cross totally and with complete abandonment of our will out of love in obedience to the will of God. Or will we only pay lip service and leave ourselves at the tomb, like a dead Jesus who never rose again?
The parable of the Prodigal Son is our opportunity to go home to the Father, and to become a compassionate, welcoming and reconciling loving Father/Mother. We are all welcomed to the banquet. God is always with us. Everything God has is ours. But, let us celebrate with God concerning those who have come home. We have all been found. We have all come alive again. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13).
Amen.
Prayers
Gracious Father, whose blessed Son Jesus Christ came down
from heaven to be the true bread which gives life to the world:
Evermore give us this bread, that he may live in us, and we in
him; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one
God, now and for ever. Amen. (Collect for the Fourth Sunday in Lent, Book of Common Prayer, p. 219).
Gracious Father, we pray for they holy Catholic Church. Fill it
with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where it is corrupt,
purify it; where it is in error, direct it; where in any thing it is
amiss, reform it. Where it is right, strengthen it; where it is in
want, provide for it; where it is divided, reunite it; for the sake
of Jesus Christ thy Son our Savior. Amen. (Prayer for the Church, Book of Common Prayer, p.816).
Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is
hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where
there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where
there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where
there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to
be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand;
to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is
in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we
are born to eternal life. Amen. (Prayer Attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, Book of Common Prayer, p. 833).
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