Friday 13 April 2007

Today we continue with the third parable that follows this scene in Luke's gospel:
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." (Luke 15:1-2)

Then Jesus said, "There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country and there squandered his property in dissolute living. (Luke 15:11-13). When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough to spare, but here I am dying of hunger. (Luke 15:14-17)

I stop here because I don't want us to hear what his plan is...yet. We ended yesterday with "dissolute living." Most of the time this is seen as "immortal" living or spending time and money on prostitutes. NOT. If there was anything immoral about his living is that he was most likely counting on the money he had to win friends and influence people. Odd how we don't consider that immoral living - that is - so focused on make a name and getting a place in life that we forget what we already have and who we are. This was a son who had a village and a home and a future. It is not unreasonable that one would want to strike out on one's own, but to ever think we need to count on more than the fact that we are beloved already becomes a problem. Well as we see, he doesn't really fall into a bad situation until there is this famine that hits everyone. In famine, everyone draws inward - we want to protect our own before reaching out. Therefore, this younger son - now without the money to make him somebody - is left out. Kenneth Bailey notes that when you tended pigs, it was not in a muddy barnyard. Rather you watched over them as they wandered around the area eating whatever they could. People around you knew you were a pig person in town tending pigs and as we can assume from the introduction to these parables, this was a young Jewish man. It is only here that he begins to remember life with his father. Only in distress...only when the gods we hope will make us somebody give out and we are left alongside the road as other pass by...only when our choice of life comes up in a ditch. In remembering, he begins to think...but his thoughts will only be the same old thinking that put him in a far off place.

Connection: We are a people blessed and loved by our God. It is the beginning of the day and it will be with us as we fall off to sleep - from beginning to end. We can live under that banner and at the same time view others as just the same. It can and it does have a way with us - whether we are safe at home or out in the middle of nowhere. The question is, how does this reality shape us?

O Lord God, your Reign continues to be present even as we move away from you. But as we forget, you move with us...you never leave us even though we feel and see ourselves far away from you. It is your loving presence that is the power that changes the day and transforms us and brings us to life - really new life. Alleluia.