March 21, 2004 - Fourth Sunday in Lent
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
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Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
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"Prodigal Is As Prodigal Does"

It’s hard to believe that Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” is probably going to end up as one of the largest money-makers in a long time.  It is very difficult to gauge a movie’s popularity, or whether or not it will have staying power in popular culture.  Some films, I think of ‘ET’ or ‘Star Wars,’ and I’m sure we can all think of many more, that have had that kind of effect on popular culture.  One that hit for a bit, and I still hear quotes from it now and then, was “Forrest Gump.”  Remember, “Life is like a box of chocolates”?  My favorite quote from the movie, however, was this one: “Stupid is as stupid does.”  That’s a truism that should endure – it just makes sense.

As I looked at this familiar story from Luke’s Gospel, believe it or not, that quote from Forrest Gump came to me.  Now it came to me as “prodigal is as prodigal does.”  It just makes sense and it summarizes everything about this story. Prodigal is as prodigal does.  This begins to make sense if you remember what ‘prodigal’ actually means.  Most of us have heard this story so many times that we’ve become dulled to its meaning.  We hear the ‘prodigal son’ and think, “Ah, yes.  The returning son.” We forget that ‘prodigal’ actually means, “recklessly extravagant, characterized by wasteful expenditure, lavish.”  Prodigal is as prodigal does.

The story does show us a son who was prodigal in the strictest sense of the word.  He told his father that he was as good as dead to him, “give me my share of the inheritance – NOW!”  He dishonored his family by the way he used the money and he even ended up tending unclean animals.  Worse yet, he was reduced to the point where he envied the food those pigs ate, a fine situation for a good Jewish boy, no?  Ah, yes, this boy was prodigal in every sense of the word.

At last, and of course we all know the story, this younger son comes to his senses and realizes just how wrong he was – here stupid is as stupid does comes to mind.  So, he comes back to his father, his story all neatly worked-out in his head.  Most of us, I would venture to say, could identify with this strategy, couldn’t we?  After all, how many of us have had to come to talk to our parents, or a professor, or a boss, or a spouse and made sure we have got our story just so?  I can just see him, rehearsing those lines all the way home: “Father, I have sinned against you and no longer deserve to be called your son….”

Here, however, we see real prodigality in the father’s reaction.  He knew the whole time that the boy would blow it.  Still, he gave him the money – knowing he would blow it – let him go his way, and never stopped watching for him to come back.  When this ragged wastrel showed up on the path, carefully rehearsed story poised on his lips, the father doesn’t wait for him to come crawling.  No, he goes running, running out to meet him.

Do you have any idea how unseemly that was?  Men in the Middle East of that time ran for no one!  First, it was just downright inconvenient – pulling those long robes up isn’t easy.  Second, it was undignified because it showed the man’s leg.  It just showed poor taste.  None of that mattered, all. None of it; the father ran to meet the son.

Now what does he do when he gets there?  Does he kick him?  Does he slap him upside the head?  Does he say, “You ungrateful wretch!  I told you nothing good would come of this!”?  No.  He does none of these things.  He simply embraces him and weeps for joy.  Then he tells the servants to prepare the best dinner ever, instructs them to run out and call the neighbors over, and get ready to party!  He takes this “waster of resources” – or as my late Grandmother would have said, “this waste of breath” – and restores him right back to where he was.  Clean clothes, new shoes, and a shiny ring on the finger, as though nothing at all had happened.  He, doesn’t even say, “I told you so.”

Who is the prodigal here?  Is it the son … or is it the father?  Prodigal is as prodigal does.

Jesus then throws in a plot twist, as Jesus is wont to do.  Remember those first few verses we read that “tax collectors and sinners were coming to listen to him.  And the Pharisees and scribes were grumbling”?  There’s this other, older, brother who’s been prodigal in a different way.  He’s not allowed himself to see the affection in his relationship with his father.  Thus, he’s angry because he’s always been good, always done what he’s been told to do, always completed his work on time, and always been where he should have been.  He’s also always done it because he was afraid of what would happen if he didn’t always behave in that way.  This older son has been a prodigal in the extravagant resentment he’s built up.

What’s the older brother’s reaction to his younger brother’s homecoming?  He comes in from doing what he always sees as his dreary work and there’s a party going on.  He asks, “What’s the occasion?”  And then gets the answer that pushes him over the edge: “Your little brother’s back and your father is throwing him a welcome home party!”  His reaction?  “Let the idiot suffer!”  Obviously, this younger brother did wrong and he should pay for it!  When his father comes out to invite him in to dinner, he reacts with incredible bitterness toward him.  Even after being accused of acting as a slave driver and a fool, the father still loves the older son.  He loves the older son just as he does the younger one – despite their faults.  Prodigal is as prodigal does.

You see, neither of these sons has a valid relationship with his father.  Each of them really serves to show us not his nature, but the true nature of his father.  The older, “good son,” is duty bound, takes his own goodness for granted, does his work out of fear rather than love, and begrudges his father’s graciousness.  The ‘material boy’ (if I may hearken back to pop image) younger son has no sense of duty, takes the father and his resources for granted, sees him as a meal ticket, and abuses his father’s graciousness.  What’s the point of consistency here?  Prodigal is as prodigal does – the father loves them both.  These two sons each stood apart from their father, one in self-righteousness, the other in self-destructiveness.  These sons represent those who were listening to Jesus: some who stood apart by their religious superiority complex and others by their self-centeredness.

While most of us think that we identify more with the younger son, the prodigal, I would suggest that it is the older son we should consider.  Very few of us have been in outright rebellion.  Very few of us have ever tried to deliberately be bad or to be profligate, for that matter.  Rather, we’ve tried hard to do the right thing, to be good.  Surely we can identify with the older son, who knew how hard he tried and then saw his stupid sibling – stupid is as stupid does – celebrated in his place?

Come on now, what’s wrong with this picture?  The one who blew a chunk of the family fortune is getting a party and the good kid is watching on the outside!  Reminds me of a story I once heard about a little girl that someone found standing outside the banquet hall of a big hotel where they were holding a dinner for handicapped children.  When asked what the problem was she wailed, “I can’t get in.  There’s nothing the matter with me!”  There’s the older brother, he can’t get in because he thinks there’s nothing wrong with him.  He’s secure in his own sense of rightness and goodness and doesn’t realize that his attitude and his heart are actually crippled.  He’s always served, he always been good, but not because he cared or loved, only because he was always afraid not to.

Perhaps we need to consider both sides of the story?  Some of us need to realize that we’ve blown the family inheritance.  We’ve made some major mistakes and we need to come home – carefully rehearsed story and all.  Others of us need to look at how dreary and defective our attitudes and our reason for serving God have been and then come to a change of heart.

Then we need to consider the whole point of the story – prodigal is as prodigal does.  God loves us, regardless of where we are. God is recklessly extravagant with divine love and acceptance.  The prodigal love of God is here, just as that father was, with arms wide open and heart open even wider.  There is love for the child who comes home, rehearsing the story, and for the child who’s always been there and has always been loved, if only eyes and heart would open to realize it.  Who’s the real prodigal here?  God.  Prodigal is as prodigal does and God is prodigal when it comes to loving us right where we are.

God’s prodigal love calls us home and, as the Psalmist tells us, “teaches us the way you should go.”  God’s steadfast love provides a banquet for us and calls us to sit down together in reconciliation, harmony, and friendship with God and with one another. As Paul writes to the Corinthian church, “we are new creations.”  All it takes is the “big bang” of faith and we have an opportunity to start over, to be renewed and to see people in a whole new way.  Prodigal is as prodigal does.  Want proof?  “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”  God’s prodigal love invites us to newness of life.

It is important for us to also see that while this story tells us that God is “like a father,” it’s not about God’s maleness, nor is it limited to parents.  This story uses human elements and ideas to capture a love that is beyond our imagination, beyond our capacity to conceive or to articulate.  God’s love outstrips our limited language and limited thoughts.  Anselm’s ontological proof, his argument from being, for the existence of God rests on the idea that God is something greater than which nothing can be thought.  I would say that God’s love is at the core of that argument – it’s beyond thought.  Jesus wants us to understand that God loves us, loves us unconditionally, and loves us just as we are.

If we open ourselves to this love we can’t remain the same.  Once we allow ourselves to experience the love of God, we are so filled with God’s presence and peace that we can’t help but love others.  Prodigal is as prodigal does – get it?  Our actions, our attitudes, must conform to God’s because we are made in God’s image and likeness, restored to us in Jesus.  You see, as I’ve told you before, using Francis de Sales’ words, “The measure of love is to love without measure.”  God sets the standard and waits with open arms and open heart for each of us. Prodigal is as prodigal does.