Many of us come to religion to learn how to be good. But it is this pursuit, to be the most good, which leads us to do the greatest harm.
making the question about being right leads us to do wrong
Lent 5C |Luke 15, John 12:1-8
It never occurred to me the story would end in death.
I thought it’s ending was left open like the door. The reason is so simple. We knew what he’d do. But need the hope that he wouldn’t. Maybe he’ll change his mind.
Of course I know we did the story of the Lost Sons last week. But I want to start here because it connects us to where we’re going.
A Father and His Sons
So this is how the story operates internally. A wealthy man has two sons. One
In the first half of the story, we get the depth of love the father has for his son. There is so much emotion in the first half. But in the second, we get a whole lot of different emotion. Jealousy, anger, frustration, disappointment, fear.
The older son storms out, growling at his Dad I worked like a slave for you. And here, the parallel between the father’s actions toward the two sons comes into stark relief. The father goes out to them—an uncommon act. For the younger son, it’s to welcome; for the
And then the story ends. We don’t know what will happen. But we do know, don’t we? Because we know the way that people work. We know the son doesn’t come back. He’s too angry. Just like his little brother, he’ll walk away, treating his father as if he’s dead.
But because we don’t read that, we don’t experience that together, we know there’s another possibility. There’s hope that the son will be restored like the younger son was restored.
That’s what I always thought. Because that’s how the story works internally. But then I came across another idea. Maybe the story implies a different ending.
Demanding
Luke 15 begins this way:
“Now all the tax-collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’”
Jesus tells this story about a father’s mercy toward a sinful son and a moralistic son to an audience composed of those very characters.
And all the present conflict in the story is generated by the older brother. He’s angry at his father for celebrating. Jealous over the seeming unfairness. Refusing to get over his brother’s abandoning of the family.
But all of that is over; it’s past. The mercy is present, celebration is beginning, and the whole town is gathering for a feast. This is when he leaves, when he breaks the family. He demands to be right, to be in charge, to have his way because he’s always been good. He is the rich young ruler.
Needing to be right
Glen Scrivener, a minister in the Church of England opens the story wider:
This parable is illustrating the response of the religious to the grace of Christ. And the reaction is not pretty.
In a
sense we know exactly what this older brother doesin the end. We know it because we know what the slaves – the Pharisees and scribes –did. It isn’t a happy ending.Allow me to write the parable’s ending according to how the events of Luke unfold:
The father entreats his older son with open arms. The older son, in blind fury, picks up his shovel and bashes his old man to death.
That’s what happens in the Gospel. The Pharisees and scribes hated the grace of Jesus so much they conspired to kill Him. That is where older brother living takes you. It forces you to hate gracious Jesus.
Christ was not killed by a mob, he was killed by moralists. Like this older brother.
This is the price of moralism. Of being so good we need to be right. We become willing to kill what we love. We’ll break our communities, stab our friends in the back, conspire to destroy.
We could do the same with Martha’s resentment, were it to grow, where that would lead her. Not only to anger and bitterness, but to death.
Regarding the poor
So now we arrive at this morning’s gospel, plopped in the aftermath of the much bigger story in John’s gospel: the story of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead.
Imagine the gratitude in the siblings’ hearts. How much every dinner would become an opportunity for celebration. And how eager for the Passover they must be. God has liberated Lazarus! He has brought him out of slavery, unbound him from the wrappings of death, and restored him to life! Let us celebrate every moment!
And yet somehow Mary knows what is coming. Somehow, Jesus’s death is apparent to her because she anoints his feet for burial, preparing him for the walk to the place of the skull.
The author tries to let us off the hook, however. As he introduces the moralistic protest
“Why was this perfume not sold for three hundred denarii and the money given to the poor?”
undercutting the challenge by turning Judas into a thief. So obviously he isn’t asking an honest question.
But the question remains, especially as we twist Jesus’s words about the poor being with us into an inevitability and a justification for ungenerous behavior.
The exchange itself, inviting us, tempting us into moralism. Declaring what’s good and condemning what we think is bad. The older brothers who don’t know what to do with our emotions.
Nearing Jerusalem
These two stories bring us to the outskirts of Jerusalem. They bring us to the place of confrontation. Not just with the ruling authority, but with the authority which rules our hearts.
Next week we’ll enter the city with palms in hand to celebrate the king’s entry through the gates of power. It’s a day of hosannas and joy. But for those of us who know what awaits inside the city, it is a day of sadness and confusion. How are we supposed to feel?
The clue is in the stories themselves.
The joy wells up in the father, just like in Mary and Martha because they have all experienced a miracle: the dead has been raised.
This is the power of God.
Love, down from heaven, out from heaven, dwelling within and among us creating heaven of earth. Love surrounds us. And keeps us. Love envelopes us. And entreats us. Go! Love the death out of this world.
For next week we’ll walk into the darkest nights, convinced these are humanity’s most godforsaken times, believing we are alone. Believing death will inevitably consume us; maybe even that we deserve it.
We don’t, of course. None of us does.
These two stories reveal that fiction and condemn the sin of hate. They remind us that God’s love is generous and full of hope. It reduces the powerful and raises up the lowly so that we all may be one!
These are the praises we sing! Not that we shall conquer or that the new king will rule us fairly or according to merit. But with the fullness of love, boundless beauty, and unwavering audacity to bring slaves and sinners to the same table with the powerful and the peasants; to even restore the dead to life.
We enter Jerusalem knowing that this is what God does. This is the way of Christ.
So then, even we can face a culture of death knowing it is not of God. And knowing what is.