Sunday 30th March – Everything I have is yours – Pastor Adrian Kitson
Luke 15:1-3,11b-32
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering round to hear Jesus. 2 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, ‘This man welcomes sinners, and eats with them.’
3 Then Jesus told them this parable:
11 Jesus continued: ‘There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them.
13 ‘Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living. 14 After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. 16 He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.
17 ‘When he came to his senses, he said, “How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! 18 I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” 20 So he got up and went to his father.
‘But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms round him and kissed him.
21 ‘The son said to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”
22 ‘But the father said to his servants, “Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate. 24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.
25 ‘Meanwhile, the elder son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27 “Your brother has come,” he replied, “and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.”
28 ‘The elder brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29 But he answered his father, “Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”
31 ‘“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.”’
If you happen to be driving home from the city on a still evening, you can get a good whiff of the piggery close to highway just before Laucke Mill.
When that happens I usually think of the two other piggeries I have been in, one really large, in Esperance WA.
Going into a piggery is a bit heavy on the nose. I hear that pigs are close to us humans genetically. So their waste is close to ours too, which is why it is so heavy on our noses when going into a piggery!
Is that smell what the father smelt on his lost boy when he ran out to hug him that day the boy arrived home? The boy had been working (and occasionally eating) among the pigs.
The Father does not seem to care about the stench of the boy. Full embrace, the boy’s old clothes of sonship, even the ring of sonship, the cygnet ring with which full authority to keep signing family documents all reinstated in an act of sheer forgiveness and grace …. and delight.
The sinners around Jesus must have marvelled at this scene in the parable. They know this lost boy and it is them. Can God really be like that for people like us?
This lost boy had gone it alone ‘full-gas’. He even demanding his share of the family farm, thus weakening the family and the farm into the future. But that was not the real pain. Asking for the inheritance before the old man was dead is wishing him so or treating him so.
In the search to live his life in his own way under his own smarts and steam, he comes a cropper. But even before he can get Dad to agree to his plan to join the workers back on the farm, he is reinstated as full son.
Would God hug me even though I smell? Would he welcome me even though I have deeply offended him and weakened his life-work? Would he confer on me full rites I used to have after I forfeited them all for my own stupidity?
Seems, ‘Yes’. Good news for sinners who know their sin.
But there is another lost son. He has never even left home. But apparently is lost. I think this son in the story speaks to us long-term people with a Christian story
To the smell of roast beef wafting through the house full of the whole village feasting on the very expensive fattened calf, and the sweat and dust of the son who has just come in from working the farm all day, the father again comes out of his own celebratory space to embrace this boy. But this son will not be embraced. He is angry. He is seethingly angry at Dad.
“How could you do this?!”
“That other ‘son of yours’ (not ‘my brother’) is a bludger and has proven himself to be a real idiot, but you have let him come home and given him what coming to me again”.
“What is it with you? Can’t you see that he is playing you? You have reinstated him into this family with full authority to handle our money and property after what he did to us and you”.
“He has a flawed character. Everybody knows that. You are making a fool of yourself accepting him back so easily. He should have paid. You should have kicked him out and let him go to suffer the consequences of his actions, not spent more money killing that calf we were lining up for later in the year”.
“While we are on it – this is how you always treated him. You are soft and you have treated him as the favourite again”.
“When did you ever kill a fattened calf for me? I have been working hard for years for this farm – firming up our future (and mine), making things drought-proof, strong, sustainable…. for what?” Your grace is reckless and costly!
Funny how you be lost without leaving home.
He has been working hard for his reward. He has fulfilled all the expectations of family and community.
This son believes that you should get what you are owed for all your hard work, especially when it comes to the farm and his Dad.
How dare they not recognise me. How dare they don’t deliver everything I DESERVE.
And there is the lostness, according to the parable.
He has missed his Father’s heart and his Father’s way. This Father needs no payment. Being this father’s child is not about getting things he can give, it is living in the delight of being with him in all of life.
The boy has been working to earn what he believes is his but is unsure it is. Thus the endless insecurity and griding hard work to earn – just in case.
He has been living to get what the Father can give, not to just enjoy being with his Father through whatever comes.
He is so affronted because in his father’s world, you don’t get what you are owed, you get what you could never earn that is way more than a farm of money or title or land or status among peers.
You get love. Deep love, Unshakable affirmation, loyalty, guidance, trust and hope…and most of all forgiveness of any wrong, healing for any harm – deep peace whether it is a good season or bad, in bushfire and flood, conflict or harmony.
31 ‘“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
“My son”. You are still my son.
“You are always with me”. And I am glad about that.
And the truth that disarms the boy’s anger.
“… and everything I have is yours”.
EVERYTHING I have is already yours.
No need to work to earn my affirmation and acceptance. You have it.
That is literally true. This son will get the lion’s share of the family inheritance to ensure this ancient family will continue on into the next generation.
It is also relationally true. This father is open to his boy. He shares everything with his boy. He has been working for and with this boy all his life.
Jesus leaves us there –
“Out on the patio we sit and the humidity, we breath…”
(Gangagang, The Sounds of Then)
Out on the patio witnessing this conversation with an inviting father and an angry son with the other lost boy now found in full party mode with all the community.
It always begs the question – will this lost son also join the party? Will he also ‘come home’ and ‘come to his senses’ from his lostness.
I think this older son lostness is more likely ours.
We get the young boy. His lostness is obvious.
But the lostness of this older boy is harder to see because we have been in our father’s home for a long time.
Have we switched to doing all the right things, putting in all the hard work, always being very busy in what we deem to be ‘the Lord’s work’ to either fulfill our own personal need to be needed or look good or whatever?
Are we doing what we are doing to get things from our Father rather than delighting in his delight in just being his and with him?
Are we living to earn the love or are we just very happy to be loved, in all the movements of the day?
It is quite easy to make this switch. The whole world works on this transactional profit/loss, performance mode. It is easy to treat each other and the Lord that way. It comes naturally.
It is easy to be like the young husband working from dawn ‘til dusk to ‘set the family up’ all the while neglecting his longing and lonely partner and kids. They would rather just be with him than have a new car or house or ‘rich’ future.
It is easy to be like the woman who has a thousand friends on social media but is not attentive to those closest to her. He would just love to love her and be with her than her having some massive social media community out there somewhere.
It is very easy to be lost without leaving home.
But this Father loves it when we get found! He delights in his lost sons, if they will allow it.
And his grace is reckless and costly for him. He risks ‘being played’ all the time.
He gave us his Son. He entered our transactional world, our brutal world, our angry world to find us.
I don’t know what you are working for and where your heavenly Father is in that at the moment.
Your status with God is not founded on you, but on his great love; his great invitation to the feast of life; his delight in delighting in being with us and giving us everything he has – including the life suffering and death of his Son now risen to life to be our older brother.
“Everything I have is yours”, the Spirit says.
Feel the father’s embrace today, despite your sweat or smell or regret or anger.
One more thing …
If that older brother went into that feast knowing the complete acceptance and love of his Father, he would look across the room at his younger brother and realise something profound.
He should have been there. As the older brother, his calling was to leave home to find this lost brother. He is the ‘goel’ (Hebrew) the ‘kinsman redeemer’. He had and has the calling of protector, guider for the family siblings. He should have went looking and brought the wayward young man home safe and sound.
For us this has happened. Jesus is our older brother, our kinsman redeemer who came looking for us and found us and ere we are with him in his feast of the Lamb.
So, we look across the room, not in judgements and transaction and who is deserving or not deserving….. We know we are here for anyone here. We are all kinsmen redeemer for each other, indeed for the world.
Jesus, help us to move from endless self-focus and people pleasing and this often cautious, judgmental heart so we can celebrate your grace that recklessly reinstates lost people like us. Amen
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