Lost and Found

Art by Charlie Mackesy

Luke 15

My friend and colleague Emmy Kegler has a book release this week and her new book is called One Coin Found. Her prologue is all about this particular chapter of Luke—the LOST chapter—with three parables trying to show us what life lived with God is like. A lost sheep is found by the shepherd, a lost coin is found by a woman sweeping her house until she finds it, and then, this one… the parable of the Prodigal.

Humans make connections. Humans try to make meaning.

Amanda Brobst-Renaud writes this week that “One of the main struggles in reading this parable is that once we hear the words ‘A man had two sons,’ we quit listening -- even as preachers…”[1]

As I reflected on these words from Jesus this week, I think it’s true, it’s hard to keep listening.

First, I’m identifying with the older brother, in pain about everyone who has left… missing them, wondering where they are, why I’m still left with so many responsibilities in the family… I can get so caught up in older brother that I quit listening.

Then, I move to the younger brother… when I left my hometown, I knew I’d never move back. I’ve moved from place to place. Sure, there were brief visits, but it’s been clear that the places I’ve left will never be my community again, there’s no going back, and as I moved from place to place, sometimes it’s felt less than welcoming. There are times in my life I’ve wondered—How in the world did I get here? I’ve wished at times that I could reel back time and have a re-do. How do I renew the relationships that are gone? Is that even possible?

Then, there’s the parent, who could never give enough to his children. I’ve certainly been there, where there’s just not enough of me to meet every need, where I’m afraid that as I give attention in one arena of life, I won’t ever give enough in another… and anticipating the moment when children leave and time will tell, will they leave and never come back? And if that happens, is it a good and natural thing or is it a sign that we failed them?

And then there are all the missing characters in this parable—where is the mother? The sisters? 

If we haven’t stopped listening by this point, caught up in our own stories of how we identify and make meaning with these characters, then there’s at least one more opportunity to draw conclusions… and that’s as we think about this story and church. Who among us here hasn’t wondered why someone else is not here? Who among us hasn’t felt like leaving at some point? (or at least has been glad for or longed for a break?) Who among us hasn’t loved seeing someone return and celebrated, but then worried about whether we’ve given enough attention to the ones who stayed all along?

So…we can very easily get caught in the pain of our own stories—our stories of brokenness in ourselves, in our families, and in our experiences of church. No one else has our exact stories, but it seems like, it may be that every one of us identifies easily with one of these characters… or all of them at once… and that makes it hard for us to keep listening until we get to some good news.

Another challenge—we live in a time when withinU.S. culture, we seem especially bent toward distancing ourselves from each other. In an article from the New York Times in called “No Hate Left Behind: Lethal Partisanship is Taking Us into Dangerous Territory,” author Thomas B. Edsall describes how 42% of Democrats and Republicans think the other side is not just worst for politics but downright evil. And 20% think the other side is not fully human or even that we’d be better off if the other side all died.

Why? Well, “politics have taken on moralistic, judgmental cast.” For both right- and left-wingers, “our moralizing does not consist in pondering how to universalize the maxim of our actions or to bring about the greatest good for the greatest number, but rather of condemning, demonizing, or scapegoating a designated sinner.”[2]

“The parable of the Prodigal itself tempts us to distance these brothers, inviting us to choose who is the more beloved of the two of them… but the parable itself refuses us this luxury. The father crosses the threshold twice. He leaves once to welcome the younger son, he leaves the second time to invite the elder son to the party.”

If he was a politician, he might be called a flip-flopper… “extravagantly not able to imagine the party without both sons present.”[3]

Their needs were so different, how could this parent show each one in their own way how much he loved them? But no matter what he did to meet the individual needs of one, that move of love and attention would set off the other so that finally, one left, convinced that he needed nothing more from his family, breaking the father’s heart. It was a dream-come-true to see him again… but even then, the joy for one child fills the other with resentment… so the father bends, because the brothers don’t or won’t, and tries to make a bridge. My love, the father both says and does, is so deep and expansive that it wants to hold together all of you.

For one child, the parent throws a feast. For the other, the parent proclaims, “all I have is yours.” This is the vision that Jesus uses to describe what the reign of God is like… hoping, still hoping, that we might be able to keep listening, long enough to take in the good news…for all of us.

“The parable invites us to sit with the younger son in the mess [and welcoming embrace]; [the parable invites us to be] with the elder son in the bitterness and fear of being overlooked [and reassurance of love], and [we watch] the father as he leaves the comfort of his home to bring in all that is lost and all that feels forsaken.”

Like the God who goes out to find each and every wandering sheep, like God who picks up her broom to find her lost coin, like the parent who is watching and hoping for the return of the child who has left home and constantly loving the one who has been home all along, God’s reign is marked by meeting the need of each of us to be found, to be invited in (again), to be the love that brings us together and makes us whole.

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[1]Amanda Brobst-Renaud, “Commentary on Luke 15,” workingpreacher.org
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992

[2]Thomas B. Edsall, “No Hate Left Behind,” New York Times,March 13, 2019 https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/13/opinion/hate-politics.html

[3]Amanda Brobst-Renaud, “Commentary on Luke 15,” workingpreacher.org
https://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3992