Back To Church Sunday 2007 - The Prodigal Son
Preacher: Rev. Roy Woodhams
Rebellious American Rock Star Alice Cooper, was once asked how his ‘way out’ image fitted in with his also being a Christian? He replied, ‘It may sound ironic, but it’s the most rebellious thing I’ve ever done! Drinking beer is easy! Taking drugs is easy! Trashing your hotel room is easy! But being a Christian - that’s a tough call - that’s real rebellion!’
Today is ‘Back to Church Sunday’, when we are delighted to welcome some of you as our visitors. I sincerely hope you have all felt welcomed - if you haven’t, please tell me about it over lunch!
I’m sure that we are all familiar with today’s scripture reading - the Parable of the Prodigal Son. I chose it because Jesus is such a brilliant story teller, and also because it’s, in itself, a story about be welcomed back. It’s about the only time many of us even use the word “prodigal” and I wonder if we actually know what it means? For the record it means, “recklessly extravagant.”
So, in this parable of the Recklessly Extravagant Son, Jesus tells the story of a younger son, who has grown up in the lap of luxury. I suppose he’s a bit of a ‘spoiled rich kid’. And this kid, rather audaciously asks for his inheritance early, and is given it!
At first, he lives the high life, probably going to parties with all the right people, eating the best food, and drinking the best wine. But then a famine occurs, and when it does, he also happens to have run out of money. In his desperation, he finds a job feeding pigs - dirty, smelly work.
And being Jewish, it’s an even worse shame because pigs were regarded as unclean, and good Jews were not even supposed to be around pigs, let alone feeding and cleaning up after them. Not only does he work with unclean animals, he is so hungry he’s even envious of the food the pigs are eating. What a contrast with his previous playboy lifestyle!
But then the young man comes to his senses. He is his father’s son. Even his father’s hired hands, the lowest rung of the ladder in the whole household, have more than enough to eat. He has to swallow his pride and admit his wrongdoing, but he hopes the love of a father for his son will be enough.
He goes and says, “Dad, I’ve sinned against God and you!” And to show his true change of heart, he is even willing to become a hired hand in his father’s household. But his father won’t hear of it and instead calls for a celebration. His son is back who was lost but is now been found.
The father would be justified in treating his son as a hired hand, but that father, not out of anything the son has done, but only out of his love welcomes the son back home.
But there’s still some unpleasantness, because the older brother, the good guy in the story, is mad. He doesn’t understand how he’s done everything right his whole life and yet “when has he ever had a party?” The older son has done all the right actions, but has the wrong spirit. He doesn’t understand the repentance of his brother or his father’s love. This son would have preferred his brother to have stayed lost and dead, while the father rightly understands that he must rejoice, in spite of the past, because his younger son has new life, he has been found.
Now, there are two challenges galore here for all of us, but I’m just going to home in on two particular ones:
- The first challenge is an immediate one, and we need to sort it right away, and
- the second is long-term, which may well take us a lifetime to live out!
The immediate challenge is this: to work out which of the two Sons most represent us, and where we sit in relation to the Father, who is our God?
Now don’t get me wrong here, for there is no distinction here between our ‘back to Church’ guests and those of us who sit here week by week, because I know as well as anybody, that some of you who aren’t regular worshippers with us, may well be sitting much closer in God’s favour, than even the Vicar!
So, are we like the Son who has gone off with the family fortune and had a good time before running into trouble? Or are we the one full of righteous indignation, who has done all the right things, but lacks the grace to be forgiving?
And then there is the long-term challenge, which is not so simple, because it involves using what we have just found out, as a foundation on which to live the rest of our lives?
And the challenge is this - if we think of our lives as a journey, do we want to travel the rest of our journey hand in hand with the one who created us, redeemed us, and longs for us to walk the road with him, or do we want to say that we have no need of God, that he is irrelevant to our lives, and we are far too busy to choose that other path?
During the week I was talking to my friend Chris Bird, the minister of Fleet Baptist Church, and he has just returned to work after a three month sabbatical, part of which was spent in the Southern Sudan.
Chris told me about some truly amazing and life-changing experiences, which I hope to invite him to come and share with our congregation sometime soon, but one thing which I would like to share with you this morning, is something which he told me which is, I think, very relevant to what we are thinking about today.
A local Sudanese Christian said to Chris, that he thought it was much more difficult to be a Christian in the developed world, because our modern lifestyles are such, that it is so easy for us to live our daily lives without needing God. But in the
I wonder if you’ve heard the story of old Gladys who attended church one Sunday and the sermon just seemed to go on and on and some of the ageing congregation fell asleep. Afterwards, she went up to one particularly sleepy looking old chap, and trying to be polite said, ‘Hello, I’m Gladys Dunn’. To which the gentleman replied, ‘And so am I!’
Well, I’m not ‘Gladys’, but you’ll be relieved to hear that I am ‘Done’, and I want to end by saying ‘thank you’ to those of you who have come as our guests today, and ‘thank you’ to those members of our congregation who have invited and welcomed you! And above all, I want to say ‘thank you’ to God, who is the Father who welcomes us back with open arms, each and every time we ‘mess up’!