March 27, 2022: Full to the Brim: Prodigal Grace
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
Rev. Rhonda Blevins
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”
So he 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.’”
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I hope and pray that none of you ever win the lottery. You’ve heard the horror stories, right?
William Bud Post won Pennsylvania’s $16.2 million jackpot in 1988 . . . this was the start of a series of unfortunate events for Post. His ex-girlfriend sued him for a share of the winnings and won, and his brother hired a hitman in an effort to inherit part of the cash. Other relatives spent months demanding money. Within a month of winning, Post filed for bankruptcy and had $1 million in debt.
In 1997, Denise Rossi won $1.3 million in the California lottery and immediately filed for divorce from her husband. Two years later, Rossi’s husband discovered she won the lottery and took her to court. He sued Rossi for not disclosing her winnings in the divorce, and the judge awarded him every cent.[1]
And here’s one closer to home. In 2006, Abraham Shakespeare won $30 million in a Florida lottery. He gave most of his winnings away to people who asked, and what was left he turned over to his new girlfriend to manage. In April 2009, Shakespeare was murdered—shot twice in the chest by a .38-caliber pistol—he wasn’t reported missing until November 2009. His body was found under a slab of cement at a Plant City house in January 2010. The girlfriend was later found guilty of first-degree murder.[2]
So yeah, I hope and pray that none of you ever win the lottery.
The story that Jesus tells today begins like an unfortunate lotto winner story.
The Pharisees complain that Jesus is hanging out with tax collectors and sinners, so Jesus launches into this story that has become known as the parable of the “Prodigal Son.” The son goes to his father and asks for his inheritance, basically telling dear old dad that he wished he was dead. The father divides the property between this younger “prodigal” and his older brother. Then the younger brother goes off and lives like a reckless lotto winner. In due time (this is the predictable part of the story) he squanders the entire inheritance in “dissolute living.” So he finds a job feeding pigs (an unfortunate turn for a Jewish boy), and becomes so hungry that he longed to eat the pig slop. He comes to his senses, realizes he would have a better life as a hired hand on his father’s estate. So he makes his way home.
My favorite part of the story is what comes next: “while he was still far off” the scriptures tell us, his father sees him, runs to him, and throws his arms around his prodigal son. Despite the emotional pain the father experienced—despite the rejection—despite the hardship the father experienced by his son’s reckless behavior—none of that mattered in the moment. The father ran to the son—he didn’t walk, he didn’t saunter, he didn’t wait with arms folded demanding the son to grovel. The father ran to the son.
That’s “prodigal” grace. Extravagant, lavish, reckless grace. No questions asked. No apologies demanded. Just pure, unadulterated joy upon seeing the lost son come home.
“Kill the fatted calf! Bring out the best robe! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Today we celebrate! My son who was lost has been found!”
So the kitchen gets busy preparing a feast. The musicians strike up a chord. Dad pulls out the most expensive bottle of wine. The party is ON!
But there’s one problem . . . no one told the older brother.
As big brother draws near and discovers there’s a party no one bothered to tell him about, he asks what all the hullabaloo is about. When he’s told that his younger brother has returned, and the celebration is for him, the older brother is livid. He refuses to go in, and when Daddy comes out, he explains: “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!”
The father defends his decision to celebrate saying, “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.’”
That’s where Jesus ends the story. We don’t know what the older brother does. Does he go in and celebrate? Or does he refuse to celebrate his brother’s return? We don’t know—Jesus leaves it as a “choose your own adventure” story for the Pharisees to whom he told the story, and to us reading it a few thousand years later.
Staying with the “choose your own adventure” idea for a moment, the three main characters in this story have all chosen an adventure up to this moment:
The younger brother chose an adventure in exploiting the point.
The older brother chose an adventure in missing the point.
The father chose an adventure in becoming the point.
Let me explain.
The younger brother abused his father’s goodness and generosity. He exploited his father.
The older brother was surprised that his father would celebrate the lost son’s return. The party caught him off guard. He missed his father’s goodness and generosity entirely.
The father lived into his nature as kind and good and generous and forgiving, becoming the kind of person we’re all called to be.
Exploiting the point.
Missing the point.
Becoming the point.
One way I’ve taught this familiar story is to invite people to identify with one of the brothers. “Who identifies with the younger brother?” Those who think of themselves as the “black sheep” of the family will raise their hands. “Who identifies with the older brother?” The dutiful, rule-following folks will raise their hand. Then I’ll suggest that the idea is to grow to a place where we can see ourselves in the father/parent character—the generous, forgiving, sage who runs to the lost son while he was still far off, with radical, prodigal grace.
And that’s . . . the POINT.
The human journey, if we can live long enough to have a full life, can take us through each character in this story.
When we are young and/or immature, we are takers. From baby’s first breath we cry to get what we want, we grab what we can and have to be taught to say “please” and “thank you.” Those who don’t mature in healthy ways, because of childhood trauma or mental health challenges or simple refusal to grow up—they remain stuck in this phase. This is the “younger son” phase. These are the “sinners and tax collectors.” Those who exploit the point.
But if we grow and mature and become responsible people, we enter into our “younger son” phase. We get a job, maybe we raise a family, we keep our lawns trimmed, we pay our bills and file our tax returns by April 15. Our lives become marked by duty and responsibility, loyalty and self-sacrifice. These are good things. We must do a good job at our “older brother”/Pharisee phase of life, but we can’t stop there. That would be missing the point. Sadly, most people get stuck in this phase of life. This is what we consider “normal.”
In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, “self-actualization” is the highest level of psychological development, and what I think Jesus was pointing to in the character of the father in this parable. A self-actualized person consistently exhibits equanimity, acceptance, humanitarianism, and gratitude. The father tells the older brother he “had to” celebrate and rejoice at the lost son’s return. “Had to?” Not by law, but because he was self-actualized—he knew no other way. The father’s adventure was becoming the point.
So what’s the “point?”
The “point” is grace.
We can exploit grace, which most of us have done along the way.
We can miss grace, which most people continue to do throughout life.
We can become grace, when we move towards self-actualization.
When we become grace, kindness and goodness emanate from us. We don’t often have to contemplate or discern what’s right or good—it’s who we are—it’s instinctual.
The father didn’t debate whether he should run out and meet the son or sit on the porch with arms folded awaiting the prodigal’s apology. His “grace” instinct kicked in—he hopped up and ran to the prodigal while he was still “a long way off.”
Did the lost son “deserve” the grace bestowed upon him by the father? Of course not! That’s the point of grace. It’s not something we earn. That’s what the Apostle Paul teaches the people of Ephesus in his letter to them. In Ephesians 2:8-9 writes:
For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing;
it is the gift of God—not the result of works, so that no one may boast.
Timothy Paul Jones offers a beautiful story of grace:
I never dreamed that taking a child to Disney World could be so difficult — or that such a trip could teach me so much about God’s outrageous grace.
Our middle daughter had been previously adopted by another family. I [Timothy] am sure this couple had the best of intentions, but they never quite integrated the adopted child into their family of biological children. After a couple of rough years, they dissolved the adoption, and we ended up welcoming an eight-year-old girl into our home.
For one reason or another, whenever our daughter’s previous family vacationed at Disney World, they took their biological children with them, but they left their adopted daughter with a family friend. Usually — at least in the child’s mind — this happened because she did something wrong that precluded her presence on the trip.
And so, by the time we adopted our daughter, she had seen many pictures of Disney World and she had heard about the rides and the characters and the parades. But when it came to passing through the gates of the Magic Kingdom, she had always been the one left on the outside. Once I found out about this history, I made plans to take her to Disney World the next time a speaking engagement took our family to the southeastern United States.
I thought I had mastered the Disney World drill. I knew from previous experiences that the prospect of seeing cast members in freakishly oversized mouse and duck costumes somehow turns children into squirming bundles of emotional instability. What I didn’t expect was that the prospect of visiting this dreamworld would produce a stream of downright devilish behavior in our newest daughter. In the month leading up to our trip to the Magic Kingdom, she stole food when a simple request would have gained her a snack. She lied when it would have been easier to tell the truth. She whispered insults that were carefully crafted to hurt her older sister as deeply as possible — and, as the days on the calendar moved closer to the trip, her mutinies multiplied.
A couple of days before our family headed to Florida, I pulled our daughter into my lap to talk through her latest escapade. “I know what you’re going to do,” she stated flatly. “You’re not going to take me to Disney World, are you?” The thought hadn’t actually crossed my mind, but her downward spiral suddenly started to make some sense. She knew she couldn’t earn her way into the Magic Kingdom — she had tried and failed that test several times before — so she was living in a way that placed her as far as possible from the most magical place on earth.
In retrospect, I’m embarrassed to admit that, in that moment, I was tempted to turn her fear to my own advantage. The easiest response would have been, “If you don’t start behaving better, you’re right, we won’t take you” — but, by God’s grace, I didn’t. Instead, I asked her, “Is this trip something we’re doing as a family?”
She nodded, brown eyes wide and tear-rimmed.
“Are you part of this family?”
She nodded again.
“Then you’re going with us. Sure, there may be some consequences to help you remember what’s right and what’s wrong — but you’re part of our family, and we’re not leaving you behind.”
I’d like to say that her behaviors grew better after that moment. They didn’t. Her choices pretty much spiraled out of control at every hotel and rest stop all the way to Lake Buena Vista. Still, we headed to Disney World on the day we had promised, and it was a typical Disney day. Overpriced tickets, overpriced meals, and lots of lines, mingled with just enough manufactured magic to consider maybe going again someday.
In our hotel room that evening, a very different child emerged. She was exhausted, pensive, and a little weepy at times, but her month-long facade of rebellion had faded. When bedtime rolled around, I prayed with her, held her, and asked, “So how was your first day at Disney World?”
She closed her eyes and snuggled down into her stuffed unicorn. After a few moments, she opened her eyes ever so slightly. “Daddy,” she said, “I finally got to go to Disney World. But it wasn’t because I was good; it’s because I’m yours.”
We’ve all been the daughter in this story. We’ve made mistakes, fallen outside of God’s will for our lives, undeserving of grace. We received God’s grace anyway.
We’ve all judged the daughter in this story. Thinking that she didn’t deserve the grace she was given.
But let us set our intention on becoming grace—manifesting the loving parent to those who deserve good things and even those who do not. Lavish, outrageous, extravagant, prodigal grace is what the world needs.
May each of us rise up and run to meet that need!
[1] These stories were reported at https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2021/10/07/most-lottery-winners-go-into-debt-horror-stories/6019987001/
[2] https://abcnews.go.com/US/lottery-murder-deedee-moore-found-guilty/story?id=17926009