Fourth Sunday in Lent 2013

To hear the sermon (https://soundcloud.com/tigerowl/lent-4clc) How many have never heard this Biblical Story before?  How many of you have already determined who the bad guy is, or who is the good guy, or who might be the disappointed guy? Actually the young man did commit some significant errors in judgment.  The first sons in families were to be the dutiful beneficiaries of any wealth accumulated by the family; it was called a birth rite.  Along with the birth rite went a great deal of responsibility.  The eldest son was responsible for the family and its future.  Which means at the death of the father, the eldest son was responsible for his mother, any unmarried sisters and at least to maintain a place for and respect for his younger brothers.  Should something happen to him, the next brother in line was expected to stand up and be responsible for the entire family.  So this younger brother had broken the tradition in his culture by asking for a portion of his father’s wealth as his inheritance. It is a surprise in a Middle Eastern story that the younger son speaks first. He is out of his place already! What he speaks is even more astonishing. He is basically telling his father to “drop dead.” All Eastern commentators on this story acknowledge that the son’s request is totally illegitimate. It is an unthinkable request. A father only gives the inheritance in death. The father should explode with anger at such an inappropriate request. He does not explode. He grants a request that was completely unimaginable in his time. Such is the nature of the father in the story. This is a very unusual father! (Jensen in Bailey’s book, Finding the Lost: Cultural Keys to Luke 15) [p. 172] Do you understand what kind of difficult decision the father had to make when the request came from his younger son?  He too had to break tradition.  He made some judgment of what would be a fair share of the family wealth to allot to this determined young man.  In doing so, the father put the whole of the wealth of the family at jeopardy.  There was a certain amount of the family wealth that was no longer available for investing or buying seeds for crops or expanding a business.  Is there any wonder that the older brother was just a little upset that he had not been consulted in this radical change in the culturally proscribed way of doing business? Do any of you know the definition of squandered? squandered  past participle, past tense of squan·der (Verb) Verb 1.   Waste (something, esp. money or time) in a reckless and foolish manner: "entrepreneurs squander their profits on expensive cars". 2.   Allow (an opportunity) to pass or be lost.

dis•so•luteˈdɪs əˌlut(adj.)

1.   indifferent to moral restraints; given to improper conduct.

Origin of dissolute:

1350–1400; ME (< AF) < L dissolūtus, ptp. of dissolvere to dissolve

One interesting piece to discover in working on this sermon was how often the Biblical passage is quoted as a supporting definition for both of these words.  One wonders who began using these definitions of wild living to define the activities of this younger brother, or were the words of the older son more of a contributor the definition that we now give to the younger son’s activities, when he says ‘15:30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!'  It would be interesting if we could use one of those television detectives to discover the truth of this time away from home.  My simple question would be if the older son was home attending to the business, how would he know what his brother was doing?

Is there some cultural bias in the way we treat the younger brother? Mark Allan Powell, a Trinity Lutheran Seminary Professor, has done some cross-cultural studies with this text. In his books, Chasing the Eastern Star: Adventures in Biblical Reader Response Criticism and in What Do They Hear? Bridging the Gap Between Pulpit and Pew, he asked 100 Americans to retell the story in their own words, all 100 recalled “squandering his money.” Only six mentioned the famine. When he did the same thing with 50 Russian students, 84% mentioned the famine. 34% mentioned squandering.  Powell writes, “The younger son is typically portrayed as foolish in Eastern cultures and as wicked or immoral in Western ones” (What Do They Hear?, p. 19). This difference in emphasis also comes up in how the groups understand the conversion that takes place. Westerners tend to emphasize the reforming of the younger son. The turn-about happens when he decides to make a change in his life. The story is interpreted more from the viewpoint of the son.

Easterners put more emphasis on recovery. The lost was found. The dead is alive. The estranged family member is back home. The story is interpreted more from the viewpoint of the father. (p. 24) What Powell found even more interesting is the way Tanzanians responded. After reading the story, Powell asked, “Why does the young man end up starving in the pigpen?” About 80% answered: “Because no one gave him anything to eat.” For these Africans, the story “is less about personal repentance than it is about society. Specifically, it is about the kingdom of God. It contrasts the father’s house with the far country. The father’s house is the kingdom of God that Jesus keeps talking about, but the far country is a society without honor.” (pp. 26-27)

All of these are reasons given in the text, but the background of the reader tends to make one more predominate than the others.

So where does that leave us today, when we represent 23 countries and multiple languages, and eastern, western and African cultures?  In this Lenten season I have asked the question of myself and of you, is there something in our lives where we need to reassess by stopping what we are doing and turn around and do something different?  Is there a direction that we have traveled that is proving unproductive and we need to stop and go in a totally different direction.  Like the younger son, who reassessed his condition and determined that he would be better off as a hired hand working for his father than he would be by staying in the place and condition that he found himself struggling to live.  Sometimes that is called repentance.  Perhaps it is as simple as working at restoring a broken relationship.  In our expectations of a new beginning, we should not expect a party or a banquet when we act on the change.  But what kind of relationship might we achieve with each other and with the community if we were known as a church family that is capable of throwing a party when the spiritual and biblical lost are found and restored to the family of God.  Who knows, it might be a serious banquet, all to the Glory of God.

AMEN.

Thanks again to Brian Stoffregen.