Are Some Animals More Equal Than Others?

March 14, 2010

First Presbyterian Church- North Platte, NE

Rev. James Hawley

Luke 15:1-32, 2 Corinthians 5:16-21

A good reputation can be a wonderful thing. Say you have a reputation for being honest. Or you have a reputation for being generous. With such reputations as these people are glad to see you, glad to have you attend their fundraisers. Glad to have you as a friend. But it is equally true that negative characteristics can become our reputation. Say you have a reputation for having a temper. Or say your have a reputation for cheating at cards. Do you think you will get many bridge invitations? (bridge, for our younger listeners, is a card game old people play). One hopes for a good reputation, because reputations are hard to get rid of. If you have a reputation for being honest you can cheat a few times before people begin to get suspicious. But if you have a reputation for dishonesty, then no amount of fair play seems enough to win over the skeptics.

Bible stories also have reputations. For example, no where in the Bible do the wise men and the shepherds cross paths, but there they are co-mingling every year in Christmas Pageants around the world. The Bible says Adam and Eve ate of the fruit of the tree, and yet it is the apple that is almost universally blamed for the trouble. Jonah spent three nights in a “great fish”, but every children’s bible talks about Jonah and the whale. These are not necessarily “bad” reputations. It could have been an apple. The fish might have been a whale. But the point is, once we think we know someone or something, it takes quite a bit to get us to see the person—or the story—differently.

That is a burden born by Luke’s story of the man and his two sons. This is one of those great Bible stories that has made the break to the big time—to the arena of public usage without any necessary reference back to the Bible. Joey comes home from college with a pile of laundry and Dad will crack, “Look, the prodigal has come home!” Or maybe your co-worker comes back from a long weekend skiing and he looks like no amount of coffee in the world will help him, so you say “well, well, so the prodigal has decided to show up at work.”

First of all, prodigal is not a noun. It is an adjective. And prodigal, does not mean lost. It does not mean “where have you been, we haven’t seen you in a while.” Prodigal means waste. Prodigal means reckless lavishness. The Son is prodigal because he took his inheritance and spent it recklessly to his ruin.

But this is where the reputation of the story gets in the way. Because this story, like all of Jesus’ major parables, is so deep and broad with suggestive meaning that it is best not to give it a name at all. In fact, the word prodigal doesn’t appear in the text—English or Greek. There are several characters in this story, and each one is important. Although it is not inaccurate to see this as a tale of repentance, forgiveness, and reclamation, it is also much more.

One non-traditional place to begin is to place the story in its larger context, something the lectionary doesn’t do. The story we call the prodigal son is the last of a trilogy of stories Jesus tells in response to a snide comment made by the Pharisees and the Scribes. They are grousing because the sinners were drawing near to Jesus. “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” Jesus’ response is to tell them three parables. First he talks of the shepherd who leaves ninety-nine sheep in order to find the one that is lost, and when he finds it he brings it back and gathers his friends and neighbors to rejoice in finding the lost sheep. Jesus says “there will be more Joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” That seems clear enough, but then Jesus goes on to tell of a woman who loses one coin and turns her house upside down to find it. She then rejoices with her neighbors for finding the lost coin. Again Jesus drives home the point, “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” So we’re good, right? We get the point? Perhaps not. For Jesus is now about to tell the famous story, but we are not quite done with the first two.

In each of the first two parables something of value was lost and then found. The sheep and the coin have obvious, intrinsic value. The sheep was property. It was an asset. The coin had obvious value as currency. Dare we imagine what the Pharisees are thinking in response to Jesus’ stories? “Duh (to use the vernacular of the young)…who doesn’t try to retrieve something of value? But Jesus, we are not talking about things of value here. We are talking about sinners. Worthless scum that they are! Whatcha got to say about that? (I am paraphrasing, of course)

And so Jesus tells the story of the man who had two sons. This is how Jesus introduces the story—a man with two sons. This tips us off right away that the story is about more than one son. It is about three, distinct characters. The younger son demands his inheritance and takes off. He is the “prodigal” son because he recklessly wastes his inheritance until he is left worse than the pigs. So he comes to a practical solution. He will return to his father as a servant so at least he can eat. We skeptics might even question the sincerity of his words, “Father I have sinned.” Are they genuine or simply expedient? But he did “come to himself”, and that was an important moment.

But the father does not wait to hear of the son’s repentance. Before he even has a chance to say his line the father has already decided on a course of action. It is enough for him that his son has come back. When his son does say his well rehearsed line, the Father is not even listening. He is preparing for the joyous celebration. Now it is the father who is behaving prodigally.

Which brings us to the older son. The bitter one. The “good” one. Why is he unhappy? Because this is not fair. The older son has been steady, reliable, never asking for anything. And the fact that he never asked for anything means he never got anything, not so much as a goat, let alone a fat calf, for his own party. And note very carefully how the older brother refers to his younger brother. He says to the father, “this son of yours”. Not “my brother”. He says, “this son of yours.” That sounds a little distant. It seems to be not quite family.

And finally the father. He was so happy just a moment ago. And now? Well, being the loving father he obviously is he is now engulfed with bittersweet emotions. You see, he was so happy that his youngest son returned. But now his older son is angry. He pleads with his older son to understand the rightness of the celebration, encourages him to enter into the joy. He offers a counter statement to the brother's line "this son of yours." The father refers to him as "this brother of yours." But the older son resists. He refuses to acknowledge his brother.

So, as the story ends, is anyone happy? Perhaps the youngest son is happy, although does he have residual guilt? A sense that he is not worthy of the celebration? Does he know how his brother feels? It is so hard to repent when those closest to us will not let us. The older son is not happy, as he feels the whole affair is unjust, that the undeserving get rewarded while the well behaved are left out. And the father can’t be happy. He wants joyous sons. He wants his older son to be happy for the younger. He wants his family back.

And so the story concludes but is the conclusion satisfactory? Or is it the case, as with all great stories, that the conclusion is not in the story, but in the reader. The conclusion of the story lies with us.

So let’s go back to the observation we made earlier. This story is the last of a trilogy about the lost being found. Remember we remarked that the lost objects of the first two stories were things readily seen as valuable. Sheep and coins were assets, they have obvious intrinsic worth. So as Jesus tells these two stories he is inviting the Pharisees into a “gotcha” moment. For the third story is not about a sheep or a coin, it is about a human being. And because the story comes connected to the previous two stories, we may assume that the essential point is the same. If the sheep and the coin are valuable, worth finding, then so is the human being. The human being has as much, or more, intrinsic value as the sheep and the coin. And this is the aspect of the Pharisee’s point of view—as echoed in the older Brother’s observations—that Jesus wants to draw out into the light. Human beings—even “sinners”—are intrinsically valuable in the sight of God. No one is expendable. Not even the prostitutes, lepers, lame, women, children—anyone else so easily disposed of in Jesus’ day.

The title of the sermon is taken from George Orwell’s book “Animal Farm”, a staple of every high school English class. When the animals take over the farm from the mean and harsh human farmer, they seek to establish a more just and utopian society. The pigs take charge and establish some new rules---better rules than the farmer lived by. The fundamental principle upon which the new society is based is that “all animals are equal”. Well, as the pigs Napoleon and Snowball continue to feed off of power and authority---until Napoleon essentially becomes a human being—the rules change. And the fundamental rule that all animals are equal becomes “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Here is the link. The Pharisees, as Luke and the other Gospel writers portray them, are like Snowball and Napoleon. What begins with a very clear message at creation—that human beings are made in the image of God—over time becomes “human beings are made in the image of God—but some human beings are made more in the image of God than others.” Some human beings are simply “better than” others. More righteous, more correct, more pious, less sinful. Luke also tells us of the Pharisee and the sinner who go to the temple to pray and the Pharisee prays “I thank thee, Lord, that I am not like other people. Like this sinner here.” Enter the older brother. He is angry because, well, he is better than his brother. He is more acceptable, more pious, more righteous. And no one is arguing that. No one said he was in the wrong. His own father said “whatever is mine is yours.” It is in the older brother’s own head that his younger brother is just not worth being saved!” Especially if it is going to cost him in the process.

It is a terrible state to be in when we believe that money and property and other such things are more valuable than people. By extension it is also a sad state of affairs when we find doctrine and dogma and fixed moral codes to more important than people. All people, even the sinners, are intrinsically valuable to God. More so, in fact, than all of the things we want to value.

None of this is to say that behavior does not matter. The younger son does act in a foolish and self-destructive manner. That we have intrinsic value to God does not mean God is indifferent to the nonsense we subject ourselves and others to through our behavior and bad judgment. What it does mean is that God loves us before, during, and after the dumb things we do. God is not interested in punishing us for the bad decisions we make, God is interested in our “coming to ourselves” and repenting of the self-destructive behaviors with which we are involved. And as the community that bears Jesus name, we should all be more interested in welcoming the lost than in pointing out who the lost is so we can distance ourselves from them. How Christian it would be if we had the reputation here in town as the church that “receives sinners and eats with them”.

Personally I am tired of grace with so many strings attached. I am tired of hearing about God’s love but some exclusions apply. I am tired of the self-righteousness of any church that presumes to determine who is fit to come to the Lord’s table. I am tired of right belief being the condition of membership, apart from a belief that Jesus Christ is Lord and Savior. I am tired of the defense of doctrine as more important than the defense of people and of purity in the church as more important than the church as the family of God. And, frankly, I think Jesus was tired of it, too. Which is why he repeatedly makes the point from beginning to the end of each and every Gospel that God loves human beings and wants what is good for human beings and expects his followers to love human beings and welcome them in their lost condition even as we are welcomed in our lost conditions. For in one way or another we are all lost, or were lost. We are lost until we find our way home to the center of faith and love which wells up in us and allows us to say, with full confidence, I am accepted. I am loved. The church of Jesus Christ should not be one more impediment for people to overcome on their way to divine acceptance. The Church of Jesus Christ should be killing the fatted calf, changing the water into wine, inviting all to the wedding feast, pointing out that the tomb and the cross are empty and that our cup is running over.

Paul told the Corinthians that Jesus Christ was the New Creation. Just as in the first creation, human beings are once again restored to the image of God. Paul calls this work reconciliation. God was at work in Jesus Christ reconciling the world to himself. And God has entrusted to us—can you believe it?—to us the message of reconciliation. Let that be our reputation. That we are prodigal with our grace. That we rejoice that all human beings are equal—some maybe a little more lost than others, but no less valuable. And we pray for that day when all the lost are found, all the sons and daughters have come home, and the family of God can finally party together in joy.