Today is Laetare Sunday (fourth Sunday in Lent), which marks the halfway point of the forty days of Lent. Today and Gaudete Sunday (third Sunday of Advent) are the only times in the liturgical year when we wear rose-colored vestments in order to represent joy in the midst of penitential seasons and remind us that penitence and repentance aren’t all about doom and gloom. The Gospel reading in the Lectionary for today is Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32, in which Jesus tells the story of The Prodigal Son. I commend this story to you in its entirety. The following sermon is drawn from that parable.
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, Amen. +
If you were anything like me as a child, sometimes you did things you shouldn’t have just to see what would happen. When I was young, I’d draw on the walls, make messes, tell lies, do any number of things just to test the limits. There was a juicy thrill in doing whatever I wanted, even when the cost of that action resulted in a spanking, the loss of TV/video game time, or being grounded. However, worse than any punishment was the mental dread that came from thinking about my parents’ responses to my impulsive feats, thinking the inevitable phrase, Uh oh. Mom/Dad will not be happy about this. Now what am I going to do? Deep down, I knew that I deserved at least a little of whatever punishment was coming my way, and usually felt so ashamed that I would just fess up in an effort to escape a harsher punishment.
Sometimes our spiritual lives can go down paths that are just as destructive as the ones in the childhood story I just shared with you. While we may not be running around drawing on walls as adults, it’s all too easy to be too self-indulgent with our resources and negligent of the people and practices that feed our souls in favor of options that seem desirable in the moment. Jesus’s parable of The Prodigal Son takes this problem to the extreme, positing a situation in which a father’s youngest son squanders all of his inheritance on impulse-buys and is reduced to poverty. However, he isn’t stuck there without options. There among the filth of the pigsty, The Prodigal Son receives a reality check. Recalling that returning home is an option, he rehearses the line he’ll say later to his father (in a fashion not too different from the one I used to prep myself to confess my misdeeds as a kid): “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you, and I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” Here the son humbles himself and leans in to repentance, but also the other aspect of metanoia, a complete change of mindset. Confession for him, just as it is for us in the sacrament of reconciliation, isn’t about shame or fear of punishment, but rather the turn of mind and heart that come with true accountability and commitment to living into the fullness of life to which we are called.
The literary turn in this story is quite literally a return. The Prodigal Son comes home and fully expects to be punished. He acknowledges that he doesn’t deserve forgiveness, even asking that he be treated as a servant and not his father’s child. However, the father’s response is one of mercy and deep love; he comes running out to meet his son when he is still far off, has the servants dress him in the finest robe, and prepares a great feast for him. There is joy at the moment of reconciliation between father and son, just as there is between us and the Divine when we come to the seat of mercy with contrite hearts. There have been many times in my life when I have come running to fess up to God and before I even got there, blessings met me along the way. I’m sure that there have been moments in your life too, where you’ve messed up, prepared yourself for punishment, and received goodness instead. I can’t think of a better figure for explaining grace (i.e. the idea that the love of God cannot be deserved but is given as an ever-present, ever-accessible, and inviolate gift), than this story. In fact, the last verse of this parable famously provides language for the hymn “Amazing Grace”, which many congregations, including the one that I attend here in New Haven, often sing today. Jesus calls us to live in a way that is self-accountable, but also aware of the divine grace that comes to meet us while we are still far off. May we be ever reminded to live into that grace, readily admit when we are wrong, and rejoice in the fact that reconciliation is always available to us, no matter how lost we may believe ourselves to be.
In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen.+
JKR
Africana Anglo-Catholic 