Fourth Sunday of Lent, Sunday Morning Worship,
March 30, 2025
Sermon: A Tale of Two Sons
Accompanying Scripture: Luke 15: 1-3, 11b-32
A Tale of Two Sons
Ern was the firstborn of my father’s siblings. He was an old soul from the cradle. While his younger brother, my father, found all kinds of ways to get into trouble, Ern was the one trying to both keep up with him and keep him out of trouble. Uncle Ern could be tiresome at times. You had to drive a car just so, the house needed to look just right (and he defined what that was.)
I loved his sense of humor and his stories about the war. He was in the Canadian Army serving in England. Ern had narcolepsy, a condition where he fell asleep easily day or night. For some reason, he was assigned the duty of driving the munitions truck at night. He and England both survived.
He worked for the USDA as a meat inspector. If he decided a side of beef was choice, it was choice. No amount of badgering, bullying, or even bribing could deter my uncle. If it wasn’t prime, it wasn’t prime. End of story.
In our scripture reading this morning, we find Jesus meeting up with several Uncle Erns: people who were holding on too tightly to the religious rules. Jesus was hanging out with unclean sinners. That’s a huge no-no. Jesus turns the criticism into a teaching moment.
A father and two sons. They define dysfunction. The younger son wishes his father were dead so he could have his share of the inheritance. The father, an enabler extraordinaire, divides his property between the two sons, making himself essentially homeless.
Not happy at home, the younger son takes off for what appears to be better pastures. He lives well for a while. Eventually, he runs out of money and ends up working for a pig farmer. After a while, he comes to his senses: I’m better off working for my father!
Feeling vulnerable, hungry, and afraid, he makes his way back home. All the way home he practices his speech, “Father, I have sinned against you and heaven…” Over and over he says those words, wondering how his father will take them. It’ll be hard, he figures. His father won’t be happy with him. Hopefully, he’ll take pity and take him back.
Meanwhile, the elder son works every day, assured that the fields are in order and the livestock are well cared for. He missed his brother for a while. Soon enough, anger took over and he let his brother go. In his mind, he no longer had a sibling. It hurt to think of him. It angered him that he abandoned the family so easily.
And, meanwhile, the father stands at the window every day looking for his lost son. Hoping and praying that he would come to his senses and return home. He doesn’t talk about him anymore because his elder son won’t hear of it. So he keeps his pain to himself, and prays and watches every day.
One miraculous afternoon it happened. Looking far off, he thought he saw something familiar. We know our children’s every move, don’t we. He continued watching and waiting and finally he knew: his lost son had returned.
He should have waited at the front door and talked with him there. No, this enabling father does what no Middle Eastern man would do. He picks up his robes and runs, yes runs, to his son. As his son collapses into his arms, they both shed tears of longing and relief.
On top of that, the father helps him home and calls out to the servant, “Get him cleaned up and put on that robe of mine that I wear on special occasions.” To another servant he says, “Kill the fatted calf and tell the neighbors we’re partying tonight.”
The community doesn’t applaud the father’s actions in splitting up his property: it’s just not done that way. However, they show up and the feasting begins.
No one said a thing to the elder brother. No one sent word by a servant that his brother had returned. He’s the last to hear the news. And he’s not happy. “This son of yours…” No mention of a younger brother. No, he’s merely “this son of yours.”
Have you ever been the younger son? Or perhaps you’ve experienced the older son. Certainly, we’ve strayed from God. Were we welcomed back? How do we welcome the younger sons back? With a party or a sneer?
Randy showed up at church one Sunday out of the blue. I welcomed him and said I hoped to see him again. I did. The next Sunday and the Sunday after that. I invited him to Sunday school but he didn’t show up. I wasn’t sure the congregation was greeting him. I couldn’t continue being the only one, so I organized a lunch at the local restaurant with some retired members.
Randy opened up to us slowly. Over the next several weeks we learned that his husband (yes he was gay) had died the previous year. He barely managed to get his bills paid each month. His previous church had ostracized him. Miraculously, he wanted to return to church.
Without the welcome of the congregation and the understanding of his needs, Randy would have moved on. Instead, he settled with us and is still an active member today. The prodigals are the unchurched and the dechurched. They’ve been hurt and have left for foreign lands only to yearn to return to God. Or they have read too much about the bad behavior of churches and stay away. Except they want to be closer to God.
It can be difficult to welcome them as the father in our parable treated his sons. Perhaps they’re not like us and we have trouble finding a commonality. We feel vulnerable and uncomfortable. We’re afraid we’ll stumble, so we leave it to the pastor. After all, she’s experienced.
But there’s only so much a pastor can do. The opening conversations and follow-up aren’t enough unless the community gathers around engages with our guests in an open manner.
The good news is, we are a dysfunctional family, living with a God who loves us so much that God will deal with embarrassment to bring us back into the fold. We resist because we can’t see the fallout from our actions. We want what we want; we can’t see the damage we’re creating. Returning to God is hard and vulnerable work. It takes courage. Will there be a welcome?
Uncle Ern was an elder brother. He lived by the rules, even selecting to attend a church with strict rules. Ultimtately, his love always shined through. The night he said goodbye to my father for the last time, he reminded Dad that he was a beloved child of God and to never forget that.
Say yes to welcoming those who have gone to foreign places. Say yes to those who return, whether you know them or not.
Say yes to our prodigals.
All glory and honor be to God.
Amen.