There are moments in worship when I feel so alive. Like when our pianist takes the last verse of Amazing Grace up a key and we in the congregation respond to the cue by singing for all we are worth. Or moments such as when I spontaneously think of just the right words to express what I believe and what I want to say and then those words actually come out of my mouth. Or moments when I am preaching when I hit that sweet, sweet spot….when I have relaxed into the message, when I feel myself connecting with God’s people, when I as the preacher have faded into the background and God’s Word is fully illumined. I cannot contain my joy when enough of these moments happen during worship. They are life-giving moments for me. And in light of my sermon from this past Sunday, they are resurrection moments. What follows is the sermon from the fourth Sunday in Lent.
“Raising the Dead”
Rev. Dr. Teri McDowell Ott
Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
March 14th, 2010 – Fourth Sunday in Lent
What is killing you today? Is it the pain in your neck or your shoulder that the doctors can’t seem to treat? Is it the jealously you harbor in your heart for that girl who seems to have everything? Is it the feeling of resentment that is eating up your marriage and keeping you from a blessed union with your spouse? Is it guilt and shame over mistakes from your past that make you break into a hot sweat every time you recall them? Is it the bone-deep weariness you feel as you try to simply get by in the face of crazy life obstacles? Is it the fear of what your future might or might not hold? What is killing you today?
Today’s text from the Gospel of Luke is full of dead people. The younger son essentially wills his father’s death by asking him to dole out his inheritance right here and now. You are better dead to me than alive, the younger son’s request of his father implies. Surprisingly, the father obliges his son but we parents know that it kills him to do so.
And what about the boy’s mother? Where is she in this story? Is she tucked in a back room somewhere? Is she straining to hear what is going on from behind a closed door, dying to cry out in protest, dying to grab her son and say, “No, don’t go! Don’t do this!” She is the all-too-familiar biblical woman without a voice, without an identity, and without a say in whether or not she and her husband should let their son go. The whole situation is killing her as well.
And then there’s the elder son; the one who is so full of resentment and hatred towards his younger brother, the one who has sought his father’s approval all his life and then ends up being such a big disappointment in the end. How can he really know life when he is so full of anger and resentment and self-loathing? How can he know life when he feels so dead inside?
Finally, we come to the younger son. The one who needed to “come to himself” while off living “dissolutely.” Since he needed to come to himself, obviously he wasn’t his real self; he wasn’t really alive while he was off on his party binge. He may have felt the thrill of his newfound freedom, he may have experienced the high that can come with such dangerous living, but it was all pretty short-lived. His selfish ways caught up with him quickly and lost all its glitz and glamour. It finally took a field of pigs whose quality of life seemed better than his own to wake him up to the fact that he was living the life of a dead man. This wasn’t what he was supposed to be doing with his life. This wasn’t who God had created him to be. This wasn’t life. This was death. And he needed a miracle to turn things around.
The younger son was fortunate, in a sense though, because at the very least he did come to himself. He was able to recognize the suicidal track he was on. Oftentimes we never realize how dead we really are unless we get a loud wake up call.
I am currently reading Anne Tyler’s book The Accidental Tourist in which she tells the story of Macon Leary, a travel writer who hates to travel and a man who has gone through life observing what is happening, but who has never been truly engaged. Compulsively tidy, Macon has always believed that it is possible to order one’s life so effectively that the untidiness, or chaos, that throws life into confusion can be avoided. But then the unimaginable occurs. Macon’s beloved 12-year-old son is cold-bloodedly murdered in the senseless robbery of a burger joint.[1] Their son’s murder sends Macon and his wife Sarah into a tailspin that eventually ends their polite and predictable marriage. This tragic and chaotic turn of events in Macon’s life issues him a wake-up call for which he was completely unprepared. In the light of these life tragedies, Macon begins to see himself for who he really is–a lost, dead soul covering up his deadness with a false sense of order, control and tidiness.
The death of a loved one often leads us to reexamine our lives and our relationships. When a friend or a loved one dies (especially if it is unexpected) all of a sudden we are awake to the fact that life is short and can take many an unexpected turn. So we try to get back in touch with old friends from the past. Or we start taking more risks in order to feel the thrill of life again. Or we decide we need to make some changes so we slap some new paint on the walls and rearrange the furniture. And after doing all this we wonder…we wonder why we still feel so dead inside?
Why do we still feel so dead inside? Well, perhaps because it takes more than getting in touch with a few old friends, it takes more than a change of scenery, it takes more than wrapping our dead bodies in quick-fixes and temporary band-aids in order to bring us back to life. In fact the only thing I know (and believe) to be able to raise the dead is the amazing grace of God.
The story of the prodigal son is amazing in its beautiful portrayal of grace and forgiveness. No more hopeful picture could be painted than of the father recognizing his lost son off in the distance and then running to welcome him home. This story truly is a well-read favorite of our Christian tradition. It’s hard to improve upon. But this past week I read an article by Barbara Brown Taylor that, by shedding some new light on an old story, perhaps made it even more beautiful.
In order to truly capture the beauty of this story we must first understand the huge honor owed the patriarch of a clan in the ancient Middle Eastern culture and the elaborate code for keeping that honor in place. “Patriarchs did not run. Patriarchs did not leave their places at the heads of their tables when guests were present. Patriarchs did not plead with their children; they told their children what to do.”[2]
So in light of this cultural context, today’s story becomes a story about a weak patriarch with a rebellious son whom he seems unable to control. After his son leaves home, the community gathers around the family who is left behind in order to protect and provide. With the younger son running off with his share of the inheritance and with fewer hands to tend to the family farm, the father is more than likely grateful for the community’s offer of help and support.
But with the community now banding around the family in need of help, it becomes clear that “the only way the younger son is ever going to step foot back inside that town is to come back ten times richer than he left, with fabulous presents for every member of his family and enough left over to buy back the farm. Then he will have to throw a banquet and invite the whole community, honoring them as extravagantly as he shamed them when he left.”[3]
“But of course this is not what happens. Instead, the younger son loses everything, and he loses it to Gentiles—Roman citizens, pagan pig-owners, complete strangers to the God of Israel. He might as well have used his birth certificate to light an Italian cigar. What he does is so reprehensible that the Talmud actually describes a ceremony to deal with it—a qetsatsah ceremony, to punish a Jewish boy who loses the family inheritance to Gentiles. Here’s how it works. If the boy ever shows up in his village again, then the villagers will fill a large earthenware jug with burned nuts and corn, break it in front of the prodigal son, and shout his name out loud, pronouncing him forever cut off from his people. After that he will be a cosmic orphan, who might as well go back and live with the pigs.”[4] So in returning to the place and community of his birth, the prodigal son’s only real hope lies in reaching his father before the village reaches him in order to confess and beg for forgiveness.
Well, his father must have been on the lookout for him because he sees his son while he is still far off. And his father, this weak patriarch, this shamed man in his community, is filled with compassion. “Then he does something that patriarchs just don’t do. The father runs to his son—runs so that everyone can see his pale ankles, runs so that his robes get wedged between his legs and flutter out behind him like an apron, [runs in front of all the stunned elders of his community]—he runs and puts his arms around his son, and kisses him right there on the road where everyone can see.”[5]
In this way, the father saves the son. He saves him from the community ready to banish and orphan him. He saves him from a life lived with the pigs. He saves him from himself and his dissolute living. He saves him with love, and forgiveness, and the indescribable grace of a father willing to shame himself, willing to degrade himself, willing to die himself in order to save his son, in order to welcome his child home. The father humbles himself and brings his son who was as good as dead back to life.
Quickly, bring out a robe—the father calls out for all to hear—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was dead! But now he is alive!
Resurrection….by the grace of God. We can’t get there by ourselves. We can’t raise ourselves from our death-like state. Our quick-fixes and our temporary band-aids simply won’t do the trick. But a love so great, a love so humble, a love so willing to die so that we might live, is waiting for us with open arms.
It’s by the grace of God that we can know resurrection because it’s by the grace of God that we are given the gift of faith. And it’s by the grace of God that we know who we are and whose we are and why we are here. And it’s by the grace of God that we are reminded that we are cherished, and loved, and precious no matter what. And it’s by the grace of God that we are given another chance, and another, and another. And it’s by the grace of God that we are turned from the old to the new, that we are turned from the ways of death to the ways of life. It’s by the grace of God that we can know resurrection.
What is killing you today? Well, whatever it is, God’s grace is ready to embrace you and welcome you home. God’s grace is ready to proclaim, Let us eat and celebrate; for this child of mine was dead and is alive again. He was dead. But now he is alive!
Now to this God of resurrecting grace, be all honor and glory, thanksgiving and power, now and forevermore. Amen.
[1] Amazon.com review by Mary Whipple.
[2] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Parable of the Dysfunctional Family”, April 17, 2006, found on www.barbarabrowntaylor.com/newsletter374062.htm
[3] Ibid, BBT.
[4] Ibid, BBT.
[5] Ibid, BBT.
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Dear blog readers,
Holy Week is here. Easter’s coming! It’s going to get a lot darker, though, before we see the light. So let’s keep praising our God!
Come, Thou Fount of every blessing,
Whenever I try to create a “moment” in worship I feel like I am dancing along the edge of a cliff. One false step and the moment will unravel into a fizzling failure. Some would go as far as saying that you can’t create such moments, that the Holy Spirit is only present through spontaneity. I don’t agree with this, though. Spontaneous moments in worship can be wonderful, when (and if) they occur. But carefully created, planned moments in worship can also be amazingly spiritual seeing as the Spirit is not just present in the moment, but (if everything goes as it should) also in the whole process of preparation, planning, and finally, performing.
It’s a resurrection story. I never thought of it like that before this week. 
Dan
Teri
A Fly On Our Wall 