Who Am I Becoming?

Luke 15: 1 – 3, 11b - 32 (March 14, 2010)

1) The Text

15Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” 3So he told them this parable:

11b “There was a man who had two sons. 12The 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. 13A 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. 14When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17But 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! 18I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ 20So 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. 21Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22But 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. 23And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate. 25“Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29But 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. 30But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32But 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.’”

2) The Context

Part of understanding parables involves noting where, when, and how Jesus tells them. This one comes in response to Pharisees and scribes who criticize Jesus' penchant for associating too intimately with "sinners." Actually, Jesus tells three parables. Each involves recovery or reclamation followed by celebration. In the context of first-century Palestine, several things look out of the ordinary: (1) for a son to ask his father for his share of the inheritance would be like a death wish; (2) no older self-respecting Jew would run (v. 20) to his son; and (3) a father would demand a full display of repentance, not the truncated one of v. 21.

Clearly Jesus tells a somewhat unrealistic story to make three points. (1) the younger son could return home – so all sinners may repent and turn to God; (2) the father sought the son (he saw him while “still far off”, v. 20) and offered him reinstatement – so God seeks people out to restore them; and (3) the good brother begrudges his father’s joy over his brother’s return – so those who are godly should welcome God’s extension of love to the undeserving.

3) Interpretation

The Sufis tell a story that may go to the very core of the gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (Luke 15:1-3, 11-32). It exposes the Lenten question we may well be missing as we go through the season. It asks the question, "Who am I becoming?"

Once upon a time, a Sufi stopped by a flooding riverbed to rest. The rising waters licked the low-hanging branches of trees that lined the creek. On one of them, a scorpion straggled to avoid the rising stream. Aware that the scorpion would drown soon if not brought to dry land, the Sufi reached out his hand time after time to touch the stranded scorpion that stung him over and over again. But still the scorpion kept its grip on the branch. "Sufi," said a passerby, "Don't you realize that if you touch that scorpion it will sting you?" And the Sufi replied as he reached out for the scorpion one more time, "Ah, so it is, my friend. But just because it is the scorpion's nature to sting does not mean that I should abandon my nature to save."

Like the Sufi, who defines himself at what seems to be a most unlikely moment, the story of the Prodigal Son raises questions in us about ourselves and it provides some mirror images out of which we are able to identify the real self.

We are all works in progress. We are never really finished. We become ourselves only one moment at a time. As a result, in every experience of every day we become more or less of what we want to become. From one perspective, the gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Lent is not really about three separate people at all -- a parent, one dissolute child and one faithful one. Who has really met any of them in toto -- the parent who is always loving, the child who is always worthy, the son or daughter who is always wanton? This story is not about three discrete individuals as much as it is about the tug of each of these archetypes in the center of ourselves. It is a blueprint that leaves us asking ourselves which one of them we ourselves are really most like and which one of them is strongest in us right now.

A Lenten journey that has led us to question how we practice the spiritual life, what we think holiness is all about, what we believe we are required to be is now asking us who we are becoming as we go. It is the hardest question because it requires that we face ourselves and our expectations of others as well as the standards by which we judge both ourselves and them.

Down deep we know that we are a spiritual jumble of all three breeds -- the loving parent, the spiritually sophomoric adolescent, the demanding critic. We know that every day there is a choice to be made among them. The real temptation, in fact, is to assume that we are only one or the other of these inclinations, as if whatever we do once defines us forever. But that's far too facile an answer for something so complex as life. The fact is that it is our daily, momentary, continual choice among them that, in the end, will determine the very nature of our souls.

4) Thought Exercise

Are you becoming who you want to be?

Is our church becoming what we want it to be?