A New Strategy for the Elder Son
Luke 15
March 18, 2007

My subject this morning is God’s goodness and how God’s goodness sometimes makes us grumble and sweat. But first I want to spend some time with the story in chapter 15 of Luke’s Gospel and especially with the elder son. Perhaps I should warn you that I have sympathy for the elder son. I get his anger and upset. You see, in my family of origin, I am the oldest child.

There is an unmistakable air of celebration in the 15th chapter of Luke’s gospel. I mean party – whooping it up. If party seems odd under the circumstances, it should. We know where Jesus is going – it’s right there in the text, we have it right out of Jesus’ mouth – Jesus is headed to Jerusalem and the cross. Serious business, the cross. We understand the gravity of the situation. So why is party mentionned three times in the text this morning?

We are not the only ones wondering. Some folks around Jesus are actually grumbling. It’s not the fact of the party they object to. Everybody in Israel sees a party coming. God is going to do the right thing: free the nation from Roman oppression, reestablish the Temple , bring justice. On that day, the nation is going to have a party – do the When the Saints Come Marchin’ In number,dance in the streets, cavort and feast. That’s what’s going to happen when God does what we have coming to us – after all, aren’t we the Chosen People and isn’t God the God of our side? Everybody sees a party coming! No – what folks are grumbling about isn’t the party, it’s who Jesus is bringing to the party – his invitation list.

Now, the text says that the Pharisees and scribes object to tax-collectors and sinners being invited to the party. I have spent a lot of time thinking about this invitation list and why people grumble about it. Why? Because I think the list is still with us today. We believe in this church that God invites everybody to the faith. We are starting to call ourselves a Jesus Centered, Open and Affirming, Multi-racial church, and slowly, bit by bit, God seems to be making headway with us.

Sometimes there is grumbling. Why not? We don’t look like we used to. So who are we? Good question! More important –we don’t look like any other church around us. Small as we are, we have old and young, rich and poor, black and white, gay and straight, a few Latino and many Anglo. So how do we know when we’re a success? Who’s coming to the party?

Do you see where I’m going with this? When do we celebrate? When do we know it’s time to throw a party? We know this work of diersity is hard and we’re off the map. We have to unlearn a lot of behavior we were born with and raised with. We pray that if we follow Jesus we’ll end up singing and praising God for things we grumble about now.

But if figuring out the invitation list is so hard, what’s the point of the party? Unless the point is that in this work we are being love all along, that in this work God is saying to us what the father said to the elder brother: Church, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours!

If I may say so boldly and with love, the hardest thing we have to learn in this congregation is not how to love one another – that’s hard, but we get it – and not how to love God – God’s not always easy to love but we’re well trained – the most difficult challenge we face is accepting how much we are loved.

Do you know we are loved by God? Can you get into the idea that Jesus came to show us how much? I’m sure you are aware that Jerusalem is always there – and the cross – those are never in doubt – but Jesus came to have a party with us and put us on top of the invitation list!

In fact, the party is the point. The sadness and cruelty of the world is a given. But whenever a lost soul is found, whenever meal ticket is recovered, whenever a lost child finds his way back to family – God will throw a party. That’s what worship is – a party thrown because of the amazing things God does in our lives. And the most amazing thing is that we – like the elder brother in a sweat about that skunk of a younger brother -- might accept the invitation and come to the party ourselves!

Can you be amazed?

I mentionned that I am an elder brother, oldest of four sons in my family of origin. There is so much I have had to unlearn about life. I was born in December of 1950, and my brothers Tim, Rick and Mark followed like clockwork in 1952, 54 and 56. The story is told in my family of a day when the first of the little interlopers, my brother Tim, was nearly a year old and I was old enough to walk and do some damage. That day I decided to get rid of Tim once and for all.

I don’t remember, but they say I was playing with a bright red, metal truck. Now my mother had been nursing Tim – that child with the long dark eye lashes and hazel eyes of whom everyone cooed, “Oh, have you ever thought of entering that child in a baby photo contest?” – that child who to this day still has all his hair! So my mother puts the little wretch down on the floor to play and sees me standing there over him with truck in hand clearly intending to remove the competition from the scene. My mother says: Oh, Peter, you wouldn’t want to hurt your little brother, would you?

Apparently I would, and did. The story goes – I don’t remember it! – that after we returned from the doctor where Tim got stitches to his face – I learned how to spend time in my room by myself.

Or so the story goes…..

The curve of my life has been to unlearn the lessons of that day. No big deal to say, harder to do. I don’t have to fix life and remove the competition; life is not a problem to be fixed; life is something to be unfolded. I have come to love my brother Tim and to know how I shall miss him if his Parkinson’s takes him before his time.

I have learned there is enough love to go around; one love does not cancel out another. I have learned there is a wideness in God’s mercy, a little repentance goes a long way, I don’t always have to be right or come out on top. I have even learned that love for me is not cancelled out when I am as undeserving as I thought my younger brother was.

Perhaps most of all, I have learned not to fear the goodness of God. This is my faith. It isn’t just my elder brotherness that tells me the world is often difficult, threatening, squalid and unjust. Far more than I, Jesus knew these things and where they would take him. Far, far more than I, Jesus knew to take moments of healing and grace as signs of God breaking into the day. Far more than I, Jesus would not let the world steal from him the company of those who are grateful at what God can do – the left out, the missing, the unforgiven, the overlooked – and once in a while, the elder brother. Far, far more than I know how to do, Jesus sang and danced his way to Jerusalem .

I am working on these things, and I have a long way to go. There are still so many gifts of God to receive and open!

I say to you this morning – I say to anyone who shares a bit of elder brotherness with me – anytime you get caught up grumbling and sweating what God is doing in your life, listen! Hear the Lord your God say to you: Child, you are always with me, and all that is mine – love, mercy, wisdom, imagination, courage, forgiveness, joy, celebration – all that is mine is yours!

For that is why we say: This is the day of the Lord. Let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Amen