The Gospel Lesson appointed for today is one of the better known of the parables that Jesus told, but it doesn’t stand by itself.  It is part of a set.  It’s the third parable Jesus tells when a number Pharisees and scribes get to grumbling about how amiable Jesus is toward the Jewish community’s more unseemly members.  And so, the 15th Chapter of Saint Luke’s Gospel begins:

Now the tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to [Jesus].  And the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying “This man receives sinners and eats with them.”

So Jesus tells the Pharisees and the scribes three parables.  First, He says

“What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he has lost one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine . . . and go after the one which is lost . . . ?”

And then Jesus says,

“Or what woman, having ten silver coins, if she loses one coin, does not light a lamp . . . and seek diligently until she finds it?”

Now, if you’re a thoughtful person listening to Christ tell these illustrative stories, you must, of course, say, “Well, yes, I guess I would, indeed, make every possible effort to find something of value which has become lost.”  . . . And then, Jesus asks, in effect, “If this is how you treat your property, then how do you treat a person; . . . how do you treat your own kin?”  And so, Jesus says, “There was a man who had two sons . . .”

    Now, the thing to pay attention to in this parable is that while it is customarily called “The Parable of the Prodigal Son”, . . . it isn’t about a prodigal son at all.  The Parable is really about . . . “A Man who had Two Sons.”  Oh, certainly it’s true that the younger of the sons is more flamboyant than the elder in how he offends his Father’s love, . . . but both do it; . . . both sons offend their Father’s love . . . and become lost.

    One kind of sin and one kind of sinner is exemplified by the younger of these two sons.  One day he demands of his Father his share of his lawful inheritance, . . . and unloading it all for ready cash, he goes off into a “far country”, Jesus says, to “squander his property in loose living” . . . until his money gives out and he discovers himself valueless; . . . he discovers that his value to the people of that far country isn’t even that of a sheep or of a silver coin.  In those circumstances the young man finds himself living in filth among pigs at the neglectful mercy of a cynical and opportunistic employer, and, loose living having secured him no friends, . . . he has no hope that things will improve.

    But then Jesus says . . . the young man “came to himself.”  It is as if the young man has been delirious with a kind of fever . . . and the fever suddenly breaks; . . . and the young man suddenly remembers his identity; . . . he remembers that he comes from a household whose Head is a  Father who feeds the hired help.  And, remembering the goodness of his father and being neither stupid nor proud, the young man decides:  “I will arise and go to my father . . .”.

    So, you see, Jesus receives tax collectors and other sinners into His company and eats with them . . . because they have a kind and generous Father.  Jesus receives sinners and eats with them because He has been sent by their heavenly Father in order heal their fever:  in order to remind them of who they truly are; that they are sons and daughters of God.  . . . It is exactly as Saint Paul puts it:  “in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them”.

    Sometimes people become so preoccupied with condemning sin . . . that they get to thinking the Gospel is about worrying everyone into heaven.  Other people think the Gospel is about Church growth, . . . and they become preoccupied with accommodating sin.  But, you see, the true Gospel is neither about frightening sinners, nor excusing them.  . . . The true Gospel is that Christ Jesus has come to us to call us to our senses -- to show us that we live among pigs and are at the neglectful mercy of a cynical and opportunistic master, who is the Devil.  Christ Jesus has come to us to remind us of who we are; . . . that we come from a household whose Head is a Father Who loves us.  Jesus has come among us so that you might come to yourself, and, being neither stupid nor proud, say to yourself, “I will arise and go to my Father.”

    If you do that, . . . what do you think the Father will do?  Well, Jesus says, the Father will spot you while you’re still a great distance off . . . and He will come running to you . . . and embrace you . . . and kiss you . . . and say to His angels,

“Bring quickly the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet; and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry; for this my son was dead, and is alive again; she was lost, and is found.”

And this is why Saint Paul has cause to say that, “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come.”  . . . You see, the world about us is teeming with folk who are classified by science as homo sapiens.  But you aren’t one of them.  You who are Baptized into Christ are homo Christus -- a person in Christ!  You have come to yourself -- you have come to your senses -- and are upon the journey of walking away from the squalor of self-preoccupation . . . in order to come to life.

    This prodigal son, as I’ve said, is one kind of sinner, . . . and his is one kind of sin.  But, you see, most of us aren’t like that.  Oh, perhaps some of you might have been prodigal, . . . but these days you souls have become more temperate.  As for the rest of us, . . . we are like the Pharisees and the scribes:  strangers to the sins that truly defile; instead, like the Pharisees and scribes, we are dutiful to our Father in heaven; we are level-headed, sober, responsible, and temperate adults.  . . . And so, Jesus tells us a Parable about a Man who has two sons.  The younger was prodigal, but the elder son is a temperate person.  . . . Temperate, at least, until the evening of his brother’s return when he hears music and dancing as he is coming in from working the fields . . . and is told his brother is returned and his father has killed the fatted calf for sheer joy at having the stinker back alive.  The elder son refuses to celebrate and

His father came out and entreated him, but he answered his father [with some vehemence], . . . “you never gave me [so much as] a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.  But when this son of yours came, who has devoured your living with harlots, you killed for him the fatted calf!”

. . . I have had conversations like that with more than one of you.  More than one of you has thrown their hat on the ground and said (in effect), “Why should I spend my whole life honoring God and doing good, while some stinker repents 20 seconds before he dies and God treats us the same!  It’s not fair!”  . . . Well, a nineteenth century prelate, Cardinal John Henry Newman, has said that when someone has little they are thankful, . . . but give them much and they soon forget that it is much; . . . and when they see that God has good even for penitents, . . . they are offended (Parochial and Plain Sermons (1878 edition), Vol. III, p. 110).  . . . This is another kind of sin . . . and another kind of sinner.  The prodigal son offended his Father’s love; . . . the temperate son is insensible to it.  Both offense to the Father’s love and insensibility to it . . . result in the Father’s child becoming lost; . . . lost and as good as dead.  And so, . . . the Father comes out to his temperate son, not to demand anything . . . but to receive a tongue lashing . . . and to make of His paternal love a lamp shining in the dark; . . . even as Jesus, has come out to us to receive the lash, the spitting, and the Cross . . . in order to bathe our lives in a pool of God’s effulgent love for us.  And by this Jesus tells the Pharisees and the scribes . . . and us . . . that it is not sufficient to simply be above reproach.  It is not sufficient to simply serve and obey God the Father.  But it is the life’s work of a child of God to become like the Father.  Or, as Saint Paul puts it,

For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

The stinkers may presently feast at the Father’s heavenly Table, . . . but their souls are permanently scarred with the marks of innumerable wickednesses.  And while their wounds have been healed, . . . the discomfort of their scars will never leave them, . . . because only time can mend scars; . . . eternity cannot.  But in the meanwhile, here you are in this life; . . . in this time, . . . and the Father comes to you in the Person of His Son and bathes you here in the light of His love . . . and touches you . . . and kisses your lips with His Life . . . so that on the last day there shall be no scars on your soul, . . . because Jesus, in this life, can take them away.  Because for your sake the Son of God was made homo sapiens in order that you might become homo Christus -- in order that you might become a new creature; in order that you might become the righteousness of God; . . . in order that you might be reconciled to your heavenly Father, Who has come out to you so that you might know His love, . . . and so that you might neither pity sinners nor condemn them, … but become representatives of the Father’s love; become ambassadors for Christ . . . so that by your speaking and by your living and by the fruits of your life you might become medicine for the fever of sin, . . . and cause individuals to come to themselves and remember who they are, . . . that they have a Father to Whom they may go; . . . a Home in which they will find mercy.  . . . This is how we treat one another, Jesus says; . . . this is how we treat our kin.