A joy to be with the saints of Zion Lutheran, Davenport and Christ Lutheran, Egypt for Pastor Tyler Gubsch’s installation (worship and lunch at Zion). Thanks to the members of Christ Lutheran who then gave me a tour of their church building. Join either of these congregations for midweek Lent worship (partnering with their UMC neighbors), Sunday worship, and midweek Bible Studies. Both congregations are deeply rooted in their local communities and serving their neighbors.

Luke 15:1-32 and 2 Cor. 5:16-21

“There was a man who had two sons.” It’s possible that with that one line I have lost you all, so familiar is Jesus’ parable. It makes its way into Sunday School curriculum, hospital rooms, funerals, and more. In a few weeks I’ll be with one of our synod’s congregations in Eastern Idaho for Holy Week. They are between pastors and, it’s a long story, but we are having a special service for several families who wish to have people baptized. I said I would choose a scripture passage for the occasion. I ended up going with verses from Galatians, but I almost chose this story—so powerfully is its portrayal of the grace of God—the same grace we receive through the waters of Holy Baptism. I also find it to be a wonderful passage for an installation.

This is the third lost parable in a series. All of them have perhaps been inappropriately named by scribes and people trying to include helpful headings in bibles. And yet, The Parable of the Lost Sheep is not about the lost sheep. All the sheep ever did was get lost.  The parable is about the passion of the shepherd who lost the sheep to find the sheep.  His passion to find is what drives the parable.  

Consequently, it isn’t the younger son’s lostness, wasting all his money on wine, women and song in the far country; and it isn’t the elder brother’s grousing and complaining and score keeping that stands against him. What counts in the parable is the father’s unceasing desire to find the sons he lost—both of them—and to raise both of them up from the dead.

If you were hearing this story for the first time, the actions of the father are most unexpected. He had been shamed by the younger son’s actions. Normally he would have disowned the son.  Instead, we hear that the father was waiting for his son’s return. We get the sense that the father had in fact kept vigil, praying for the day his boy would return. Like a shepherd searching for a lost sheep or a woman rummaging for his misplaced coin, the father remained hopeful that the seeds he had once sown in love might yet be harvested in the return of his child.

As soon as he saw his son, he ran out to meet him. He had been publicly shamed by this child. Yet he kissed him, gave him a robe and ring, and threw a party. This was completely out of character. The feast the father arranged was necessary to repair the damage caused by the son to his neighbors. They would have regarded his behavior as undermining traditional values and setting a terrible example. The banquet served to ease the younger son back into the good graces of the neighbors.

The economy of such love and grace surprises and offends us. It is so extravagant.  The ways of the world suggest that yes, the son might be welcomed home. It would have been reasonable—a ration of bread and water in answer to his great sin. But in the economy of God, rejoicing for the return of a child is simply not enough.  Joy must be made all the more complete by abundance: the best robe, the finest ring, the fatted calf.

While the banquet was going on, the elder son reappeared in the story. He was consumed by jealousy and resentment. But the father reaches out to him, just as he reached out to the younger son. The older son was in danger of becoming just as lost as his brother. So, the father abandoned his guests, a breach of etiquette. He reaches out to persuade the older son to rejoice at his brother’s return.  

As Jesus tells it, the father does not get all censorious with the elder brother. And he does not defend the younger brother. Instead, he shifts his way away from both brothers. The father turns attention to his own love and bounty. There is plenty to go around, he says. No one will run short. “All that is mine is yours.”  

This is not your younger brother’s party so much as it is my party, the party I throw for many.  I am on the lookout for my loved ones. The reconciliation between the father and younger son did not occur because of what the son did. The reconciliation happened because of what the father did.  

The older son is having none of this. For now, at least, he is full of resentment and self-righteousness. He flat out rejects his Father’s love. This son is lost too. In a few chapters, Jesus will have his conversation with the rich young many who wants to inherit eternal life. We never hear what happens to that young man. Some of us hold out hope that in the end, he sold his possessions and followed Jesus. 

Likewise, Jesus does not tie up this parable. He leaves room for the older brother to change his mind. Jesus always leaves room to change our mind, to change our words, to change our hearts, to ultimately change our actions. It can be at once infuriating and the one thing that gives true hope and life. We really don’t know the end of the story. Maybe someday the older brother will join the Father’s party too.

Behind the parable is the truth about God and God’s reign. We are all lost. We are all mired in sins of sensuality and greed and self-referential resentment. We are all hip-deep in pig slop of envy. Before we knew it, God reached out in the people of Israel and then in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. God raised us up and called us home.  

I said I thought this was a great story for an installation day. That’s because the message of God’s grace here is at the heart of your mutual ministry as pastor and congregation. It is so good to be here today celebrating this installation after all you have been through. First, with everyone else, you experienced a global pandemic. You walked with Pastor Stacey so faithfully through his cancer diagnosis and death. You continue to live into shared ministry. Outside the walls of the church building the world continues to change at an accelerated rate. Then you welcomed Pastor Ty. And, through it all, you continued to faithfully gather around Word and Sacrament. 

The Word proclaimed, the life-giving gospel message of God’s love and mercy, and the Sacraments through which we receive God’s grace in water, wine, and bread remain central to ministry. And in Word and Sacrament you are showered with the grace portrayed in the parable of the two songs and their gracious father.

I also am partial to 2 Corinthians 5:17-18: “So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and has given us the ministry of reconciliation.”

No matter what you do, no matter how far away you feel from God’s love, God and god’s life-giving love and mercy and abundant life are for you. Over and over God’s stretching; searching, healing love finds someone and call that person back home.  But that does not mean there is less for the rest of us. It means there is more.  More wine.  More feasting. More music. It means another, and now bigger, party. Further, when you have been reconciled to God, you simply cannot help but offer reconciliation to another human being. And oh, how desperately the world needs this ministry of reconciliation right now, how much we need to hear that in Christ there is a new creation.

This morning, I give thanks to God for your two congregations continuing to be communities where people can partake of this feast and receive God’s mercy and forgiveness and then be sent forth for ministry of reconciliation in the world. And we all give thanks for the pastor who has been and will continue to shepherd you in this ministry. Just to pile on all the metaphors of the day, as a synod staff and council, we are now fond of calling all of our ministry sites Wellsprings of God’s love—that is truly what you are

In Holy Communion you eat and drink to this Jesus who reveals the heart of God to us. You eat and drink to his ministry. you eat the body of Christ that we might inexplicably become the Body of Christ. You are what you eat. We eat and drink this feast that rich and poor, black and white, male and female, prisoner and free, conservative and liberal, younger and older, might all be welcomed into that incredible party God is throwing without end.