SERMON Titles

 

Lent 4C: Joshua 5:19; Psalm 32; 2 Corinthians 5:16-21; Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

 

What we just heard has a title.

I am an avid Agatha Christie fan. Early in my teens I learned that some of my favorite mysteries have different names in Great Britain than in the United States. And Then There Were None is Ten Little Indians in England -- same book, different title. What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw! is 4:50 from Paddington -- again, same book, different title.

The practice of giving the same books different titles in the United States and Great Britain continues. The Harry Potter book, The Sorcerer's Stone, was published as The Philosopher's Stone there. A friend recently returned a favorite paper­back of mine that she had borrowed. I had been looking for it and feared it was lost. The title of the paperback is A Question of Integrity. It is by Susan How­atch, one of my favorite English authors. I bought it in London several years ago. And I was reminded when my friend returned the book that I almost bought the same book here thinking it was a different book. The book here is The Won­der Work­er -- Susan Howatch's title -- a title that her American publishers allowed her to use.

The Wonder Worker is the better title. The book is about an Anglican priest with a healing ministry in London who is accused by his detractors of being a wonder worker. In fact, I almost didn't buy A Question of Integrity because I didn't think it was my kind of Susan Howatch novel (there are some of those) and I was actually distracted about the title when reading A Question of Integrity, trying to figure out where it came from and how it fit in. I can't imagine that the British publishers read the book themselves let alone market tested the title with anyone who had read the book. The book itself is fascinating and inspiring. Exactly what I had hoped it would be: a great read. It is, however, clearly mistitled.

What we hear this morning is also a great read, both fascinating and inspiring. Quite apart from its probable source as an actual parable of Jesus or its inclusion in the Gospel of Luke, today's gospel is a really fine novella with characters exquisitely drawn and action realistically developed.

As marketed in the English-speaking world, it is called, "The Parable of the Prodigal Son." In German, it is called, 'The Lost Son." The titles focus on the younger son who opens the action by asking for his inheritance.

Good titles?

At first glance, it would appear so. After all, the first third of the story is devoted to the younger son. Not only is it devoted to him, but he is "prodigal" -- a profligate, a spendthrift with his inheritance. On second glance, there is even more that we know about him and what he did that justify describing him as "lost."

We know, for example, because he is not married that he is young, no older than twenty. We know that, under Palestinian custom, fathers could dispose of their property by will executed when they died or by gifts during their life­time. In any inheritance, the first-born son received twice the amount of any other son or sons combined. If a gift of real property was made during the father's lifetime, the father was entitled to the income and it could not be sold before his death. Even though lifetime gifts were possible, they were discourag­ed, and the younger son's asking for his share of his inheritance as a teenager was virtually unthinkable. The son's request was the func­tional equivalent of telling his father, "I wish you were dead." What the younger son does is shock­ing and dishonorable. It certainly brought shame on his family. He is lost.

Something that continues after his being prodigal and squandering his property in dissolute living in a distant country. Facing famine, he hires himself out to a gentile farmer and becomes a swineherd. The disgrace here is most impossible for us to imagine. He is not only forced to come into contact with unclean animals but cannot observe the Sabbath. The degra­dation is total. Even so, despite all that he is forced to do, he cannot psychologically bring himself to eat the carob pods fed to the pigs. He starves instead.

Prodigal and lost. We fix on the younger son's coming to his senses and de­cid­ing to try to make reparations by returning home and asking to become his fath­er's hired servant. He has hit rock bottom. We might even identify with him. We, too, may have hit rock bottom. Maybe not so severely, but close. "The Parable of the Prodigal Son." The title holds.

Or does it?

It's not the end of the parable, is it? Remember, we just heard, "There was a man who had two sons." We hear almost as much about the elder son at the end of the parable as we hear about the younger son at the beginning.

This is not only a parable about a prodigal son. It is also a parable about an elder son who is not prodigal but whose behavior is every bit as shocking and shameful and disrespectful as his younger brother's.

We don't know from the parable whether the elder brother also chose to take his inheritance -- an inheritance worth 2/3's of his father's estate -- as a gift (even if he did, the farm could not be sold until the father died). But we know that he did nothing to stop his younger brother from bringing shame and disgrace on the family when he took his inheritance and left the family. We also know that, instead of honoring his father by accepting his brother and playing the appropriate role as chief host at the meal, the older brother refuses to join the celebration in honor of his brother's return. Instead he publicly insults and humiliates his father. What's more, as described by one commentator,

[t]he insults are jarring: he addresses his father without a respectful title; he speaks of himself as a "slave" and not son (29); he accuses his father of favoritism [his brother got a fatted calf, he hadn't even had a goat]; he refuses to acknowledge his brother [he refers to him as "this son of yours"]; he invents the claim that his brother has lived with harlots. (Pilch 1997, 58-59)

In all this, the older son is suggesting that he wishes the father dead so he could at last enjoy his share of the property.

This is not only a parable about "The Prodigal Son." In Luke, this parable im­medi­ately follows Jesus' telling "The Parable of the Lost Sheep" and "The Para­ble of the Lost Coin." A better title might, therefore, be "The Parable of the Lost Sons."

But while it might be better than "The Parable of the Prodigal Son," "The Parable of the Lost Sons" doesn't quite do it either. It is not up to Susan Howatch's The Wonder Worker. And the reason it doesn't quite do it and is not The Wonder Worker is because, if this parable were about the lost sons, then we should be told whether the elder son finally joins the celebration. We would know to what status the younger brother is restored.

·        We don't know what happens to the two sons because this parable is only partially about the two sons. It is primarily about their father. About someone who is truly prodigal. Consider:

·        When the younger son asks for his inheritance, the father should have beaten him or thrown him out. Instead, he agrees and allows the inheritance to be liquidated.

·        When the younger son returns home, threatening to disgrace the whole family in the eyes of the village, "[t]he father runs to meet him; senior members of families never [did] anything so undignified at the best of times" (Wright 1996, 129)

·        In ordering that the younger son be given a robe and a ring, powerful symbols of hon­or and authority, the father bestows honor and authority on him.

·        In ordering that his son be given shoes (a luxury), the father signifies that the son is a free man (slaves did not wear sandals).

·        A fatted calf was grain-fed. Meat was only rarely eaten. The fatted calf that is slaughtered to celebrate the younger son's return feeds the village at a feast signifying the father's forgiveness and reinstatement.

The father returns the older son's insults by saying "Son" -- an affectionate term for adults that can also be translated as “My very dear child" -- and, with great gentleness, assures him that his inheritance remains intact.

So, in the end, this is a parable about a father who is reckless, prodigal, and generous to a fault.

"The Parable of the Prodigal Father"? A good title. Closer. But still not quite there.

Not quite there because there is more than just a prodigal father. And that "more" is found in what this parable is all about.

What this parable is all about is seen in the context of its telling. This parable, like those of "The Lost Sheep" and "The Lost Coin," is told by Jesus in response to the charge of the Pharisees and scribes that he was welcoming tax collectors and sinners -- those whose occupations or life styles were notorious or immoral -- and eating with them. A charge that is true -- true because, in God's kingdom, that's what a Father who is reckless, prodigal, and generous to a fault will be doing in welcoming the wayward and lost, Jew and gentile alike. Jesus is in fact modeling the "year of the Lord's favor" that he proclaimed for the downtrodden in his hometown synagogue when he began his ministry. And the result of all this incredible, profligate love is beautifully described by Paul this morning when he tells the Corinthians, "So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!"

And that's where and who we are as a community of faith this morning. Part of a new creation that is and that is to come. Beneficiaries of a Father's love in Christ that welcomes and transforms us. The Body of Christ in this and the larger community. All so wonderfully modeled in a parable that (here goes!) might best be titled, "The Wonder Worker: The Parable of a Father's Lavish Love." And for that we thank God!

Amen

Ruth VanDemark, pastor

Wicker Park Lutheran Church