Ridiculous Stories - Redeemer Episcopal Church

15 Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. 2 And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.”

3 So he told them this parable:

11 Then Jesus said, “There was a man who had two sons. 12 The younger of them said to his father, ‘Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.’ So he divided his property between them. 13 A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. 14 When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. 15 So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. 16 He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. 17 But when he came to himself he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; 19 I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands.”’ 

20 So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. 21 Then the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ 22 But the father said to his slaves, ‘Quickly, bring out a robe—the best one—and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. 23 And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; 24 for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!’ And they began to celebrate.

25 “Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. 26 He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. 27 He replied, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.’ 28 Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. 29 But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. 30 But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’ 31 Then the father[d] said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. 32 But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

Gracious and merciful God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of each heart here before you be acceptable in your sight. Amen. 

We moved into our new house right before Christmas this last year. One of the reasons we loved this house so much was because of the back yard. There are gardens and planter boxes and so many places for the kids to play. 

So as the weather warmed up just a bit at the end of February, we began planting things. Our son is old enough now that he can understand a little bit of the process of planting a seed in the ground, nourishing it with water and sunlight, and waiting for the seeds to sprout. 

Finally, right now, parts of our garden is beginning to bloom.

We walk around and we encourage the plants to grow every afternoon. On the sunniest days, I walk around with a heavy watering can while Bennet notices each new bud and leaf. We are greeted by a new miracle almost every day. 

The strawberry plants that had little white flowers now have little strawberry shaped green fruit. And then they begin to turn red. Pretty soon we can pick it and eat it, Bennet whispers with excitement. The broccoli too— the small leafy plant suddenly got big broad leaves and then it seemed like over night we had these wonderful dark green stalks of broccoli. Last Wednesday we rushed out to the garden before dinner to cut some of the broccoli for the meal. 

Every time someone comes to our house, Bennet drags them out into the garden to show them all of the tiny miracles. Even if they saw them yesterday, he says “can I show you my fruit?” And takes them out to share what God has done in the last 12 hours. 

The gasps and exclamations of delight from our son is enough to sustain me for 100 years I think. But it also makes me wonder when I stopped having the same excitement over things like growing plants, the moon, and giant rain puddles. 

I thought about all of these things as I read and reread the gospel text this morning because my initial reaction was “Oh. The story of the prodigal son. Everyone knows this story.” And I read through the story again and again, not feeling any sort of awe or amazement about the parable that Jesus tells. 

How often is that the case when we read the Bible? Or when we hear the good news of Jesus? How often do we just read through it, forgetting how amazing the story actually is? 

In this parable, this story that Jesus tells folks to demonstrate the expanse of God’s love, his audience would have been gasping and fainting at how wild and ridiculous the story is. 

First, the idea that a son would tell his father to give him his inheritance is unheard of. How dare the younger son demand what he claims is owed to him before it is time! It was as good as wishing his own father dead. Just absolutely nonsense. 

And then, with no admonition or rebuke, the father simply does what is requested of him. Maybe this story wouldn’t be so ridiculous if it were the older son demanding this, the one who is entitled by law to inheritance. But it is the younger son— the one who really deserves nothing— who is given this incredible wealth. This should astound us. This should have us clutching our pearls and gasping. 

And then he leaves and squanders his wealth. This story is just full of wild twists and turns. But I didn’t hear a single person here this morning gasping with how incredible and ridiculous the story is. 

Not even at the end. Not a single person gasped or exclaimed at the end of the story.

This story is nothing short of miracle after miracle and we read it this morning as if it were just some boring story Jesus is telling. But this story is as ridiculous as the incarnation— God coming to earth in the body of a tiny human baby to walk among God’s people. An absolute and unabashed miracle. 

When did we stop being amazed at the amazingness of God? Have we ever really understood and been amazed at the amazingness of God? Have we ever stood in awe of these stories? 

So far in this parable, we have the younger son demanding his inheritance, the father giving it to him, and then when the son goes and squanders it all and comes back to his father, he welcomes him, running out to clothe him and put a ring on his finger. This is ridiculous. He was as good as dead! Not only because he had presumably not spoken to his family in years but because of the shame this whole adventure would have brought on his family. And yet he comes back. A miracle. And instead of being angry or unforgiving, his father leaps with joy and embraces him— a miracle. 

Perhaps we aren’t so amazed at this story because we know that we would welcome our own children the same way. Perhaps we have welcomed our own children the same way. But these parables were absurd to the audience listening to Jesus. This kind of generosity and then mercy and forgiveness from a father was unspeakable, incomprehensible. It was stories like these that were so offensive and blasphemous to the religious leaders and the government in power in Jesus’ time that it was these kinds of stories and this kind of generosity and mercy that would eventually get him killed. 

Think about that. This kind of generosity and mercy were so unbelievable and offensive that proclaiming this about God and God’s people would get Jesus killed. 

Speaking of unbelievable, ridiculous stories— in two weeks we will join Jesus on his journey toward Jerusalem, toward these leaders who want him dead, and toward his death on a cross. We will spend that week hearing stories that we have heard many times before. 

And my hope for us is that we might be amazed and in awe of God’s mercy, generosity, and saving grace that we encounter in these story, that we encounter in the living Christ. My hope is that we might be so in shock and awe of the miracle of Christ’s life, death, and resurrection in the same way that my son is in awe of the seeds growing into plants and fruit. That we might excitedly tell everyone who comes near— I have a miracle to show you. Come, and follow, and hear about God’s mercy and grace. Amen. 

To be a tree and a gardener - Redeemer Episcopal Church

Repent or Perish

13 At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. 2 He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? 3 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. 4 Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? 5 No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

The Parable of the Barren Fig Tree

6 Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. 7 So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ 8 He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. 9 If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’”

The summer before we got married, my husband and I spent a few weeks in Chicago, training to spend the year in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia for my pastoral internship. About halfway through our training, they talked to us about insurance, wills, and powers of attorney. I remember them saying that they try very hard to keep us safe overseas, but it costs a lot of money to bring your body back to the United States in the event that you die. That stuck with us. 

So the weekend after we got married, in all of our marital bliss and happiness, about five days before we left for my internship, we sat down with a lawyer friend and made sure we had all of our things in order. Even though we had no real “assets” to speak of, we wanted to make sure we knew what would happen if we died. 

I was reminded of that when our first baby was born. And again when our second was born. And now again as I see everything happening in the news in Ukraine. I am reminded that life is short. And unfair. 

This lament echoes the crowd’s from the gospel text this morning. Pilate had massacred Galileans recently. People are grieved. They don’t understand what is happening so they turn to Jesus. And Jesus replies with another story: one of 18 people who were killed in an accident when a tower fell on them.

These tragedies, like the ones we experience today, begin to turn the wheels of our minds and hearts. They made people feel anxious. The question on the crowd’s mind was, “why did these people die?” That’s often the question we ask when bad things happen, right? Why? 

We are so often asking “why?” 

Jesus replies that it is not a question of “why” they died, but that we will all die— perhaps not the most comforting of Jesus’ moments for these people who are deep in grief. But it does present us with another question: the question of how will we live in the meantime? 

Jesus is explicit in the story this morning— life is fragile and short. That means that what we do in the meantime matters. 

Lent is a time of preparation, a time of examining our lives, and ultimately, a time of repentance. That is what Jesus says in the text twice: “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. No, I tell you; unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” 

Usually when I hear the word “repent,” I think about feeling really sorry for something, expressing regret for my faults and my sins, or even becoming more morally righteous. I should BE a better person if I’m truly repentant. And ultimately, I think about those preachers who stand up on milk crates on the green at UNF. I think they are concerned about how “good” we are on earth so that we don’t go to hell when we die. Of course, they define “good” and, probably, “hell.”  

But repentance is less about where we go when we die, and more about how we live our lives today. If sin is turning away from God’s grace and neighbor, repentance is actively turning TOWARD God’s grace and our neighbor. Repentance is about accepting and living into the fact that God has already saved us from the power of sin through Jesus life, death, and resurrection. 

When Jesus talks of “perishing,” here, he isn’t talking about some divine punishment in the afterlife. He means that when we deny God and God’s grace, we are not able to fully live into who we were created to be. Our souls are not whole. We perish in comparison to the abundant life we could be living in Christ.

In the parable, the tree is given time to bear fruit. This gracious gardener shows patience and mercy to the tree— but the gardener doesn’t just let the tree go by itself for one more year, he gives the tree everything it might need to flourish. The ground is dug up around the tree’s roots and manure is put down. The gardener gives extra attention to this tree to help it produce good fruit. 

God has given us an incredible opportunity to seize God’s graciousness in this life. But God does not leave us to our own devices to repent and be made new. As Jesus’ parable suggests, God gives us everything we need to flourish and produce good fruit: we are formed and reformed in baptism, nourished and fed in the holy meal, reminded of God’s goodness and love in God’s Word, enriched and cultivated with the liturgy. God has extended grace upon grace to God’s people through the life, death, and resurrection of Christ Jesus. 

And we are not called to bear fruit alone. We are gifted this community, and this week we celebrate the 65th anniversary of this parish. The saints here before us left their own legacies, in the examples of their faith, their gifts of planning and dreaming for this community— they are all a part of what is being cultivated here now. In the same way, we are given the opportunity not only to bear fruit today, but to be a part of what this community will grow to be. 

After worship today, we will hear about what it means to consider the parish in legacy planning. In other words, we will talk a bit about our own deaths. A grim subject to mark the 65th anniversary of the parish, perhaps, but also oddly appropriate for the season of Lent and for the scripture we heard here this morning. Because God calls us not only into goodness, love, community, and salvation in this life— but for all of eternity. 

We can be our own gardeners for the next 65 years of this place. Just like the saints who came before us had dreams and visions about what this community would be, we too can dream and prepare for the saints that come after us. Ensuring that they too have everything they might need to flourish and be vibrant bearers of God’s Kingdom, witnesses to the resurrection.   

Therefore, for the rest of this season of Lent, I invite us to examine those things that may cause us to perish— as a community and as individuals— and lift up the hope of what God has prepared us for— the eternal and everlasting grace that God in Christ Jesus has gifted us on the cross. So that we might both be a tree that bears good fruit, and a gardener to the next generations. Amen.