Joshua 5: 9 – 12; Psalm
32; II Corinthians 5: 16 – 21; Luke 15:
1 – 3, 11b - 32
This is a homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at St. John’s
Church in Huntingdon, Pennsylvania on Sunday, March 6, 2016.
“LOST & FOUND”
(Homily text: Luke 15: 1 – 3, 11b - 32)
In the very
familiar parable of the Prodigal Son, the father of the Prodigal says
this: “…for this son of mine was dead
and is alive again; he was lost and
is found!”
Today’s
gospel reading, which allows us to hear this wonderful parable that Luke alone
among the Gospel writers relates to us, is all about things that are lost and things that are found.
If we look
at the two intervening parables (which we do not hear this morning) which are
part of chapter fifteen, the Parable of the Lost Sheep (verses four through
seven) and the Parable of the Lost Coin (verses eight through the first part of
verse eleven), we see a theme which has to do with things that are lost and things that have been found.
If we were
to read the whole of chapter fifteen through from its beginning through to the
end of the Parable of the Prodigal Son, we might lose sight of the audience
which stood around Jesus, listening to His teaching. Notice that – in verse
one, that it was the tax collectors and the sinners who were standing around.
But not far away (in verse two), we notice that the Pharisees and the scribes
were close enough to observe the proceedings of Jesus’ teaching.
These two
groups ideally fit the description of those who are “lost” and those who are
“found”.
Let’s
explore this just a bit….
In the eyes
of the devout keepers of the Law of Jesus in our Lord’s day, it was those tax
collectors and other sinners who were “lost”. And, by the same token, it was
the Pharisees and the scribes who were the ones who were “found”. At least this
seems to be the estimation of many people in Jesus’ day.
But who’s
really “lost” and who’s really “found”?
Jesus’
teaching provides us with a clue: The
wayward son who went off to the foreign land and there squandered his
inheritance in riotous living, loses everything he had. When he hit bottom, he
knew enough to return to the one place where he would be welcomed back, to his
father. In the process, he was found in the truest sense.
The trajectory
that the Lord traces for us of the prodigal’s story matches the trajectory of
the tax collectors and the other sinners who gathered around Him that day. For
they had squandered the precious legacy of the promises made to Abraham and to
Abraham’s offspring. And yet, having little else to lose, they knew where to
turn for help….they turned to Jesus, who was the one person who welcomed them
into fellowship with God, who showed them unconditional love. Jesus’ call (and
we should be clear about this point) was not to simply welcome such persons
into fellowship, but to call them away from their sinful ways into a new and
holy way of living.
Now, let’s
look at the Pharisees and the scribes for a moment.
The picture
that the Gospel writers paint for us of these persons isn’t a flattering or
very pretty one. One gets the impression that they were pretty self-assured of
their place in God’s scheme of things. The problem becomes one of spiritual pride,
pride which can obscure an ability to see ourselves and our spiritual condition
clearly. Thinking they were among those who’d been “found”, in actuality, these
Pharisees and scribes were among those who were “lost”.
This
important point brings us to a central truth of our spiritual journey: To be
truly found by God, we must admit that we are lost and cannot find ourselves.
This is a
zero-sum truth: Without the bottoming out that the prodigal had to encounter
and traverse, we ourselves cannot be found by God.
For the
truth is that we are blind to our own spiritual condition, just as the
Pharisees and the scribes were, absent the movement of God’s Holy Spirit in our
lives.
This gospel
text is an ideal one for the Lenten season, for it calls us to a sober and
searching assessment of our own spiritual condition. It calls us to admit to
God, to one another, and to ourselves, that we stand in continuing need of a
self-emptying, bottoming-out experience, s we come to grips with the reality of
our true spiritual condition. Only then can God find and redeem us.
AMEN.
