The gospel frame by frame
Commentary
Object:
Let the movie play at full speed through the first half.
We see the young man looking longingly out the window of his father's mansion. He thinks there is something more exciting and fulfilling out there, beyond the gates of his father's estate. Eventually, his wanderlust gives birth to a plan. Remarkably, his father goes along with the plan, which features the foolish young man collecting his share of his inheritance in advance. Then, with his pockets full, he waves good-bye and heads off into the distance. The camera focuses in on the father's eyes, watching his son disappear over the horizon.
Then it is the father who looks longingly out the window of his home. His eyes search the distant hills for any sign of his son returning home. But there is nothing.
Meanwhile, the son has traveled quite a distance. He is enjoying his freedom at an alarming rate, and his previously bulging wallet begins to grow thin. Soon his party is over, and he needs to find employment. We watch him go from one place to another, seeking work, begging food. Finally, he lands a job that is, for him and his people, about the most undesirable work to be done. Nothing can change the definition of "desirable" quite like desperation, however.
The young man has a job and even some food, of sorts. We should slow down the film in order to trace each subtle movement. The young man's eyes stare off longingly again, though this time from a much gaunter face. He is looking back -- back in the direction he had come from originally. The muck in which he sits now does not compare favorable to that room from which he looked out so long ago.
As we watch, we detect a slight movement. He is beginning to stand, to turn. Yes, he is heading home.
The scene cuts back to the family home where the father still sits with his eyes scouring the horizon. Suddenly, the sadness and weariness in those old eyes are brightened. He rises from his chair and presses his face against the window. Could it be?
In a flash, the father is down the stairs and out the door. It is an unseemly sight, this old man running down the path: his beard bouncing with each step, his robe hiked up above his pale shins, his brow perspiring, his sandals slapping.
Then comes the moment when we pause the film completely: The moment when the weary son meets the suddenly rejuvenated father. The moment is an embrace. Pause the film on that moment and take a good look at that picture. Help your people to see that picture. For it is the gospel.
Joshua 5:9-12
The Israelites' first campsite within the promised land was a spot called Gilgal. After their miraculous crossing of the Jordan, they collected twelve stones from the dry riverbed and erected them as a monument near Gilgal. Then the people undertook a mass circumcision, bringing all the males born in the wilderness into compliance with that ancient sign of the covenant. Then they celebrated the Passover together in that place. The next day, the faithful supply of manna stopped, and the people began to eat the produce of the land. Yet, for all of those eventful distinctions, the place was named Gilgal. We will give further thought to that name below.
The biblical narrator reports that the Israelites celebrated the Passover "in the plains of Jericho." I believe that detail is more than mere geography. After all, consider what Jericho represented. Already an ancient city, Jericho was famously fortified. For this generation of Israelites born in the wilderness, Jericho may well have been the first walled city they had ever seen. Their own homes and place of worship did not even have walls. Now these children of impermanence faced Jericho as their first obstacle to taking the promised land.
So what do you do in the plans of Jericho? What do you do in the shadow of your first, immense battle? Perhaps you plan strategy. Perhaps you consult the stars, the tea leaves, and the entrails of animals to seek encouragement. Perhaps you practice and train for battle. But not these people of God. No, they embark on acts of worship, thanksgiving, and dedication. That's a good policy and practice when you're camped "in the plains of Jericho." And it suits well a God who "prepare(s) a table before me in the presence of my enemies" (Psalm 23:5).
Finally, this brief Old Testament passage gives us a glimpse of the two faces of providence: for the writer reports that "the manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land."
The manna, of course, represented God's sustenance in the wilderness. Manna was the miraculous made routine, for God sent this improbable provision on a daily basis in the desert for an entire generation. Indeed, the manna became so commonplace that the people took to complaining about it (Numbers 11:4-6). Yet it was the very providence of God. Its very regularity and predictability was testimony to the faithfulness of God.
Just as the famous 5,000 of Jesus' day could not find food to sustain themselves in a remote place apart from Jesus' multiplication of the loaves and fishes, so their 700,000 ancestors would have starved to death in the Sinai Peninsula without the manna. Now, on this date in the plains of Jericho, the manna stopped.
Did it stop because God was angry or the people were ungrateful? No, the manna had continued through both of those contingencies before. Did it stop because God's supply was exhausted? Never. No, it stopped because "they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year."
Perhaps we draw too stark a line between the natural and the supernatural, between the ordinary and the miraculous. For here, in this moment where we see the baton handed from the supernatural food supply to the natural food supply, we see that all of it is part of the providence of Israel's God. Whether his provisions seem mysterious and inexplicable, or whether they come by way of the growing season and the grocery store, we give thanks to him for his faithful care.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
When I was a youth minister, I had a young man in my youth group whose standard greeting was, "What's new?" He did not say, "Hello" or "Good morning" or "Hi." No, his salutation was a question, and it wasn't even a conventional "How are you?" Whenever he greeted me, he'd ask, "What's new?"
Frankly, I either saw him too frequently or lived without enough novelty to be able to answer the question well each time I saw him. Most of the time, I would settle for an anemic, "Not much. How about you?"
That was 25 years ago. I don't know if that now nearly middle-aged man is greeting people differently than he did when he was a youth, but I do know that I would like another chance to answer his question. For I have come to realize in recent years that it's an excellent question that deserves some excellent answers.
The Bible is full of new things (e.g., new covenant, new mercies, new wine and wineskins, new heaven and earth, New Jerusalem). The testimony of scripture bears witness to a God who is very fond of new things (cf., Isaiah 43:18-19). Indeed, the entire biblical story concludes with God making all things new (Revelation 21:5).
Against that larger backdrop, then, we see more clearly this exclamation of the gospel by the apostle Paul: "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" When someone asks you or me, "What's new?" we ought to respond with an enthusiastic, "Me! I'm new!" For this is part of the very good news that is our salvation in Jesus Christ.
In addition to the pan-biblical theme of newness, this passage from 2 Corinthians has a prevailing theme of its own: reconciliation. Five times in just three verses the apostle makes reference to reconciliation. The preponderance of the them here is even more striking in that the underlying Greek verb appears in only two other places in the entire New Testament (Romans 5:10; 1 Corinthians 7:11), as does the underlying Greek noun (Romans 5:11; 11:15).
William Barclay observes that the underlying Greek verb evolved from the changing of money to "the change of enmity into friendship." He argues that this reconciliation is central to Paul's understanding of the work of Christ, and he notes that the flow of reconciliation is decidedly one way: that is, God is not reconciled to man, but rather man is reconciled to God. This truth is at the heart of the gospel. Barclay concludes, "The very essence of Christianity is the restoration of a lost relationship."
Because the issue is a lost relationship, it is an intensely personal business, and therefore a matter of great urgency. I have known several individuals along the way whom I have never seen run on account of any tardiness or hurriedness, but I have seen them run when their children are hurt or in danger. (Such parental running is on beautiful display in our gospel lection this week.) Personal love relationships, we discover, inspire their own brand of urgency, and the quality of that urgency is captured in the strong language of God "making his appeal" and the apostles "entreat(ing)" on God's behalf.
That entreating role, meanwhile, introduces us to another layer of the relational element. It is not a simple two-tier system: God and humanity. Rather, there are two layers within humanity: those who have been reconciled, and those who have not. The former, therefore, become "ambassadors for Christ," carrying both "the ministry of reconciliation" and "the message of reconciliation." Surely that is part of our purpose on Sunday, and a part of our parishioners' calling on Monday.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
This familiar and beloved text presents us with two challenges. First, there are so many sermons that could be preached on it. Second, there are so many sermons that have been preached on it. What you and I choose to do with this text on Sunday, therefore, might be quite different. But to assist our thinking, let us at least walk through the marvelous text together and make some observations about it.
"All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to (Jesus)." We must stop to observe that this is the audience Jesus attracted. Does his church continue to attract this crowd?
"This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." It's a special sort of endorsement when your critics and your admirers say exactly the same thing about you. The irony of this particular criticism is that it sounds like a testimony. What the Pharisees perceived as a vice, we read as good news.
"So he told them this parable." In fact, he told them three consecutive parables, each featuring the story of something (or someone) that was lost and then found. The relative value of those three items increases throughout the chapter, and the nature of the "lostness" is different in each case. Still, the persistent truth throughout all three stories is that God is eager to recover what has been lost, and the angels rejoice when a sinner repents.
"There was a man who had two sons." Many of Jesus' parables present us with an either-or choice of characters: wise or foolish builder, wise or foolish virgins, sheep or goats.
"(He) traveled to a distant country." That the son was far from home is surely a metaphor for his spiritual condition, and it also sets the stage for a father who sees and runs to him "while he was still far off" (v. 20).
"Treat me like one of your hired hands." We are reminded of the wisdom of the Proverbs (15:16-17; 16:8; 17:1) and the expressed preference of the Psalmist (84:10). The son has made a simple, unemotional calculation: He has realized that any position in his father's house is better than his present condition. The father is motivated by love; the son seems to be motivated by standard of living issues.
"His father … was filled with compassion." The Greek word used here for "compassion" appears just eleven other places in the New Testament, and in eight of them it is Jesus who is described as having compassion (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 1:41, 6:34, 8:2; Luke 7:13). In one instance, a father is asking Jesus to have compassion (Mark 9:22). The other two instances, like this one, it is used by Jesus in a parable to describe the response of the exemplary character (Matthew 18:27; Luke 10:33).
"He … asked what was going on." It is noteworthy that the older brother came late to the party. While the father was aware of the son's return even "while he was still far off," this other son wasn't aware until long after his brother had returned home. That difference may be emblematic of the difference in how the father and the older son felt about the younger son being away in the first place.
"For all these years I have been working like a slave." The older brother was living like a son and yet feeling like a slave. This is not how the Father means for it to be, and yet it is certainly the unhappy experience of many of those in the Father's house. Also, we are struck by the contrast with the younger son's realization (v. 17) that being a servant in his father's house is quite a desirable thing.
"But when this son of your came back.…" Here the older son lodges his complaint about his father's generosity. It echoes the lament of the workers hired first (see Matthew 20:10-12), and it is no doubt related to the complaint of the scribes and Pharisees at the beginning of this chapter.
Application
When our people hear the story of the prodigal son read this week, most of them will recognize it because they have heard it before. The key for us as preachers, however, is to make sure that our people recognize more than just the plot.
First, we must recognize the son: that weary, dirty son, who lives out the consequences of his departure from home. I recognize him, for I am him. So are you. So are the people who will hear us preach this story on Sunday.
Second, we need also to recognize the father. The agnostic wonders what God might be like, and the atheist has refused to get a clue. Many believers, meanwhile, are also somewhat in the dark, for from the beginning the enemy has sought to misrepresent the nature of our Creator. Here Jesus reveals him to us. Do you want to know what God is like? Then see the big-hearted father: big-hearted enough to let his son go, big-hearted enough to subsidize his son's misadventure, and big-hearted enough to welcome him back completely.
Third, we need to recognize the message. The Father, who embraces his filthy son and orders clean clothes for him, is the same God who rolls back reproach and disgrace. He powerfully and mercifully pushes aside the intangible grime that sticks to us from our past.
Fourth, we need to recognize the reconciliation. We quoted William Barclay earlier saying that, at its core, Christianity is about restoring a broken relationship, and that is portrayed for us here in Jesus' marvelous parable. That paused still-shot -- the Father catching his miserable son up in his arms and holding him close -- that is reconciliation. It is only by the grace of God. And it is available to every prodigal within earshot.
Alternative Application
Joshua 5:9-12. "Gilgal's Gospel." "Gilgal" was related to the Hebrew word for "wheel" or "rolling." In the context of our Old Testament lection, the name was born out of God's statement that he had "rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." The naming should surprise us, however, for that spot had so many other options.
Imagine the significance of the monument erected at that place: Israel's arrival in the land after so many centuries in bondage and wandering, marking the fulfillment of God's age-old promise to the patriarchs. Yet the location was not named "Arrived," "Testimony," or "Promise Fulfilled." Such names would have been appropriate recognitions of the spot's significance, and certainly in keeping with the kinds of place-names found in the Bible. But the place was named Gilgal, instead.
Likewise, consider the importance of that mass circumcision. We are squeamish at the prospect of naming some location after the occasion when several thousand men were circumcised. Yet, translated into our terms, imagine how we would cherish the place where several thousand people were baptized all at once. But the place was not named for that event.
Similarly, we can't help but be impressed by the meaningfulness of the Passover that was celebrated there. The Passover meal found its origins, of course, in the meal that their parents and grandparents had eaten on the night of their deliverance from Egypt, and now the adult children ate that same meal within the borders of the promised land. It was tremendously symbolic, and yet the place was not named for it.
Instead, this place with so many layers of significance was named for what God said there: that he had "rolled away" the disgrace of Egypt. This is the gospel of Gilgal: the testimony to a God who rolls away disgrace.
To get a sense for the underlying Hebrew word, which the NRSV renders "disgrace," we observe that it is the same strong word Tamar uses to describe her condition after being raped by her half-brother (2 Samuel 13:13). The King James typically translates it "reproach."
Perhaps we would be glad for a more theologically precise term for what God does with our disgrace and reproach -- something sophisticated like "justification" or "sanctification." Instead, however, we are presented with this very earthy, Hebrew term. It is more a picture than an explanation of what God does: he rolls it away.
Yet that picture is a beautiful one. It suggests a God who is so powerful that he can roll the thing too immense for us to budge. It portrays a God who is so merciful that he can remove to a great distance the thing that we ourselves cannot shake. Indeed, that picture very much captures the larger work of God in our lives: namely, what he does with our sin, with our guilt, and with our corruptible, mortal flesh. It is the gospel of Gilgal.
Preaching the Psalm
by Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 32
Receiving real forgiveness is a powerful thing. So many people have the experience of transgressing on others and feeling the shame and remorse of that. We may not have meant it or we may even have been oblivious to the pain we caused, but still we have done it. Likewise, we're often on the receiving end of such pain. How universal is that painful sting of betrayal? How widely felt is the ache of abandonment? How often have we been wounded by the careless or thoughtless word? It can be like death from a thousand paper cuts. Oh yes, we've been on both sides of the fence of pain. But how often have we engaged in forgiveness?
It's not much on the radar of people these days, but the truth is that receiving and accepting forgiveness is a holy thing. To step into the waters of forgiveness is to swim with God. Forgiveness defies our creaturely nature and calls us to forgo our primal right to revenge. Forgiveness lifts us up from the spiral of emotional and physical violence and sets us squarely down next to God who not only forgives us, but calls to go and do likewise.
Thus the psalm tells us, "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Receiving much needed forgiveness is an incredible thing. It is such a feeling of release, a sense of rebirth.
The big part in all this wonderful forgiveness is the unpleasant part about coming clean. That's right. Keeping silent, the psalmist notes here, results in the body "wasting away," and worse. The contemporary term for this is "denial." And "Denial," as the wise rabbi said, "is not a river in Egypt." It turns out that forgiveness is a dialogue of sorts; a conversation between grace and repentance. While someone may well be able to let go of a transgression and forward with their lives, true forgiveness only takes root in this interchange.
It's for this reason that the Justice Commissions in South Africa and El Salvador have proven so transformative. After horrendous civil upheaval, which included unspeakable atrocities, the wrong-doers were brought before their victims to confess their crimes. Here, rather than through punishment and retribution, the people found a new way forward. In this strange and yes, holy mix, forgiveness is planted. Here, in the storm and stress of truth telling, the seeds of new life begin to sprout.
Forgiveness is indeed a marvelous thing. However, it is not easy and like grace, it is not cheap. Yet for us as a people of faith, it is our path. Together we are called into this holy conversation of truth, repentance, and grace. It is not just a good idea. It is God's way, the way of the cross, the way of new life.
We see the young man looking longingly out the window of his father's mansion. He thinks there is something more exciting and fulfilling out there, beyond the gates of his father's estate. Eventually, his wanderlust gives birth to a plan. Remarkably, his father goes along with the plan, which features the foolish young man collecting his share of his inheritance in advance. Then, with his pockets full, he waves good-bye and heads off into the distance. The camera focuses in on the father's eyes, watching his son disappear over the horizon.
Then it is the father who looks longingly out the window of his home. His eyes search the distant hills for any sign of his son returning home. But there is nothing.
Meanwhile, the son has traveled quite a distance. He is enjoying his freedom at an alarming rate, and his previously bulging wallet begins to grow thin. Soon his party is over, and he needs to find employment. We watch him go from one place to another, seeking work, begging food. Finally, he lands a job that is, for him and his people, about the most undesirable work to be done. Nothing can change the definition of "desirable" quite like desperation, however.
The young man has a job and even some food, of sorts. We should slow down the film in order to trace each subtle movement. The young man's eyes stare off longingly again, though this time from a much gaunter face. He is looking back -- back in the direction he had come from originally. The muck in which he sits now does not compare favorable to that room from which he looked out so long ago.
As we watch, we detect a slight movement. He is beginning to stand, to turn. Yes, he is heading home.
The scene cuts back to the family home where the father still sits with his eyes scouring the horizon. Suddenly, the sadness and weariness in those old eyes are brightened. He rises from his chair and presses his face against the window. Could it be?
In a flash, the father is down the stairs and out the door. It is an unseemly sight, this old man running down the path: his beard bouncing with each step, his robe hiked up above his pale shins, his brow perspiring, his sandals slapping.
Then comes the moment when we pause the film completely: The moment when the weary son meets the suddenly rejuvenated father. The moment is an embrace. Pause the film on that moment and take a good look at that picture. Help your people to see that picture. For it is the gospel.
Joshua 5:9-12
The Israelites' first campsite within the promised land was a spot called Gilgal. After their miraculous crossing of the Jordan, they collected twelve stones from the dry riverbed and erected them as a monument near Gilgal. Then the people undertook a mass circumcision, bringing all the males born in the wilderness into compliance with that ancient sign of the covenant. Then they celebrated the Passover together in that place. The next day, the faithful supply of manna stopped, and the people began to eat the produce of the land. Yet, for all of those eventful distinctions, the place was named Gilgal. We will give further thought to that name below.
The biblical narrator reports that the Israelites celebrated the Passover "in the plains of Jericho." I believe that detail is more than mere geography. After all, consider what Jericho represented. Already an ancient city, Jericho was famously fortified. For this generation of Israelites born in the wilderness, Jericho may well have been the first walled city they had ever seen. Their own homes and place of worship did not even have walls. Now these children of impermanence faced Jericho as their first obstacle to taking the promised land.
So what do you do in the plans of Jericho? What do you do in the shadow of your first, immense battle? Perhaps you plan strategy. Perhaps you consult the stars, the tea leaves, and the entrails of animals to seek encouragement. Perhaps you practice and train for battle. But not these people of God. No, they embark on acts of worship, thanksgiving, and dedication. That's a good policy and practice when you're camped "in the plains of Jericho." And it suits well a God who "prepare(s) a table before me in the presence of my enemies" (Psalm 23:5).
Finally, this brief Old Testament passage gives us a glimpse of the two faces of providence: for the writer reports that "the manna ceased on the day they ate the produce of the land."
The manna, of course, represented God's sustenance in the wilderness. Manna was the miraculous made routine, for God sent this improbable provision on a daily basis in the desert for an entire generation. Indeed, the manna became so commonplace that the people took to complaining about it (Numbers 11:4-6). Yet it was the very providence of God. Its very regularity and predictability was testimony to the faithfulness of God.
Just as the famous 5,000 of Jesus' day could not find food to sustain themselves in a remote place apart from Jesus' multiplication of the loaves and fishes, so their 700,000 ancestors would have starved to death in the Sinai Peninsula without the manna. Now, on this date in the plains of Jericho, the manna stopped.
Did it stop because God was angry or the people were ungrateful? No, the manna had continued through both of those contingencies before. Did it stop because God's supply was exhausted? Never. No, it stopped because "they ate the crops of the land of Canaan that year."
Perhaps we draw too stark a line between the natural and the supernatural, between the ordinary and the miraculous. For here, in this moment where we see the baton handed from the supernatural food supply to the natural food supply, we see that all of it is part of the providence of Israel's God. Whether his provisions seem mysterious and inexplicable, or whether they come by way of the growing season and the grocery store, we give thanks to him for his faithful care.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
When I was a youth minister, I had a young man in my youth group whose standard greeting was, "What's new?" He did not say, "Hello" or "Good morning" or "Hi." No, his salutation was a question, and it wasn't even a conventional "How are you?" Whenever he greeted me, he'd ask, "What's new?"
Frankly, I either saw him too frequently or lived without enough novelty to be able to answer the question well each time I saw him. Most of the time, I would settle for an anemic, "Not much. How about you?"
That was 25 years ago. I don't know if that now nearly middle-aged man is greeting people differently than he did when he was a youth, but I do know that I would like another chance to answer his question. For I have come to realize in recent years that it's an excellent question that deserves some excellent answers.
The Bible is full of new things (e.g., new covenant, new mercies, new wine and wineskins, new heaven and earth, New Jerusalem). The testimony of scripture bears witness to a God who is very fond of new things (cf., Isaiah 43:18-19). Indeed, the entire biblical story concludes with God making all things new (Revelation 21:5).
Against that larger backdrop, then, we see more clearly this exclamation of the gospel by the apostle Paul: "If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!" When someone asks you or me, "What's new?" we ought to respond with an enthusiastic, "Me! I'm new!" For this is part of the very good news that is our salvation in Jesus Christ.
In addition to the pan-biblical theme of newness, this passage from 2 Corinthians has a prevailing theme of its own: reconciliation. Five times in just three verses the apostle makes reference to reconciliation. The preponderance of the them here is even more striking in that the underlying Greek verb appears in only two other places in the entire New Testament (Romans 5:10; 1 Corinthians 7:11), as does the underlying Greek noun (Romans 5:11; 11:15).
William Barclay observes that the underlying Greek verb evolved from the changing of money to "the change of enmity into friendship." He argues that this reconciliation is central to Paul's understanding of the work of Christ, and he notes that the flow of reconciliation is decidedly one way: that is, God is not reconciled to man, but rather man is reconciled to God. This truth is at the heart of the gospel. Barclay concludes, "The very essence of Christianity is the restoration of a lost relationship."
Because the issue is a lost relationship, it is an intensely personal business, and therefore a matter of great urgency. I have known several individuals along the way whom I have never seen run on account of any tardiness or hurriedness, but I have seen them run when their children are hurt or in danger. (Such parental running is on beautiful display in our gospel lection this week.) Personal love relationships, we discover, inspire their own brand of urgency, and the quality of that urgency is captured in the strong language of God "making his appeal" and the apostles "entreat(ing)" on God's behalf.
That entreating role, meanwhile, introduces us to another layer of the relational element. It is not a simple two-tier system: God and humanity. Rather, there are two layers within humanity: those who have been reconciled, and those who have not. The former, therefore, become "ambassadors for Christ," carrying both "the ministry of reconciliation" and "the message of reconciliation." Surely that is part of our purpose on Sunday, and a part of our parishioners' calling on Monday.
Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32
This familiar and beloved text presents us with two challenges. First, there are so many sermons that could be preached on it. Second, there are so many sermons that have been preached on it. What you and I choose to do with this text on Sunday, therefore, might be quite different. But to assist our thinking, let us at least walk through the marvelous text together and make some observations about it.
"All the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to (Jesus)." We must stop to observe that this is the audience Jesus attracted. Does his church continue to attract this crowd?
"This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." It's a special sort of endorsement when your critics and your admirers say exactly the same thing about you. The irony of this particular criticism is that it sounds like a testimony. What the Pharisees perceived as a vice, we read as good news.
"So he told them this parable." In fact, he told them three consecutive parables, each featuring the story of something (or someone) that was lost and then found. The relative value of those three items increases throughout the chapter, and the nature of the "lostness" is different in each case. Still, the persistent truth throughout all three stories is that God is eager to recover what has been lost, and the angels rejoice when a sinner repents.
"There was a man who had two sons." Many of Jesus' parables present us with an either-or choice of characters: wise or foolish builder, wise or foolish virgins, sheep or goats.
"(He) traveled to a distant country." That the son was far from home is surely a metaphor for his spiritual condition, and it also sets the stage for a father who sees and runs to him "while he was still far off" (v. 20).
"Treat me like one of your hired hands." We are reminded of the wisdom of the Proverbs (15:16-17; 16:8; 17:1) and the expressed preference of the Psalmist (84:10). The son has made a simple, unemotional calculation: He has realized that any position in his father's house is better than his present condition. The father is motivated by love; the son seems to be motivated by standard of living issues.
"His father … was filled with compassion." The Greek word used here for "compassion" appears just eleven other places in the New Testament, and in eight of them it is Jesus who is described as having compassion (Matthew 9:36, 14:14, 15:32, 20:34; Mark 1:41, 6:34, 8:2; Luke 7:13). In one instance, a father is asking Jesus to have compassion (Mark 9:22). The other two instances, like this one, it is used by Jesus in a parable to describe the response of the exemplary character (Matthew 18:27; Luke 10:33).
"He … asked what was going on." It is noteworthy that the older brother came late to the party. While the father was aware of the son's return even "while he was still far off," this other son wasn't aware until long after his brother had returned home. That difference may be emblematic of the difference in how the father and the older son felt about the younger son being away in the first place.
"For all these years I have been working like a slave." The older brother was living like a son and yet feeling like a slave. This is not how the Father means for it to be, and yet it is certainly the unhappy experience of many of those in the Father's house. Also, we are struck by the contrast with the younger son's realization (v. 17) that being a servant in his father's house is quite a desirable thing.
"But when this son of your came back.…" Here the older son lodges his complaint about his father's generosity. It echoes the lament of the workers hired first (see Matthew 20:10-12), and it is no doubt related to the complaint of the scribes and Pharisees at the beginning of this chapter.
Application
When our people hear the story of the prodigal son read this week, most of them will recognize it because they have heard it before. The key for us as preachers, however, is to make sure that our people recognize more than just the plot.
First, we must recognize the son: that weary, dirty son, who lives out the consequences of his departure from home. I recognize him, for I am him. So are you. So are the people who will hear us preach this story on Sunday.
Second, we need also to recognize the father. The agnostic wonders what God might be like, and the atheist has refused to get a clue. Many believers, meanwhile, are also somewhat in the dark, for from the beginning the enemy has sought to misrepresent the nature of our Creator. Here Jesus reveals him to us. Do you want to know what God is like? Then see the big-hearted father: big-hearted enough to let his son go, big-hearted enough to subsidize his son's misadventure, and big-hearted enough to welcome him back completely.
Third, we need to recognize the message. The Father, who embraces his filthy son and orders clean clothes for him, is the same God who rolls back reproach and disgrace. He powerfully and mercifully pushes aside the intangible grime that sticks to us from our past.
Fourth, we need to recognize the reconciliation. We quoted William Barclay earlier saying that, at its core, Christianity is about restoring a broken relationship, and that is portrayed for us here in Jesus' marvelous parable. That paused still-shot -- the Father catching his miserable son up in his arms and holding him close -- that is reconciliation. It is only by the grace of God. And it is available to every prodigal within earshot.
Alternative Application
Joshua 5:9-12. "Gilgal's Gospel." "Gilgal" was related to the Hebrew word for "wheel" or "rolling." In the context of our Old Testament lection, the name was born out of God's statement that he had "rolled away from you the disgrace of Egypt." The naming should surprise us, however, for that spot had so many other options.
Imagine the significance of the monument erected at that place: Israel's arrival in the land after so many centuries in bondage and wandering, marking the fulfillment of God's age-old promise to the patriarchs. Yet the location was not named "Arrived," "Testimony," or "Promise Fulfilled." Such names would have been appropriate recognitions of the spot's significance, and certainly in keeping with the kinds of place-names found in the Bible. But the place was named Gilgal, instead.
Likewise, consider the importance of that mass circumcision. We are squeamish at the prospect of naming some location after the occasion when several thousand men were circumcised. Yet, translated into our terms, imagine how we would cherish the place where several thousand people were baptized all at once. But the place was not named for that event.
Similarly, we can't help but be impressed by the meaningfulness of the Passover that was celebrated there. The Passover meal found its origins, of course, in the meal that their parents and grandparents had eaten on the night of their deliverance from Egypt, and now the adult children ate that same meal within the borders of the promised land. It was tremendously symbolic, and yet the place was not named for it.
Instead, this place with so many layers of significance was named for what God said there: that he had "rolled away" the disgrace of Egypt. This is the gospel of Gilgal: the testimony to a God who rolls away disgrace.
To get a sense for the underlying Hebrew word, which the NRSV renders "disgrace," we observe that it is the same strong word Tamar uses to describe her condition after being raped by her half-brother (2 Samuel 13:13). The King James typically translates it "reproach."
Perhaps we would be glad for a more theologically precise term for what God does with our disgrace and reproach -- something sophisticated like "justification" or "sanctification." Instead, however, we are presented with this very earthy, Hebrew term. It is more a picture than an explanation of what God does: he rolls it away.
Yet that picture is a beautiful one. It suggests a God who is so powerful that he can roll the thing too immense for us to budge. It portrays a God who is so merciful that he can remove to a great distance the thing that we ourselves cannot shake. Indeed, that picture very much captures the larger work of God in our lives: namely, what he does with our sin, with our guilt, and with our corruptible, mortal flesh. It is the gospel of Gilgal.
Preaching the Psalm
by Schuyler Rhodes
Psalm 32
Receiving real forgiveness is a powerful thing. So many people have the experience of transgressing on others and feeling the shame and remorse of that. We may not have meant it or we may even have been oblivious to the pain we caused, but still we have done it. Likewise, we're often on the receiving end of such pain. How universal is that painful sting of betrayal? How widely felt is the ache of abandonment? How often have we been wounded by the careless or thoughtless word? It can be like death from a thousand paper cuts. Oh yes, we've been on both sides of the fence of pain. But how often have we engaged in forgiveness?
It's not much on the radar of people these days, but the truth is that receiving and accepting forgiveness is a holy thing. To step into the waters of forgiveness is to swim with God. Forgiveness defies our creaturely nature and calls us to forgo our primal right to revenge. Forgiveness lifts us up from the spiral of emotional and physical violence and sets us squarely down next to God who not only forgives us, but calls to go and do likewise.
Thus the psalm tells us, "Happy are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered." Receiving much needed forgiveness is an incredible thing. It is such a feeling of release, a sense of rebirth.
The big part in all this wonderful forgiveness is the unpleasant part about coming clean. That's right. Keeping silent, the psalmist notes here, results in the body "wasting away," and worse. The contemporary term for this is "denial." And "Denial," as the wise rabbi said, "is not a river in Egypt." It turns out that forgiveness is a dialogue of sorts; a conversation between grace and repentance. While someone may well be able to let go of a transgression and forward with their lives, true forgiveness only takes root in this interchange.
It's for this reason that the Justice Commissions in South Africa and El Salvador have proven so transformative. After horrendous civil upheaval, which included unspeakable atrocities, the wrong-doers were brought before their victims to confess their crimes. Here, rather than through punishment and retribution, the people found a new way forward. In this strange and yes, holy mix, forgiveness is planted. Here, in the storm and stress of truth telling, the seeds of new life begin to sprout.
Forgiveness is indeed a marvelous thing. However, it is not easy and like grace, it is not cheap. Yet for us as a people of faith, it is our path. Together we are called into this holy conversation of truth, repentance, and grace. It is not just a good idea. It is God's way, the way of the cross, the way of new life.
