Lent 4, Year C

What is blocking joy in your life?  Or what is blocking more joy in your life?  That is the question at the heart of today’s gospel passage.  

Like most of you, I grew up thinking of the parable we get in today’s gospel passage as the parable of the prodigal son.  Like most of you, I grew up thinking that the main theme we find in this parable is the theme of repentance.  Those ways of thinking of the parable are not wrong: the prodigal son is important, and the themes of repentance and forgiveness are important.  Still, the more I look at this passage, the more I realize that there’s a whole lot more going on here that Jesus is offering us.  So I want to invite us to shift from a narrow focus on one character, the prodigal son, and one theme, repentance, and to broaden our view to take in the parable as a whole.  

We can begin by looking at the parable in its context.  You may notice that we’re in Luke 15, and we get the first three verses of it, in which the Pharisees and the scribes are grumbling that Jesus is welcoming sinners and eating with them.  It’s important to notice that this grumbling is what Jesus is responding to.  He responds with three parables.  The gospel passage would be too long for one Sunday if we had all three of them at the same time, so our lectionary moves the first two to another Sunday, and we’ll get those two in the middle of September.  However, we’re going to look at what’s going on in the first two parables because it’s so valuable in understanding more of what’s going on in the third parable.  

The first parable says if you have a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, you leave the 99 and go looking for it.  And the parable focuses on joy, specifically on rejoicing: “When the person has found it, he lays it on his shoulders and rejoices.  And when he comes home, he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep that was lost.’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who need no repentance.”

The second parable says if there’s a woman with ten silver coins, and she loses one of them, she lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and searches carefully until she finds it.  And the second parable focuses on joy, specifically on rejoicing: “When she has found it, she calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’  Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

I can relate to these parables, because I’m someone who has been pretty absent-minded my entire life, as my family and friends can attest, and I tend to lose things a lot.  And when I find something I’ve lost, especially when it’s something I care about and have been searching for, it really is a cause of joy.  And the simplicity of this joy is the point.  The sheep has not done anything in order to get found, the sheep has not done anything to earn this care, the sheep has not accomplished something to gain this joy.  The man rejoices in finding the sheep simply because the sheep is precious to him and he values it and cares about it.  Similarly, the lost coin has not done anything in order to get found, the lost coin has not done anything to earn this care, the lost coin has not accomplished something to gain this joy.  The woman rejoices in finding the coin simply because the coin is precious to her and she values it and cares about it.

We can relate to that kind of joy.  So once we’ve gotten the concept of that kind of joy, once we can feel what it’s like to rejoice that you’ve found something you care about, Jesus takes us the next step.  If you would rejoice over finding a lost sheep and you would rejoice over finding a lost coin, you can totally get that you would rejoice over finding a lost son!  Unless you didn’t get it because you had something blocking your joy.  This is what is blocking the older brother’s joy: the mistaken belief that love isn’t freely given, the mistaken belief that love must be worked for, earned, paid for in effort and accomplishments.  There is no joy in that.  There is only a business transaction in which we work and feel people owe us, and we call that love.  And if we see real love, we react with its opposite: resentment.  If we see real joy, we react with its opposite: grumbling. 

The father responds to the arrival of his younger son with joy, celebration, feasting, music, dancing!  What is blocking the older brother’s joy?  He tells us pretty directly his belief that love can’t be freely given and must be worked for, earned, paid for in effort and accomplishments: “For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends.  But when this son of yours came back, who devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!”  And his father, even before he talks about the younger brother, speaks directly to the older brother: “Son, you are always with me and all that is mine is yours.”  In other words, I have always been giving you my love freely.  You could have had a party with your friends anytime you wanted it.  You did not have to convince yourself that you had to work like a slave when I’ve always cherished you as a son.  All this time you’ve been laboring under the mistaken belief that my love was for sale and had to be earned by effort and accomplishment and obedience and hard labor, and all the time it was free because you are precious to me and I care about you.  This mistaken belief has blocked your ability to feel love, and you can only feel resentment.  This mistaken belief has blocked your ability to feel joy, and you can only grumble and criticize.  

But the father’s love is not for sale.  It is not earned.  The father’s joy is not blocked.  So he goes on: “We had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.”  This is not about sibling rivalry; it’s about a fundamental misconception that makes love and joy impossible. Because if you have to earn love, it is not really love.  Love is always a gift, and it is always freely given, not earned.  

Jesus wants to teach us how to make love and joy possible.  If we find ourselves working too hard, it is probably because our joy is blocked by the misconception that we have to work hard in order to be loved.  The good news of the gospel is that God’s love is free and already lavished on us.  If we find ourselves resentful of others who aren’t working as hard as we are or behaving as righteously as we are, it is probably because our joy is blocked by the misconception that other people have to work harder.  The good news of the gospel is that God’s love is free and just as available to us as it is to them.

The father’s love for the prodigal son is beautiful, but it’s only half of the parable.  The point that Jesus has been leading us to ever since the Pharisees and scribes started grumbling is that the father’s love for the older brother is far more generous and far more joyful than the older brother realizes.  Because the older brother has been so fixated on thinking he has to earn it, work for it, merit it, when it’s freely offered to him he misses the love; he misses the joy.  The good news of the gospel for him and for all of us, is that it’s not too late to drop the mistaken belief that all this misery and work is what the loving father cares about, and simply enjoy the love, join the dancing, and discover the joy God has been offering us all along.  This too is a form of repentance, to let go of what blocks our joy and to enjoy God’s love and rejoicing.