Lent 4C The Prodigal Son

How many of you have heard of Joel Osteen?

He is a non-denominational Christian preacher in Texas. 

His church, Lakewood, has about 52,000 regular attendees.

They meet in what used to be the Houston Rockets basketball stadium.

Joel Osteen has written numerous books about living your best life.

However, there is a serious problem in his books and his theology.

His books are all about saving yourself to live a better life.

In our society, saving yourself is a big part of our jobs in our lives.

We have to figure out to make our lives have meaning,

we have to have our relationships and jobs and vocations all figured out

so that we can be productive and reliable members of society.

Especially in America, we have this understanding that we have to pull ourselves

out of the mud, out of our trouble, out of the mire

all on our own.

Sometimes we even get mad when we are saved by someone else

and not on our own.

I've seen this many times.

We want to save ourselves.

We want to be independent people who have our lives all under control.

However, we are not all in control.

For most of us, three months out of work or three months without social security payments,

and we would be hungry or homeless or in some other kind of desperate need.

Yet, we are told

Accepting help is a weakness, and weakness is not to be shown.

However, this is categorically not true.

This is an evil lie.

If you hear someone saying this to you, The devil is speaking at that moment.

We are not meant to save ourselves from our problems all on our own.

We are in community. 

We have a loving God.

We are not alone, and showing vulnerability and needing help

are great strengths.

We don't have to earn our salvation.

God gives us salvation as one of many loving gifts.

The story of the Prodigal son has a couple of pivotal moments.

Some stories only have one important moment.

However, this story has multiple moments which can be emphasized.

The first is the generosity of the father shown in the beginning of the passage.

He gives his younger son his inheritance early.

Not something easily done or necessarily good for the future of the family.

Yet, he gives generously of what he has to his son.

Then we have the pivotal moment when the son recognizes his failure

and brokenness.

He recognizes how far down he has fallen.

He knows that his father treats his servants better than he is being treated,

and perhaps because of his father's compassion, he can get a job for him instead

and bring himself back into his family's good graces.

He changes his life and goes home.

The third pivotal moment comes when the father sees the son far off

and runs to hug him.

Showing more love and forgiveness and grace

than most of us have ever experienced.

His father rejoices in his return,

despite all his mistakes,

and his father welcomes him back into the family without a moment's hesitation.

The fourth moment in this story

comes in the conversation between the father and the older son.

Angry about the ways both his brother and his father have behaved,

the older son feels betrayed and left out.

Yet, the father also lets him know that his love is for him.

I'm sure you've all heard sermons on all these different moments,

these different lesson points in this amazing story.

As a parable showing free will, brokenness, forgiveness, love, and absolute grace,

this story does summarize the overarching message of the whole Gospel rather well.

What I want to talk about this morning is the redemption in this story.

The salvation given out in great abundance.

The Prodigal son wants to earn his salvation. 

He wants to return and work for his father and earn his salvation. 

We totally understand the prodigal son's plan

work off the debt he has created, win back his father's affections,

it makes sense to us that way.

It makes sense to his brother too.

However, his father blows his plan completely out of the water.

His father showers him with unearned grace and love.

He has no way of earning his salvation, because it has already been given.

It is the greatest gift the prodigal son could ever receive.

And it doesn't make a lot of sense to the brothers.

Neither brother knows what to do with it.

They are both astounded.

Naturally, in the social sciences, there are questions about the effectiveness of this strategy.

Social workers and social scientists will tell you 

that programs like Joel Osteen's are more workable. 

We have seen that people are more willing to change their ways and their lives

if they have some responsibility for what they are doing.

Rehab programs, twelve step programs, give the responsibility directly to the patient.

You can get better, you can change your life,

only if you are willing to work towards it.

And even most self help books say you can change your life.

Which in some ways is true.

There are some things we do have agency over.

There are some parts of our lives we can change.

However, there are many things in our lives we have very little control over.

We cannot change the way our bodies are created.

We cannot change our chemical make up.

We cannot change our deep brokenness.

Only God can do that.

Inviting God into our lives opens the space for God to heal us.

We cannot earn God's love or grace

or God's change in our lives.

God is not a deal broker.

She doesn't sit around waiting for us to make a deal for our salvation.

God freely grants salvation.

Like the father of the prodigal son, 

God freely gives us more than we can imagine.

God is an awesome God!

Good to us even when we have not been God to ourselves or others.

God openly and lovingly saves us.

We try so hard to earn our own salvation.

We are told over and over again that the American dream is that

we pick up ourselves up by our bootstraps.

Self help books tell us how to save ourselves.

Unfortunately when you try this way, you'll most likely find,

We cannot rely on ourselves.

We are broken and inconsistent

No matter how hard we try to fix ourselves,

we cannot do it perfectly or alone.

We have to rely on God.

If you find yourself struggling to save yourself,

take a moment to pray.

Pray deeply and openly

for God to enter your life

to strip you of the desire to save ourself

to heal the hurts hiding inside of you

to help you along the path of true life.

We have to pray to God to help us.

We have so much deep inside of us that we cannot get rid of,

but God can manage that.

Advertisements, television, news

try to make us feel like we have to figure out how we are going to make it out alive

all on our own.

Of course, none of us make it out alive.

However if we live in Christ

we die in Christ.

And when we die in Christ,

we are risen with Christ.

We are saved solely through God in Christ. 

Amen.