The Ministry of the Son

Luke 15:11-32

In Jesus’ parable, the older brother probably couldn’t remember a time without his younger brother.

They would have eaten together, worked together, gotten in trouble together, and played together.

From the first light of dawn until the last word spoken before drifting off to sleep, their lives were intertwined, they were brothers.

And that’s precisely why it would have hurt so much.

Sure, they would have fought, all brothers fight and there were probably times when his younger brother said stupid things, hurtful, disrespectful things, like all kids do.

But when did it really go bad?

At first maybe his younger brother made threats, “Fine, if nobody understands me, if nobody really cares about me, then I’ll just leave.”

It would have been a horrible thing to say, an unthinkable thing to say,

but who could have imagined that he’d actually go through with it.

And then his younger brother finally made that scandalous demand to their father,

for his share of the inheritance…

imagine that, half the inheritance—as though their father was already dead!

No one ever thought his father would agree to it.

And maybe in the days that followed he watched in cold disbelief as his father sold the land and the cattle and put together the money.

It was unthinkable.

But none of it seemed real until that last day, the day that his younger brother actually took the money from his fathers hand, and walked out of the house, out of the village, and out of their lives.

How could his younger brother do it?

The older brother must have been so angry!

It was so stupid, it was so selfish, and idiotic!

Everyone in the village knew about it, and it was so shameful.

Everyone would be talking about their family; the awkward looks in the market, the accusations, the innuendo.

It would have been the cruelest thing a brother could do.

So while younger brother left with his money, the older brother was left to pick up the pieces.

There was no less work to do in the household, the fields were no easier to plow and plant, and harvest.

And his father wasn’t getting any younger, so the older brother would have had to take over his younger brother’s share of the work.

For what?

Did he get anything out of it?

No, he didn’t.

His foolish, wasteful brother took off with his share of the family money to do what?

To start a business, to invest in trade, to build something meaningful?

No, of course not.

He went off to party, to wine and dine, and sleep around.

Even in those days, news traveled from place to place, and bad news traveled even faster.

So, I’m sure that the older brother would have heard about his younger brother’s exploits.

And at some point, he probably heard about the famine and how the money had run out.

How his younger brother had burned through all the family money, and how he was forced to take a dirty, filthy disgraceful job.

And perhaps at that moment, the older brother thought, “Well, he betrayed us all,

he made a laughing stock of our father and our family, he burned through everything in sinful, drunken debauchery, and now he gets what he deserves."

Maybe he said to himself, “Sit in the mud with those unclean swine and think about what you’ve done.

Think about how good it was here in your father’s house.

You’ve made your bed, now lie in it.”

And so the big brother would have carried on, working at home, in the fields, in obedience to his father,

day in day out, through the seasons, under the hot sun of the summer, and through the rains of winter.

And then one day, the older son finished his work and on his way back home, and he heard a strange sound.

Music and dancing.

This didn’t make sense, it wasn’t a feast day, and nobody was getting married.

What on earth was happening?

He saw some of the servants, carrying fresh meat from the slaughterhouse.

He asked “What’s going on? What’s all the music, and where did that meat come from?”

The servants say, “Your father told us to kill the fatted calf for a great feast, because your brother has come home. Your father gave him his best robe, put sandals on his feet, and a ring on his finger. It’s a huge celebration.”

“What, you’ve got to be kidding!?! He’s back? That worthless good-for-nothing has dared to come home? And now my father is throwing a party, serving a feast…?

OK, fine.  You guys go about your business if that’s what my father wants.

But count me out.  I’ll have nothing to do with this. My brother is dead to me. I have no brother!”

Now the older brother, thinks that he’s on moral high ground. After all, he’s the one who’s been a good obedient, hard working son. But his anger and sense of righteous indignation lead him to make a tragic mistake. Because the moment that he says that he will not come in to the feast, the older brother does exactly the same thing that the younger brother did. In his arrogance, he presumes to know better than his father, and he cuts himself off from the family.

Sure, the older brother is not sitting in the mud with the swine, but in his anger he has severed ties with his father and his family, and how awful it must have been for him to stand out there in the fields, hearing all that music, seeing all those people joining the celebration, as he was alone with his anger and his righteous indignation.

The older brother falls into the most deadly trap of Satan, the trap of pride and arrogance.

Now, only a few of us are older brothers, and some of us have brothers and sisters.

But all of us have friends, and classmates, and spouses, parents, colleagues and coworkers.

All of us are part of a community.

And anyone who lives in community has a ministry, because ministry is about serving others.

It is ministry, our service to others, that creates and strengthens community.

But living in community, serving in ministry is not easy, because sometimes people let us down, and it hurts.

This is the challenge of ministry.

And there are times in our lives of ministry in community, when we may say to ourselves, “There is just no way. How can I continue in my ministry of being a brother or sister,

my ministry of being a parent,

my ministry of being a friend,

my ministry of serving others in the name of Jesus Christ?

It is just too painful."

When people betray us, when they let us down we wonder:

how can we ever love them again;

how can we ever trust them again;

how can we ever allow them back into our lives when they have caused us so much pain?

The older son felt that kind of pain when his younger brother left, and he felt even more of that pain when his brother came back.

Betrayal is painful, but what hurts even more is when we refuse to love another person, when we stand in judgment over them and reject them because of their sins and failures. This is when we condemn ourselves to the hateful isolation of hell.

But it doesn’t have to end like this.

In the Bible there is a story about another son who found himself in a similar situation.

He had a large family, in fact, it was a huge family. And in this family all of his brothers and sisters betrayed their father.

But this son was not allowed to stay home.

His father said to him, “I’m sending you out to find your brothers and sisters.”

And being an obedient son, he went. He left his father’s home and went to live with his people. He did everything he could to convince them to come home.

But the people did not believe him.

They called him a liar,

They said he was a fake, an imposter, a deceiver.

But this son wouldn’t give up. His father had sent him to bring his brothers and sisters home,

and he would not abandon them.

But the people he came to rescue were so fixed in their ways, so mired in uncleanness and sin, so hardened with arrogance and pride, that they decided they couldn’t let him live.

And so they decided to kill the son.

Of course we know who this son is, he is Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

And on that night in the Garden of Gethsemane when it was absolutely clear that the people were going to kill him, He prayed to God, “Father if it is possible let this cup pass from me,

nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will.”

As we know, they handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers, who beat him and mocked him and crucified him. But his Father raised him on the Third Day, revealing to his disciples and to anyone with ears to hear that Jesus IS the Son of God. And after forty days, Jesus ascended into heaven to show us the way home to the house of our Heavenly Father, the Kingdom of Heaven.

Christ does not bitterly condemn us, nor does he stand outside of His Father’s house filled with indignation that sinners like us are welcomed home.

Instead, Christ gives his life so that we might be forgiven and welcomed home to His Father’s house.

Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is one of us, like us in every way except sin,

He is perfect God and perfect man, which makes him very much like our older brother, as one of my Church School students pointed out last week.

Jesus is like our older brother who leads us back to the house of the Father.

And today, we take another step on that amazing journey home. Today we rise up out of the mud of our sins, and our bitterness, for the Risen Lord raises us up out of the darkness of sin.

It is not a journey that we make on our own, or according to our own plans or rationale, for it is Christ who leads us on every step of the journey home.

Our journey with Christ is one of love and forgiveness and mercy.

It is not a journey to a distant location, somewhere “out there,” but it is an interior journey of the heart, bringing us ever closer to God and ever closer to one another, for the love of Christ reconciles us to God and to one another. The love of Christ strengthens us in our loving service to others, strengthens us in our ministry to the people around us.

Ten years ago a very wise person said to me,

In your ministry there will be moments when Satan may whisper in your ear that you do not belong in your ministry.

But always remember, no matter what, no matter how hard it might be, no matter how much you might doubt yourself, that Christ has called you to serve others in love.

And whether we are mothers or fathers or brothers or sisters or priests or laypeople,

today Christ renews our ministry as we are forgiven our sins, and as we forgive the sins of those around us.

And whenever God’s children turn and repent from their sins, and return home, our Heavenly father prepares a great feast to welcome us home, not the feast of a fatted calf, but the feast of the Body and Blood of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

For today we who were dead in sin are alive again, and we who were lost now are found.

Glory to Jesus Christ!