Proper 13, Year C
Just as I did last Sunday, I need to take a few minutes before the main focus of my sermon, to address the powerful images found in the Old Testament lesson from Hosea. Last week we heard the first verses of Hosea and the analogy of marriage for the relationship between God and God’s people. This week’s passage is near the end of the book and uses the analogy of parenting to describe our relationship with God.
God as the loving, caring, protective parent to the nation of Israel, carries them in his arms. She lifts them to her cheeks when they are soft and vulnerable and feeds them when they are weak and hungry. God is tender and patient when the nation runs away, calling them back and seeking them out.
But the child has cut off the parent. They reject everything they were taught and learned in their early years and have run after false gods, the gods of empire and power and cult. They stopped being faithful to God and instead aligned themselves with a ruler who captivates them, deceives them and ultimately brings violence and destruction upon them. They have abandoned their familial identity and made an alliance with another nation who they believe will make them great again.
The pain of a parent who has been cut off by their child is one of the most devastating relationship failures imaginable. No amount of rejection can stop the love a parent feels for their child. The wound and grief over the separation can never be healed but only endured. In such a devastating abandonment, it is natural for the parent to be angry and to lash out and punish the child for the pain they are experiencing. It is tempting to cut the daughter or son off and to give them the silent treatment, to look for substitutes for the lost child.
God considers punishment but cannot go through with it. God speaks to the rebellious child with a lament, “How can I give you up, Ephraim? How can I had you over, O Israel?” How can God treat them like the cities that were utterly destroyed during the time of Sodom and Gomorrah? God admits that it is not possible. The tenderness and compassion of God acts as a break on God’s righteous anger. When they return to God, no matter how far they have wandered or for how long, God will welcome them back and return them home.
It is this image of God, as one who places restored relationship above righteous indignation, punishment or revenge that is both fully understood, embraced and reflected in Jesus. This isn’t a God who dismisses or is unaware of human failure, frailty and sin but rather one who is willingly self-emptying of power, punishment, and rights to effect reconciliation.
Therefore, when someone in the crowd asks Jesus to intervene in an inheritance fight between them and their brother, Jesus doesn’t respond directly to the situation but instead tells a parable which cuts to the heart of what is most important, what is more valuable than anything, what is worth dying for. Hint, it’s not an “abundance of possessions.”
A rich man has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams and has produced more crops than he can possibly use in not only his lifetime but in one hundred of his lifetimes. He has absolutely no one to share it with. In fact, he has no one to celebrate this abundance with and no one he trusts to consult with on how to manage his enormous fortune. He engages in a soliloquy with his own soul and plans to eat, drink and be merry all by himself. He has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams but will never be able to enjoy it, for that very night his life will end. All his possessions will be shared with strangers since he had no heirs, friends, colleagues or community.
Yes, this is a parable about the dangers of wealth and the importance of being generous, but it’s not that simple. It never is with Jesus. If so, all we would need to do is make sure, like Bill Gates, that we give everything away before we die and we will be happy and righteous before God. Parables never function as formulas for behavior, but rather as puzzles for reflection and mirrors to our own situation.
Do you remember the request that provoked this parable? It was a conflict between family members, specifically between siblings over an inheritance. For those who are familiar with the gospel of Luke or who know the most famous parable Jesus tells, you may be aware that just two chapters later we will hear about the prodigal son, his brother and the forgiving father who were estranged from one another over a fight about inheritance. Ultimately it is the father’s willingness to abandon punishment and recrimination in favor of reconciliation and the sharing of abundance at a grand party where everyone will eat, drink and be merry, that is the shocking conclusion to the parable. It’s a conclusion that the older brother who is bitter and angry may not be able to accept.
Certainly, Jesus tells a story like no other, but you don’t need him to realize how fraught settling an inheritance can be. The advice column “Ask Eric” which replaces “Dear Abby” just had two questions from family members who didn’t support any of an inheritance going to an ungrateful or delinquent survivor, even if they were named in the will. It’s not fair, we think. They don’t deserve any of it. They’re unworthy and no one should leave their money and possessions to an unworthy heir.
That’s where the parable hits home. It is God’s, good pleasure to give all of us, unworthy as we are, the kingdom, the entire kit and caboodle. We are called heirs of God, siblings with Jesus, children of our Heavenly Parent. Not because we have been perfectly good, faithful, respectful or obedient, but in spite of our weakness, rebelliousness and selfishness. If God were only fair and just, not one of us could measure up to the standards.
But God is tender, compassionate and merciful. Even now God is throwing a big party, setting a table where everyone is welcome, going out into the byways and ditches to round up all the undesirables and pairing them with the rich fools who were certain that they were the guests of honor. God is inviting estranged family members to sit down next to one another and serving them with the finest food and best wine. God is reuniting unfaithful spouses and rebellious children. God is in the business of reconnection and reconciliation, because that is what God has chosen over every other virtue to be defined by.
Even at the cross, God in Christ is welcoming the thief, forgiving the persecutor and entrusting his mother to one of his disciples as part of the new family of God.
This Eucharistic Feast is both a foretaste of that heavenly banquet and the expression of it here and now as we are united with God and one another, as we are welcomed with mercy, compassion and love to the table, as we are seated with friends, family, strangers and even those from whom we have been estranged.
“Let us give thanks to the Lord for God’s mercy and the wonders God does for God’s children. God satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. Whoever is wise will ponder these things, and consider well the mercies of the Lord.” Amen.
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