How Prodigal Are We?

March 30, 2025, First Lutheran Church of Throggs Neck, Bronx, N.Y. 

Have you ever found it awkward that Jesus eats and drinks with the type of folks your mother told you avoid?

Actually, it makes sense. There’s no way you or I could tell a Ponzi fraudster or a sex worker that their sins are forgiven, go and sin no more. Only Jesus can do that.

But I think it is good news for all of us that Jesus “welcomes sinners and eats with them,” because he’s making it clear he will turn his back on no one.

No one. Not an adulterous woman. Not a thieving tax collector. Not an officer of a brutal army of occupation. Not a pompous Pharisee. No one.

Jesus is making his very lifestyle a lens through which to understand the parable of the lost coin or the parable of the lost sheep, or even the parable of the Prodigal son.

Jesus will drink, eat, and commiserate with anyone, regardless of how sinful and unsavory they may be. To Jesus, every sinner he meets, every blind person, every soldier, every centurion, every leper, every thief, every prostitute, every rich man seeking salvation while keeping his fortune, is a lost sheep to be rescued, a lost coin to be found.

And the same goes for you and me.

We Lutherans savor this reality as God’s grace. And that grace comes with rejoicing in heaven for every sinner who repents.

The story of the Prodigal son is perhaps the best known parable in the New Testament. I remember hearing it cited repeatedly in the late1960’s when many families were torn apart by the Vietnam War and lifestyle issues. Some “hippies” preferred to form their own communes rather than live with Mom and Dad, and they chose cannabis and LSD over Dad’s bourbon and Utica Club. But inevitably it became clear there was little future in that lifestyle and many returned home: prodigals all. If they were lucky, their parents celebrated their return.

In case you’re wondering, there is a modicum of autobiography in these memories. I was not a quintessential hippie. I did grow my hair past my shoulders but I never inhaled. And I was never estranged from my patient and loving parents. Instead of seeking a life of riotous living and a diet of pig pods, I opted for the Air Force and, later, college. But I ate and drank with hippies and I remember many with affection. 

The story of a prodigal son is a classic story of a family in crisis. We know the characters as well as we know our own families.

Across two millennia, perhaps millions of sermons have sought to clarify who these characters are meant to represent.

Each of us could sense what Jesus wants his listeners to understand.

The father, of course, is God. God whose love is constant and unconditional. God the patient parent who will always welcome back those who have strayed. God the father who rejoices dramatically and unreservedly when the lost return.

The younger son. This poor lad is a stand-in for all who turn their backs on God, squander the gifts and blessings God has given them, and quickly fall into squalor and degradation. When they realize their stupidity, they return to God begging forgiveness.

The older son. Some preachers believe the older son represents the just. Others say he represents self-righteous people who take God’s love for granted and resent it when obviously inferior people receive God’s grace.

To put a finer point on it, Stephen Arthur Noel DSouza, a Catholic scholar, sees the father as representing the Holy Trinity, God the Father, Jesus, the Holy Spirit.

The elder son represents the Pharisees, teachers of the law, who are repelled by God’s grace toward sinners.

And the younger son represents the Gentiles who ignore God and celebrate life with the decadent world. Only when it’s too late, when they have lost much, do they repent and bathe in the forgiving grace of God. (per Dsouza)

Like all of Jesus’ parables, the story is rich with meaning and the characters play many roles.

To get a closer look at these characters, let’s employ the Ignatian bible study approach and imagine ourselves inside the parable.

Which role would you choose?

If we look carefully, I think we’d conclude that we can easily fill each of the three characters in the parable.

Whether we are parents or not, most of us can identify with the father in the story.

We have all known persons we have loved unconditionally, whether sons or daughters or parents or siblings or friends.

We have all felt disappointed when someone we love drifts away from us, or ghosts us, or slams the door in our face. Many parents have felt estranged from their children when their hormones flow turbulently and they pull away from parental authority. No, they don’t want to get a job. No, they don’t want to go to college. No, they won’t stop dating the person who makes you cringe. 

These are times that call for parental patience. Parents will not stop loving their children, even when they are hurtful and disappointing. And when children or any age return to the nest, it is a matter for celebration.

Who is the father in the story? Could it be you?

What about the younger son?

Has there ever been a time in your life when you were so bored and oppressed by the status quo that you would do anything to escape? Did your parents put you on a strict curfew and ground you when you broke it? Did they refuse to allow you to date the older person you do desperately loved because they had an unsavory reputation? Did they refuse to allow you to get a driver’s license because you were too immature to drive?

Perhaps you didn’t run away to pursue a dissolute life. Maybe you stayed home but hid in your room, stopped talking to anyone, hating your parents, looking forward to your liberation. But soon you began to realize there was little you could do without the emotional, physical, and financial support of your parents. So you came out of your room and started speaking to them again. And how happy they were to have you back.

What about the older son?

I have no hesitation about this one. I was the eldest of five, three brothers and a baby sister. I was not the easiest son in the world. Instead of studying in school, I read many books articles about my boyhood idol, John F. Kennedy. While my brothers were out working with Dad in the garden, I was upstairs in my room, typing essays and short stories, and drawing amateur comic strips about Superman and the Lone Ranger.

While I was doing this, my siblings graduated with honors and, in two cases, as valedictorian and salutatorian of their classes. I graduated by the skin of my teeth.

But that didn’t stop me from feeling angry and resentful toward my younger siblings. I was angry when my parents bought a car for my younger brother so he could drive to college. I was annoyed by the honors my sibs were receiving. I couldn’t wait until I joined the Air Force the week after my 18th birthday. When I returned home four years later, I was welcomed with love and joy by my parents.

And having said all that, I realize I was an amalgamation of the younger and older brothers.

Do you see yourself in any of these roles? “All the world’s a stage,” Shakespeare said, all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.”

Regardless of whose role we might play in the parable of the Prodigal Son, we know that it doesn’t matter to Jesus.

Jesus will drink, eat, and commiserate with anyone, regardless of how good or how sinful they may be. To Jesus, every sinner he meets, every blind person, every soldier, every centurion, every leper, every thief, every prostitute, every rich man seeking salvation while keeping his fortune, is a lost sheep to be rescued, a lost coin to be found.

That is the good news of God’s grace. No matter who we are, we are simultaneously saints and sinners, Luther said.

And the God of Grace loves us and welcomes us all into God’s eternal realm.

Amen.

A Mind Is a Hard Thing to Change

March 23, 2025, Saint Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y. 

As we open our bibles to the 13th chapter of Luke, Jesus’ journey to Jerusalem is interrupted by a frantic delegation of Galilean citizens.

They are not agitated with Jesus. They are angry with their governor, Pontius Pilate, and they are eager to hear Jesus’ views on an appalling event.

Pilate has ordered the execution of Galilean citizens and – to add grievous insult to injury – Pilate mingles their blood with the blood of their sacrifices. It’s hard to imagine a more loathsome affront to Jewish law and practices.

There is no record of this barbarity outside of Luke, but there’s little doubt it happened. It has Pilate written all over it, and there are ample records of his vicious cruelty.

This disgruntled delegation coming to Jesus may have wanted to hear Jesus rebuke Pilate, which would be like criticizing Hitler within earshot of the Gestapo.

But Jesus, who reads people with uncanny accuracy, senses a deeper concern on the part of the delegation. He know they are worrying about whether these executed people had done something to deserve it this awful fate.

“Do you think,” Jesus asks, “that because these Galileans suffered this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?” (Lk 13:2)

Jesus also cites an event that is not mentioned outside of Luke, the death of eighteen people who were caught in the collapse of a tower in Siloam.

“Do you that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.” (Lk 13:4-5)

“As Jesus speaks to a crowd, some of those gathered seek Jesus’ opinion on current affairs,” writes New Testament professor Jeremy L. Williams. “Jesus as a prophet places the local issue within a cosmic frame that yields a divine imperative for the audience. Rather than focus on a past event and what cannot be controlled, Jesus encourages them to change what they can—their minds.” 

And that, asd we know, is not an easy thing to do.

Have you ever tried to change the mind of an adolescent whose under-developed frontal cortex deprives them of flexible thinking?

When I was a teenager, my mother tried without success to convince me that President Kennedy had Addison’s Disease, an often life-threatening disorder in which the adrenal glands don’t produce enough hormones.

I absolutely refused to believe it. JFK was my boyhood hero, and I had read that Bobby Kennedy had specifically denied his brother had this disease.

And the Kennedys wouldn’t lie, would they? My mind could not be changed.

Years later, when my cortex was complete, I began to see the evidence that was in front of my face, including autopsy records that the President’s adrenal glands had shriveled away.

At long last I had to face the truth.

There were many other difficult truths to face about JFK’s private life and I gradually absorbed them all. He was a perfect example of what Martin Luther described:  “Simul iustus et peccator.” We are simultaneously saints and sinners.

I find that when we open our minds to facts, when we repent of those times when our thoughts and actions fall short of God’s love, it is liberating. If we have been held captive by our stubborn ignorance and willful prejudice, our moral horizons are expanded exponentially.

Sadly, we can all think of persons and groups who are unable to break free of their sinful ignorance.

I think of Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka, Kansas, a hateful congregation that acts on its hatred for LGBTQ people by picketing so-called liberal churches. Members of this church have interrupted funerals for fallen soldiers to protest the Defense Department’s practice of enlisting gays, lesbians, and trans people into the ranks.

I think of white supremacists whose minds are locked into the fantasy that Caucasions are the superior race (it used to be termed “master race”). They believe their superiority gives them license to discriminate against, denounce, and assault, persons of color, Jews, and members of other religions.

Most recently, and perhaps most tragically, I think of the fractures that have sprung up between supporters of Israel and supporters of Palestine since Hamas-led attack on Israel on October 7, 2023.

There is no doubt that the Hamas attack on hundreds of innocent Israeli citizens was an atrocity. Men, women, and children were massacred, raped, and taken prisoner in 21 Israeli communities. The governments of 44 countries denounced the attack as terrorism.

In response, Israel launched a scorch-earth invasion of Gaza. No matter how enraged we were by the Hamas attacks, it was difficult to watch as Palestinian children were killed by Israeli arms. It was difficult to watch as Palestinians lost their homes, their livelihood, their medical support, and their lives. And whenever the smoke cleared, it was difficult to watch Palestinian children starve.

Here in our country, college campuses became the scene of pro-Palestinian demonstration, pointing out that Israel’s blockade of Gaza, the expansion of illegal Israeli settlements, and mistreatment of Gaza citizens, were the match that set off the powder keg.

So much wrong, so much hatred, so much ignorance on both sides; so many minds that can never be changed; so much suffering.

God weeps.

But when Jesus was questioned by the Galileans who fretted about who was sinning the most, he reminded them that everyone sins alike, “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the other people living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did.” (Lk 13:4-5)

It's not easy to hear that God does not rank sins. We gluttons would prefer to think our sins are not as serious as the sins of murderers. God doesn’t rank sins from bad to not-so-bad. Jesus said. “Unless you repent, you will all perish.”

Professor Williams writes, “Jesus tells them to repent—to change their mind about their current commitments to injustice and unrighteousness. Changing one’s mind in this way leads to a change in conduct.” He calls upon his listeners “to return” or “to go back” or even “to go home.” Jesus invites the audience to adjust their current course and return to God. “Jesus is not suggesting that repentance will prevent them from a physical, catastrophic death. Rather, he is stating that changing their minds will prepare them for whatever they will experience, including producing fruit.”

There is little we can do about the horrible things we see in our world, and there is little we can do to make right the mistakes we have made. 

When he calls upon us to repent, he is calling on us to stop doing the things that disturb or injure others.  Repent and begin to do those good things, those righteous things, that may begin to have a good effect on the people and on our neighborhoods and on the world around us.

In the parable of the fruitless tree, Williams says, Jesus’ message is clear: do not be like the fruitless tree. Rather than focus on the gravity of others’ transgressions, make sure you are producing good. Instead of assigning causality to others misfortune, ensure that you are not ignoring your own missing fruit. Jesus’ words suggest that tending to one’s own life and positively changing one’s own mind is the best strategy to prevent or even persevere through unexpected calamity. If one refuses to do that type of work, they are already ruined.

Repent, Jesus commands. 

What are signs of repentance? A useful check list to identify repentance is offered by Paul in the letter to the Galatians.

Before we repent, before our minds are changed, before we adjust our attitudes, our spirits are captive to the flesh. “And the works of the flesh are sexual immorality, impurity, debauchery,  idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy,] drunkenness, carousing, and things like these.

But we will see the evidence of repentance through the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

God, as we follow Jesus’ Lenten trek to Jerusalem, give us the courage to change our minds, to repent, and to seek God’s guidance in all that we do. Amen.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem

 

March 16, St Barnabas Lutheran Church, Howard Beach, Queens, N.Y.

In early October 2001, I stood at the edge of Ground Zero with several World Council of Churches colleagues.

The acrid smoke was still hanging in the air weeks after the terror attacks that felled the World Trade Center. Mounds of twisted metal debris were being created by huge bull dozers, and scores of hard-hatted workers labored amid the rubble.

I stood next to a Russian Orthodox priest from Moscow, a member of the World Council of Churches Central Committee. Other WCC representatives were from Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific Rim, a delegation of sympathy and support sent to U.S. churches.

We stood in silence as the General Secretary, a German Lutheran, prayed over the vast smoking crater. I felt my eyes filling with tears as I recalled a visit my friend Sonia and I made to the twin towers only days before the attacks. It was a warm summer day and we were glad to stand in the shade of the towering edifices.

And now, unbelievably, they were gone, leaving a forlorn emptiness on Manhattan’s famous horizon.

We all felt that anguish, if we were around then, in September 2001.

The anguish helps us understand Luke’s emotions as he writes about the Jerusalem Jesus laments.

When Jesus cried out, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he was addressing the spiritual center of the Middle Eastern world, the seat of the great Second Temple, the focal point of Jewish worship that had stood magnificently for 500 years.

But when Luke was writing the story the temple had been reduced to rubble by Roman forces led by Titus. According to Wikipedia, “The Romans ultimately captured the entire city … with tens of thousands killed, enslaved, or executed.”

When he records Jesus’ lament, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” Luke’s heart is filled with pain over what was and is no more.

What is going through Jesus’ mind when he stands on the outskirts of the city? “The city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing.” (Lk 13:34)

Jesus’ words are expressions of love for the people and the city he loves.

Jerusalem kills the prophets. But Professor Richard W. Swanson of Augustana College in Sioux Falls, notes that is not all that Jerusalem does.

Swanson writes, “Christians who only know Jerusalem from church … may well imagine that Jesus is setting up a basic conflict between a religion centered on Jerusalem and one centered on the Messiah; between organized, formalized, entrenched religion and the freedom of the Christian. They may even imagine that this way of understanding saves them from anti-Semitic or anti-Judaic interpretation.

“I hear in this a theology that remakes Jesus into a modern Christian, one who is not tied to a place, to a Temple, or to a priesthood whose job it was to bring the world back into balance. But in Luke’s story, Jesus comes from a family that goes up to Jerusalem for the pilgrimage festivals every year, “as usual.” 

Remember, Professor Swanson says, that Jesus is not like (modern Christians). He is a Jew of the first century, and Jerusalem is, for him, the center of the world. When he says, “Jerusalem, Jerusalem,” he is grieving for a city that he loves. 

It’s worth noting here, I think, that when Jesus expresses his grief, he is addressing Pharisees.

These Pharisees have come to Jesus not to criticize him, as is often the case, but to warn him of a threat against his life. “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” (Lk 13:31.)

But Jesus’ determination to continue his trek to Jerusalem is unabated. 

“Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today, tomorrow, and on the third day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.” (Lk 13:32-33)

How is it that Pharisees are so worried about Jesus’ safety that that they go out of their way to protect him?

Even a cursory reading of Scripture gives us the impression that Pharisees, in general, were the bane of Jesus’ ministry. They gripe when Jesus performs miracles on the Sabbath. They seethe when Jesus outsmarts then in debates about the law. They deplore when Jesus’ disciples rub their hands together on stalks of grain to gather a Sabbath breakfast. They blanch when Jesus’ disciples stuff food in their mouths without purifying their hands.

But it seems that if Jesus was not around, the Pharisees would miss him.

And there are also instances in Scripture when Jesus and Pharisees get along. Jesus has dinner with Pharisees, speaks cordially with Pharisees, and seems to seek out their company.

Professor Swanson writes: 

“Interpreters sometimes imagine that they knew this because they were in the room when Herod was hatching the assassination plot. They were not. The Pharisees were not (at least not in the main) collaborators with Rome or with Roman stooges like Herod. The Sadducees collaborated, certainly because Rome forced them to, and also surely because it was to their economic advantage to do so. But not the Pharisees. They generally held themselves separate from Roman culture. They extended the holiness of the Holy of Holies to even Jewish dinner tables because they recognized the danger posed by Roman chaos and violence. 

“And they warn Jesus about Herod. Jesus probably does not really need to be warned. He already knows that Herod is a fox, a sneaking predator. But their act of protection is an act of allyship, and forgetting that leads to a serious misunderstanding of the complexity of this scene and of Luke’s entire story.”

Some scholars speculate that Jesus was, himself, a Pharisee. He trained to be rabbi and it is possible that his education took place in the Pharisaical tradition.

Hyam Maccoby, a Jewish-British scholar and dramatist, speculates that Jesus was a Pharisee “and that his arguments with Pharisees is a sign of inclusion rather than fundamental conflict (disputation being the dominant narrative mode employed in the Talmud as a search for truth, and not necessarily a sign of opposition.”

This is interesting speculation and we may never know for sure on this side of heaven. But there are many mysteries about Jesus of Nazareth. As John wrote at the end of his Gospel, “There are also many other things that Jesus did; if every one of them were written down, I suppose the world itself could not contain the books that would be written.” (Jn 21:25)

So let us revel in the mysteries of the triune God. 

Let us continue our Lenten pilgrimage to follow Jesus at this stage in his ministry when, as Luke writes, “the days drew near for him to be taken up, he set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Lk 9:51)

We know he will not go alone.

To quote Professor Swanson one more time, “The Messiah has more allies than you might imagine. So do you. Recognizing that is how you prepare to welcome the one coming in the Name of the God Whose Name Is Mercy.”

Amen.