Prodigal Love

A Sermon Preached at the Cathedral Church of St. Mark on The Fourth Sunday in Lent by the Very Rev. Tyler Doherty, Dean & Rector.

In one of the many icons of the Parable of the Prodigal Son that have come down to us, the central image is, of course, that of the loving embrace between the welcoming father and the bedraggled son. It’s a powerful depiction of the unconditional love and forgiveness of the Father who, before the wayward dissolute son can rattle of his well-rehearsed apology (I like to picture him mugging in the mirror trying to hit the appropriately penitent tone) runs out–while the son is yet far off–to surprise him, hold him, welcome him, in the outflung arms of his warm embrace. But the icon also has other little scenes written in each of the corners. In one, the Prodigal Son is wandering alone, staff in hand on a rocky, desolate mountain top. And in another, we see the pigs in their pig pen, rooting around in the mud for some grub. Where’s the Prodigal Son? Only if you look closely do you see him woebegone up a tree curled in on himself. What on earth?

More and more, I’ve been thinking that a good part of the life of discipleship–of ever deepening surrender to God as God is that God might live God’s life in and through us and that we might paradoxically become the person we are truly created to be–is learning what doesn’t work. We have to make conscious, bring to awareness by grace,  all the ways we try to find the happiness for which we are created and which is found in God and God alone in the wrong places. In power, possession, and prestige–and the ultimate unsatisfactoriness of that pursuit. 

The kenotic hymn of the Letter to the Philippians–on the lips of the members of that nascent house when Paul was writing his letter to them–gives us the basic pattern of Jesus’ life. Christ, Paul sings, does not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, something to be grasped, but emptied himself taking the form of a servant. If you asked a Philippian–”Who is this Jesus that you follow after and worship?”--they would reply by humming Phiippians 2: 5-11. Open-handedness. Not grasping or holding on or storing up. Pouring oneself out for others. What is the shape Jesus’ life takes? Kenosis. Self-emptying. And to the degree we come to participate in Jesus’ self-emptying we wake up to the peace, love, joy that is always on offer in “coming to ourselves,” and living with the grain of the universe: love.

But perhaps we have to find ourselves up a tree and out on a limb for that recognition to dawn on us. Perhaps we have to come experientially to the dead end of self-effort and self-improvement, of doing everything under our steam for us to realize that there is another way to live, another way to be. Perhaps we have to experience for ourselves the far country of grasping, storing up, and holding on before we’re willing to set down that heavy burden and accept the yoke of unconditional belovedness that is no yoke at all.

See, I think we are all Prodigal Siblings in some way. We exist already in the Father’s house. Everything he has is ours. And yet, somehow we feel something is missing. There is a quiver of lack, a twinge of going it alone. As if in a trance–the trance of self-enclosure–we fail to see what’s already here, the banquet, the rings, the fatted calves. The Litany of If Onlies & Not Enough starts canting itself in our minds. So we grasp and grab and set off in search of what we think will make us whole. As we sing in the hymn “Come, Thou fount of every blessing” that brings me to tears every time–”Prone to wander, Lord, I feel it, prone to leave the God I love.” So we travel to that distant country. And even if we don’t squander everything we have in dissolute living, we reach a point where the emptiness of life with I, me, mine, the puny little ego with its wants and needs at the center is revealed as a poor, pig pen substitute for the love of the Father. 

For any of you who have children, you know there’s a time in the child’s life where they discover tree-climbing. It’s an exhilarating thrill as they clamber about and inch further and further out on its branches. “Look at me mom and dad!” “Wow, honey! Way to go! Be careful!” A few minutes later comes the cry of distress. They’ve inched a little too far out on the branch, or realized just how high up they are, and they’re paralysed with fear. They’re up a tree of their own making. They’re out on a limb. Their arborist acrobatics have taken them to a point where all they can do is cry out–“Mom! Dad! I’m stuck! Help!” Now just to remind you that the analogy between God as parent and human parents is just that–an analogy–you might remind yourself that unlike the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, most parents don’t necessarily just hike up their robes and run. “I did it last time. Your turn.” “Seriously? Fine. But that means you have to empty the dishwasher.” However the bargaining and negotiations go, the simple fact is the parent runs out and arms outstretched lowers the panicked child from their perch.

That’s why, I think, times of great suffering, chaos, and the utter sidewaysness of life can be opportunities for learning, for turning, for calling upon a power greater than our own–”Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me!” It’s a pattern that recurs over and over in scripture: with the Israeilites in the wilderness, with the sending out of the empty-handed, netless disciples, in the image of Blind Bartimaeus calling from the roadside, in the woman with the issue of blood reaching out to touch the hem of Jesus’ cloak, in Peter, who, suddenly self-conscious about walking on water–”Look ma, no hands!”--starts to sink and calls out, “Lord, save me!” We come, sometimes painfully, to an awareness of the paucity of our own efforts, of our need for God, of our need for a Savior, one to whom we can turn like the three young men in the furnace who miraculously unsinged see that they are in the presence of an angel unbound and walking, guarding them with cool breezes while the flames lick higher.

That’s why the Parable of the Prodigal Son is simultaneously a parable of our Prodigal God in Christ who will stop at nothing to draw us to Godself. God goes out, leaves home, to journey into that far country of hunger, pig pods, and being out on a limb to stand with us, suffer with us, to meet us in our need as our very help in time of trouble. Following Karl Barth, if we see the Prodigal Son as Jesus, then we get a glimpse of how crazy this God of ours actually is. Jesus travels prodigally into the far country of sin, death, lastness, lostness, leastness in order to draw us back to the Father. “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them,” the Pharisees sniff. Darn tootin’ he does! That’s his whole reason for being! Jesus leaves his father’s house to set off in search of us. He does not regard his seat at the right hand of the Father as something to be exploited, or grasped, but empties himself and journeys to meet us whoever we are, wherever we are, without exception, and to love us into loving.

This is exactly same pattern we see in Jesus’ Harrowing of Hell, in his descent to the dead. In the Orthodox Church, the resurrection is depicted not as Jesus floating ethereally in air, but as descending, journeying prodigally for us to the place of greatest separation from God, hell itself (replete with hacksaws, chains, locks and all manner of grisly implements of nastiness), in order to grasp Adam and Eve in an unshakeable fireman’s holds to draw them home. The Parable of the Prodigal Son then, is a parable of death and resurrection, of being lost and then found, of living under the illusion of self-sufficiency and finding ourself out on a limb and awakening to the saving, freeing, healing reality of utter dependence on God in Christ through the Holy Spirit. “I can’t do it alone!” shifts to, “I was never supposed to in the first place! Thanks be to God!”

And if we don’t quite get the message, the parable ends, of course, not at the banquet where all the fun is happening, but with the Father going out again. He does not regard fatted calves and rings and robes and nice new sandals as something to be grasped, but empties himself and goes out to chat with the indignant older brother who has separated himself from the party. The father descends into the older brother’s self-imposed exile from the celebration (the banquet of divine love that has been in full swing since the foundation of the world) and reminds him that just because he rejoices over the lost son it doesn’t mean that he doesn’t rejoice also over his perspicacious attention at Casa Prodigal. Somehow, God pours all of Godself out on each of us and there is always enough to go around. Scarcity and lack tell us that if someone else has, that means we’re have-nots. But that is not how things work in the economy of God love. To each and every one of us, no matter how far we’ve traveled in that distant country God in Christ journeys prodigally to meet us to grab us in an indissoluble fireman’s hold of love and lavish Godself upon us–a full measure pressed down and overflowing to every single person. 

 We’re all out on a limb whether we know it, whether we acknowledge it, or not. Maybe becoming like a little child that we might experience the Kingdom of Heaven means uttering those words that so chafe against self-sufficiency–“Help! Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on us!” Springs in the wilderness. Our weeping turned to dancing, pig pods to fatted calves in giving voice to our deepest need.