There is something special about watching the sunrise over water that reminds me about today’s gospel reading and a similar story in Luke’s Gospel. The red morning sun shimmering across the ripples of the surging river, or a wind stirred sea, inclines our heart and mind to openness and empathy.  

A month ago Raewyn and I went for a walk at dawn on the riverbank through the red zone and had those feelings.  The river wasn’t red, but it was certainly shimmering and behind the bulrushes we could hear the splash of paddles and I thought I heard a familiar voice.

Sure enough, as we stepped out from behind the reeds a voice called out ‘Morning Hugh’.  Of course, it wasn’t Jesus it was just the Rev Glenn Livingstone in a kayak.  He introduced me to his companion who he said knew our Craig and his wife Tina.  That is not surprising becase they are all kayak junkies.  News of our meeting spread because Glenn took pictures and put them on Facebook.

On that occasion Glenn didn’t ask me to follow him but some years earlier he was the first person to visit us when we moved into our present house.  On that occasion he was campaigning for Council so he asked if he could put a sign on our front lawn.  In no time he had me knocking on doors for him.

Writing of another early morning meeting Robin Meyers stresses the importance of the call to follow Jesus in his book Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus:

If the church is to survive as a place where head and heart are equal partners in faith, then we will need to commit ourselves once again not to the worship of Christ, but to the invitation of Jesus.  His invitation was not to believe, but to follow. [1] 

The last sentence of the last verse of our Gospel reading gives Meyers the biblical authority to make that claim: 

After this he said to him ‘Follow me’ (John 21:19b).

Calling the fishermen features in all four gospels in various stages of the gospel journey but the call is always to follow.

In the opening chapter of Mark, Jesus sees Simon and Andrew casting their nets into the Sea of Galilee and Jesus says ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people’. (Mark 1:17)  Matthew picks that up in his fourth chapter using Mark’s words as Jesus says to Peter and Andrew ‘Follow me and I will make you fish for people.’ (Matthew 4:19)

Luke carries the same theme of calling the fishermen but within a very similar story to our reading from John’s Gospel.  In this incident Jesus uses the boat as a preaching platform then he instructs Simon, along with his partners James and John, to let down the nets and they catch a huge harvest of fish.  Jesus then says to Simon Peter ‘Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people.’ (Luke 5:10)

So, the call of the fishermen is featured in all four gospels but in John’s Gospel Simon Peter and Andrew are introduced to Jesus by John the Baptist.  Therefore the gospel writer introduces the call of the fishermen at the end of the Gospel.  Even more significantly the call is from the Risen Christ. 

So, the call to Peter and the call to Paul in our Acts reading are the same.  A call from the risen Christ in a mystic moment, a moment of mystery, a spiritual experience.  Probably a bit more mystic than a call from the river in the morning light but for the disciples it also had memory of past adventures with a friend.  

John invites us to share that memory as he describes Jesus taking the bread and giving it to the disciples and, by also mentioning the fish, he gives an echo of the feeding of the five thousand.  A pointer towards the communion service. 

Writing at the turn of the first century, possibly in the gentile city of Ephesus, John may well be encouraging us all to meet with the Risen Christ and therefore to follow Jesus.  The presence of Christ calls us all to be workers in Christ’s harvest, calls us all to fish for people.  That call is clearly an evangelical call.  A vital call to the early church as it spread out into a world without Facebook. 

In his book Meyers suggests the call to follow is an important call if the church is to survive and in his book, he stresses just what it means to follow Jesus. 

To Meyers following Jesus is not just standing in front of a crowd and making claims about Jesus or putting memes on social media.  In Meyers’ understanding following Jesus is about living with the compassion Jesus shows to others.

To heal the sick, empower the poor, feed the hungry to welcome everyone and so on. It is as we live as Christ to others that we ‘fish for people’ and bring in the harvest of a vital living Christian Community.  

We live in a world where a very few wealthy people continue to seek control of all the world’s wealth.  But the advice from the Jesus of the gospels was to cast the nets on the other side, to look at an alternative model, a different way of living than the few dominating the many.  Jesus called it ‘the kingdom of God’

For those who were disadvantaged by Roman Imperialism, both Jew and gentile, the Jesus’ way of welcoming and sharing was an alternative way.  To be freed of the stigma created by believing that sickness and misfortune was punishment for sin would have been totally liberating.  Acceptance into the community of Christ can be just as liberating today, especially if members of the community can help the homeless find a home and the hungry find a meal.

Our Acts reading is the classic Damascus Road episode, that sudden meeting with the Risen Christ which turns Saul’s world view upside down. 

It strikes him blind and through the care and compassion of others he recognises the presence of the Risen Christ and metaphorically casts his net on the other side.  The change is so dramatic that he changes his name to Paul, and instead of persecuting the emerging church, he organises it.

Although much as the structures of the organised church have frustrated the mission of Christ over the centuries it probably would not have survived without structure. Paul’s travel and writing did much to send Christ’s call through time towards us. 

We don’t know exactly what happened to Paul on the road to Damascus or what reignited those disciples who had left Jerusalem to return to their original occupations.  But if we read through the imagery and metaphor with our imagination set to open, we can recognise these stories as incidents that happen in our own lives. 

These Christ appearances are like meeting a friend while walking on a quiet path as the sun pushes above the horizon and shimmers across the swirling river.  Times when a quiet mind processes and rearranges the information stored in our memories and a new perspective comes to us.  Times when we take the bread and the drink in memory of a long dead Jesus. Times when our heart feels strangely warmed.  Times when we mechanically listen to the words that Paul writes were passed on to him, the traditional communion liturgy.  As we listen to those words and eat the bread and drink the drink, memory becomes reality and for a moment, we find ourselves in the presence of the Risen Christ. 

In Christ’s presence we can all hear the call, not to believe, not to worship, but to follow.    

As Albert Schweitzer wrote;

He comes to us as one unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those men who did not know who he was.  He says the same words, ‘Follow me!’, and sets us to those tasks which he must fulfil in our time.  He commands.  And to those who hearken to him, whether wise or unwise, he will reveal himself in the peace, the labours, the conflicts and the suffering that they may experience in his fellowship, and as an ineffable mystery they will learn who he is.[2]

The Jesus call to follow is always a call to cast our nets on the other side, a call to an alternative and inclusive way of being human.  A call to truly be fishers of people, the call to a life where everyone is fed, everyone is cared for, and we live as Christ to others.  To steal one of Marcus Borg’s book titles, it is always a call ‘to meet Jesus again for the first time’.

To meet the Jesus of the Gospels we are called, not so much to worship Christ, but to be Christ to all those who we meet along the way.

---

[1] Robin R. Meyers, Saving Jesus from the Church: How to Stop Worshiping Christ and Start Following Jesus, (New York: Harper Collins, 2009), p.145

[2] Albert Schweitzer, The Quest of the Historical Jesus, Bowden, John (ed.) (London: SCM Press 2000), p.487.

 What do you know about Thomas?  The writer of John’s gospel features Thomas three times.

1.   Firstly when Jesus get news of Lazarus’ death there is hesitancy to go to him because it means going through the hostile region of Judea.  It would be a dangerous journey, but Thomas urges the disciples, “Come let’s go so we can die with him.”  Bold stuff. 
2. Then in John 14 Jesus talks of the way to God, “There are many rooms in my Father’s house.  I am going there to prepare a place for each of you.  You know the way to where I am going”, but it’s Thomas who boldly pipes up saying but how can we know the way?  Good question. 
3. Then there is today’s reading with Thomas refusing to believe Jesus is alive.  Doubting Thomas he’s called and with it his reputation hits the floor.   

    I want to stand up for Thomas.  Frankly I feel for him because my response would also be, “you have to be joking”, if I was told by friends that someone who was beaten, then crucified, and was buried in a rock tomb was now somehow alive just a couple of days after the brutal events.  I think it’s quite reasonable to say I need to see evidence for myself.  I wonder how we read those words of Jesus  “stop doubting and have faith” … are they a rebuke or are they said with compassion, arm around his shoulder and maybe the word “bro” added at the end.  And why do we not highlight the resolute response of Thomas, “my Lord and My God.” 

   I must be getting older because I like to reminisce!  I was thinking back 40 years to my first ministry in St David’s Palmerston North the other day and remembering some of the journey.  They were good years with a thriving youth group and a sense that the church had a real place in the community.  One of my tasks as the new assistant minister was starting up a home group for older women who would regularly get together every two weeks to look at a Bible passage and discuss it.  It was hardly revolutionary stuff and my main job as a young minister was keeping them sort of focused on the passage we were looking at so they didn’t spend the whole time on other topics that a group of women might like to talk about.    It took a while to build up levels of trust and for the participants to feel they could be honest with each other, but I will always remember Vera who one day beamed and proclaimed to the group, ”you know I enjoy coming to this group because this is the first time I’ve ever been able to ask questions about God, my faith and the Bible.”  It wasn’t so many months later that Vera died suddenly, and I would like to think she died just a little happier and fulfilled because of our little group and her discovery that we could ask questions together.

    I suspect Vera had been brought up in a faith that frowned on asking questions.  I suspect in her younger days you were expected to listen to the minister, the expert, and soak it up without question.  I also suspect the model didn’t work very well because she felt a little inadequate when it came to matters of faith and the easiest way to deal with that was to keep your mouth shut until the focus of attention was on something she did feel confident in talking about…. The kids, food, craft.  Asking questions was frowned on because asking questions somehow indicated that you doubted, and doubt wasn’t good.    But she did have questions.. just like Thomas.  The sadness and consequence was that her faith and the importance of her faith remained largely hidden to her children, and those around her. 

   Faith isn’t having all the right answers or being an expert.  Faith is about trust, and a real faith asks questions.  A real faith is honest about doubts and a real faith is open to the possibility there is more to learn.   

   One of the key images of faith that we find in the Old Testament is that of the journey.  Things never stay as they are.  Abraham and Sarah leave their home town of Harran in modern day Iraq to find a new future with God in another land.  Along the way they are constantly in dialogue with God, questioning, listening, pondering, learning.  Moses and the people of Israel continue this tradition.  Forty years of questioning and journeying in the desert.  We see the same thing in the Psalms of David.  We like to think of these as wonderful affirmations of praise, but actually as we look deeper there are many songs in a minor key. Questioning and lamenting the unfairness of life are part of many of the psalms.  Crying out to God “why?”, ”how long?”, and “are you there?” litter the poetry as the writers give witness to an honest faith.  The story of Job is a classic with questions posed by Job and by God. 

    We used to have a church building where the pews were lined up and the minister stood at the front, the expert.  Thankfully we have changed that.  My understanding of worship in the Jewish synagogue that Jesus was brought up in was that often one of the leaders or elders would deliver a sermon on a topic and then the assembled congregation would discuss and question and argue about what was said.  Judaism has never been about a passive listening people but is about debate and questions.  As the early Christians moved out of the synagogues and met as small groups they would often argue and question together as they searched for the truth and the way of Jesus.  Jesus asked questions often, both of others and also from deep within.  From the cross comes the anguished cry, My God, My God, where are you?

  Paul’s letters are full of issues as those early communities buzzed with deep debate, conflict, and questions.  A community that does not encourage questions stands still.  A person who knows it all and has no doubts will not grow.  In their certainty they will often become obnoxious and arrogant.  Faith is not about certainty.  The opposite of faith is not doubt but fear, the fear of stepping beyond the known, the fear of admitting, “I don’t know”..  

   I believe religious faith has suffered hugely in the modern world by being cast as naïve and unquestioning.  It has suffered hugely from the perception that you have to ditch your rational questioning mind and give assent to things which frankly are are not possible or at least need to be interpreted as metaphor… the seven days of creation for example.

  Thomas dear Thomas has much to teach us and challenge us in his open and honest questioning and doubting.

  He also has something to teach us and challenge us in his boldness.

  If you visit India you will see many Christian communities feature the name St Thomas.  I volunteered for a few months at St Thomas School in Jagadhri, Northern India working with Doreen Riddle.  The local Christians were proud of the name St Thomas and told me Thomas the disciple brought Christianity to India.   Some 20 years after Jesus’ death Thomas is believed to have arrived in southern India, in Kerela which is still a Christian stronghold today.    There he established little Christian communities.  I wish John England was still with us because he would no doubt throw some light on this mysterious journey. 

What is clear is that a fire burned in Thomas.  He was the one to say let’s risk death to go with Jesus.  He’s the disciple who proclaimed when seeing the resurrection for himself “My Lord and My God”  He had seen Jesus. He had touched the wounds. The resurrection wasn’t some funny belief in his head, but a realisation that all Jesus stood for was true and Thomas saw that the way or path of Jesus was the way of life for all the earth.   This Jesus truly was of God and opened a door to the way of life that human beings long for, and that was good news that needed to be shared.

I imagine Thomas’ love of questions served him well.  He sat and talked with locals in marketplaces and under banyan trees.  He asked questions. He listened and observed.    No doubt people observed him and saw something in him. He tried to answer their questions honestly.  He no doubt encountered people who were deeply religious, as anyone who has travelled in India will still attest to.  As he engaged in conversations he told them of Jesus who spoke of forgiveness for those crippled by alienation and mistakes, unconditional love and compassion for broken, and a way of justice and respect for all, men and women.  No matter what caste you belonged to, Brahmin or Dalit, you were welcome to sit around a table and break bread as equals.  This God revealed in Jesus brought new life.

Some were attracted, others found this new Way too revolutionary and Thomas was eventually martyred like his master.  But not before something had taken root.  The story of Jesus who had been put to death on a cross, killed by the powers of evil, but then raised by God, spread.  Small communities of followers grew, living the Way, guided and empowered in the living presence of the Holy Spirit.  They gathered to break bread, and began to share and live the story themselves. They gave witness to heaven on earth.  A small spark of faith had leapt across an ocean and taken root.  Thomas the questioner had become Thomas the planter.  Thomas the doubter had become Thomas the bold gardener of faith in others. 

I think his example shines a light for this congregation.  If we are to have a future we are going to have to engage with the wider community of which we are part and become like Thomas, gardeners helping others grow in a journey with God.  And it’s not really about the future of this congregation, but it’s about the future of life on this planet as we hurtle down a path of chaos, ignorance, and the worship of ourselves.

You don’t need to sail to India. You only need to walk across the street, listen carefully to a friend at a café, pray with a neighbour, answering a question, asking a question.  Sharing openly, honestly, admitting we don’t know it all.  Acknowledging in whatever way you can that there is a power beyond us in this earth, that is bigger than us on this earth, calling us to build a different future.  We don’t have all the answers, but we do have something desperately needed in our chaotic me centred world.    God needs your voice. Particularly if you’ve doubted, and particularly if you’ve struggled. Our local community needs the hope you’ve found.

I think I’ve heard some of you say ahh but that’s why we employ a minister.  Minister centred churches are the fastest dying ones.   What we need are authentic disciples who don’t know it all, but who have discovered what matters in their lives. What is it that gives us hope and enables us to navigate through the complexity of life?  What we need are people who don’t try to make others conform to be like us, but who welcome diversity and difference.  I love the message from the recent and now very pertinent movie “Conclave”,  Cardinal Lawrence played by Ralph Fiennes addresses the assembled Cardinals on the sort of faith needed in the sort of person to be elected to be the Pope and example to us all.  ‘Our faith is a living thing precisely because it walks hand in hand with doubt. If there was only certainty, and if there was no doubt, there would be no mystery, and therefore no need for faith.’. 

      Thomas…. A doubter to be shunned.  No, a shining light who calls us to be honest with questions  and bold to engage others with their questions.    

Hear what the Spirit is saying to us.

“A Good Goodbye” (John 16:12-16)
Life is full of goodbyes.  Children grow up and leave home, graduation happens and friends go off to college, people get married and move, workplaces close and colleagues take new jobs, summers finish and romances end, death comes and final farewells have to be said.  No matter who we are, we have known “goodbye” in one form or another.  Within goodbyes there runs a full range of emotions, goodbyes can be filled with joy and thanksgiving, they can be times of sorrow, there can be urgency, or fear or even exhilaration when the time comes to say “God be with you”, or goodbye. 

At their best, goodbyes leave us with a grateful spirit and fond memories to cherish.  At their worst, they leave us feeling angry or misunderstood, and maybe even second guessing ourselves.  If we allow it, our text this morning can teach us in the art of saying goodbye.  Our story this morning is part of the classic farewell address when Jesus says goodbye to his disciples.

Goodbyes, even happy goodbyes, can surprise us with twisting emotions.  A little more than 40 years ago, I was a wide-eyed teenager off to New Zealand for a year’s study.  I was so excited about this chance to see the world!  Yet there came these times to say goodbye: to teacher and friends, to parents and family.  I was only sixteen, and it’s hard to see your mom and dad cry at any age, Parents can be so embarrassing I thought.  But I didn’t get it.  They knew more than I did about what was happening right then.  As I was making my excited preparations, there was one occasion, when a good friend said, “remember, we’re the ones being left behind”.  That gave me pause and a helpful perspective. .  I also remember visiting grandparents before I left, each of us thinking “when will we see each other again?”  They wanted to say the kind of goodbye that recognizes it could be the last one.  Tough stuff, for me as a young kid off to see the world.  But I got it when my grandmother took my hand and said “Danny (She was one of two people who would call me Danny. That always got my attention – I listened closely.) , we need to say a good goodbye.” 

Our reading is a powerful story.  It shows us even Jesus needs to say goodbye. .  This is part of the farewell discourse of Jesus, and he explains once more to the disciples that he must depart, and yet the promise is made that they will not be alone.  What does it mean to say goodbye well? How does he turn pain of partings into an occasion that can redeem relationships and be filled with hope and integrity?

For us, what might it look like to say goodbye in such a way as to free those we are leaving behind to continue on vibrant with life and the potential for flourishing?  John shows us that Jesus knows how to say goodbye!   This passage is considered the “heart” of Jesus’ farewell.   The one who speaks here speaks as no one has spoken.”  This is a goodbye like no other. 

What does it mean to say goodbye well? Let us look at this moment through the eyes of Jesus. As the one saying goodbye it is Jesus who takes the initiative. It would seem that Jesus’ disciples are trying to avoid the subject altogether; they prefer not to talk about it. Their anticipated pain at being alone is more than they can manage so they retreat into a place of silence.

In this difficult time, it is Jesus who takes the initiative and makes certain he talks about his leaving with the disciples.  Saying goodbye is something Jesus needs to do for himself; so, he pursues a thoughtful goodbye with uncommon intentionality.  For Jesus knows that hearing him say goodbye is something the disciples must experience and accept if they are to get on with life.  They’ve got to hear him say it.  Goodbye. 

I was a huge fan of MASH.  After 11 years, The final episode was titled, Goodbye, Farewell and Amen, was a perfect blend of laughter and tears.  One of the things I remember was the fun Hawkeye had with BJ because BJ couldn’t say the word goodbye.  So for a few weeks,  Hawkeye taunted him with every possible way of saying “Goodbye, goodbye”, and in the end BJ found his own way to say it – spelling it out with bright yellow letters ten feet high.  For BJ, goodbye wasn’t real – until he said it – and said it in his own way. 

Notice how Jesus says goodbye: he does so in such a way as to leave his disciples hopefull. He assures them that they will not be left alone or on their own. The Spirit of truth…the Advocate…will come to be their companion .

Jesus senses the inability of his disciples to get it. They don’t grasp the truth as to who Jesus really is and what it means for him to be called Messiah. They can’t begin to understand what is about to happen to Jesus. For them, the cross remains a mystery, with death an improbability for someone called Messiah. Jesus doesn’t take his disciples off the hook by providing them with easy answers, or false promises.   But he does leave them hopeful. He tells them that once he is gone another will come, the Holy Spirit, who will guide them along the way of all truth and companion with them to help speak about justice and love.   It will be the Spirit that opens our eyes to God’s grace that brings us to faith.  It is our faith that leads us to hope for the days ahead. 

Years later the members of John’s church who are listening to this story after the fact of Jesus’ death and resurrection still struggle to get it, as do most of us. We too struggle with Jesus, don’t we?  This is John’s point: it is the Holy Spirit, the Advocate, who comes to help us all to gain some understanding! John knows that if we are going to see God in Jesus and discover where God might be moving about in our life, and in the life of the church ,it won’t happen overnight. Healthy goodbyes are said in such a way as to get us through the darkness by offering the assurance that there are exciting discoveries awaiting us in a new day. Jesus wanted to help get them to this point. 

So in this strange twist of a farewell address, Jesus turns his goodbye into a
Hello.  He says there is more to be said.  What they had thought to be the end is turning out to be the prelude to a new beginning. 

New truths await them around the corner of tomorrow . Instead of being finished with their mission , their life, they are about to begin again. The best, Jesus suggests, is yet to come! The trick to hanging in there when life is about to pull the rug out from under us, in this promise of the Holy Spirit who is God with us and for us and in us—God ready to walk us into tomorrow hand in hand.  

I suspect this is what healthy, God-inspired goodbyes always do. They
so capture our imagination that they leave us with new insights into what life
is really about and ready to flourish as we embrace the next chapter of our
world with unexpected enthusiasm. A Goodbye that says keep your eyes on the skies.  Look up, there is more to come. 

T.S. Elliot writes “To make an end is to make a beginning.  The end is where we start from.”  Today my ministry ends here at St Martins and it will make the beginning of something new here for the Parish, and something new for me.  It is a time of transition.   Things are changing, things must change, but in some incredible mysterious way, the Spirit is still here and and moving us all forward.   Our God is the God of first and last things, of beginnings and endings and beginnings.  Our God is Alpha and Omega and Alpha!

By way of “God Be With you”, goodbye, I want to say thank you for inviting me to be pastor here.   You have invited me into your lives, your homes and together we sought to worship and serve God.  For all the things that helped bring the Kingdom closer, for everything that went well, Thank God.  For those things, for those moments that might have been different.  I’m sorry.  Over this time there have been many expressions of kindness to me and my family.  Thank you. 

I believe, God is recognized in our midst, and there is a common, shared understanding that God is not some far away God, but rather an up close companion to us and a God who accompanies all of us, and will continue to accompany each of us in the days to come.  Look and listen for the ways that God is part of sounds that come from this place.  I pray that recognition continues.  In everything that is done give the knowing nod to God.   Anything we do well, is because God is supporting and surrounding what we do, right from the beginning.

Endings make beginnings.   Worship leads to service. , go out and serve well.  You are close to God’s heart, created in God’s image, make God’s love known.  Being part of God’s breath, may we all go out joyfully and serve well wherever we may be.  Look to the coming days with a sense of expectation and hope and unshakable sense that God is present.  Go well, God bless, good bye.  Amen. 

Intro to Theme – Read “Where the Wild Things Are”  (Slideshow)

Intro to reading Our New Testament lesson is from Luke. It is the story of the Prodigal Son,  It is probably the best known of all the parables told by Jesus.    I didn’t know what  “prodigal” meant until I looked it up. (anyone know?)  It means reckless extravagance.  As we hear this story,  it sounds the younger son is prodigal with his money and the father is prodigal with his love.   Let us listen for this word of Grace.  Read.   ///

In  “Where the Wild things are”  Max wanted to be where someone loved him best of all.   As he makes this discovery about himself  – everything changes for him.  He had swung through the vines, he had stomped at the moon, he had been as free as free could be but he discovered that kind of freedom wasn’t what he really wanted after all.  He wanted to be loved, and he knew where that love was to be found.   His journey to a far country concludes as he comes to discover  a deeper sense of himself and he is turned around within and he turns around literally to sail back home and find what he wanted most of all. 

The parallels to the story in scripture today are many and I’ll let you fill in all the other similarities as you like.  But I want to look at this amazing parable that Jesus tells.  Jesus certainly knew what he was doing as he taught in parables, because for 2000 years we have not exhausted the meaning and depth in these seemingly simple stories.   Every family can see something of themselves in it I believe.  This week the facet of the story that struck me was the phrase “he came to himself”  and all the inner changes that meant.  

Jesus paints a remarkable word picture with his parable.  It captures a moment that is filled with grace.  Although Jesus is using this scene to show us what God is like, in it we see a very  human situation.  We don’t have to glance very long to figure out there are dysfunctional family members here.   Jesus starts this story saying “there was a father who had two sons”.  The first son says “Dad, drop dead, or at least give me my share of what’s coming to me after you do die, so I can get going with my life.  I’ve got places to go, people to see, wild oats to sow.”  It is an amazing and brazen request.  I don’t think that would go over too well in many families at all.  What is even more amazing is that the father says OK.  I accept your rejection of me. I love you.  I will let you go with everything in the world that I have to give you.  Here, take it.  Farewell my son.  How many earthly Dads would do that?  Jesus is pointing to how God is willing to endure that.  

The younger son goes and we know what happens then.  When asked about the story a youngster said (unknowingly I hope) that “he went to town and spent half his money on women and wine.  He wasted the rest.”  This son got as far away as possible from everything that was his former life.  For a time it seemed great, then things really got desperate.  The money ran out, food was scarce and now even the pig slop looked good.  In the story it says “he came to himself”, and sought to come home.  We don’t know what changed within him, how deep his conversion was, or just how sincere he was going to be with his apology.  But we know he headed back. 

He went to start some kind of new relationship with someone he had treated as good as dead.  He did not expect it to be the same, he did not hope for what used to be – for it could never be that again.  By turning around he sought to start something over.  He had an idea of what it might be, he hoped he could be a laborer on the farm he already knew.  In our glimpse we see he is welcomed back, and a grand party thrown.  He is in the door – but will it work out, will it last?  We do know this picture would not have happened at all if the younger son had not turned around looking for something new. 

We have touched on repentance.  The question is always “what does it mean to repent?”  How do you know it when you see it or feel it?  We speak of repentance as being a turning around, the younger son literally did this.  He turned around and went now in the right direction, toward love that was willing to set him free to choose.  For him, repentance was to say “father” again.  Repentance would be to claim his role as a son in the family, and acknowledge his part in breaking things apart. 

For him, the new direction was to know that he was loved first, and figuring out how to live knowing that he was still just as free as before.  He had been lost, and he could be lost again.  This is just the beginning of the new direction.  If things were going to change, then things would have to change.  He will have to change.  It might be all too easy to go back to thinking and acting like he did before.  We don’t know what is next.  We know what is, and he is loved.  The father’s anticipation of his return and his generous actions assure this.  The father had been hoping and longing the younger son might return, that something would change.  One day it does.  We see the father running to greet his son.  Welcoming him home without question as to where he’s been, without scolding or punishment or penitence.  The love comes first.  It has always been there, and now the father can hold the one who was lost and gone.  

The older bother, was in need of repentance as well.  He was lost in different way.  He was the one who tried to do everything right and never learned to party.  He too was lost.  Lost thinking that the father’s love should be conditional, with strings attached, only after certain conditions were met.  The older one would dutifully do what needed to be done to keep things going.  But resent doing it.  The relations between himself and younger brother were obviously strained.  Things were strained between older son and his father as well.  The way that Dad was treating younger son before and after his return drove him nuts.  The older one could not make sense of breaking the rules for this no good brother of his.  To repent for him, would be to call his brother, brother once again.  And finding a way to sit a table of celebration with him.  At the end of this story he is not there yet, he can only call him his father’s son.  He is standing outside and just watching it all.  To repent, he would have to deal with a Dad who could love like that.  One who could love that no good brother, one who loved him just as much.  

Jesus paints a picture.  The loving parent goes out to meet the younger one on the road offering a chance to come home.  He goes to the older one to say come in.  You are home as well.   The offer is for each one.  It is for us.  It is more than a call to come, it is a call to conversion.  A casting off of snugness, of false righteousness, it is a setting aside of prejudice so that something can begin anew..  Each of the brothers has the invitation to change.   The picture of what happens next is up to us.  We see in this instant an entirely different way of being God’s family that is appealing and at the same time appalling to common sense understandings. Most likely we can see ourselves as one of the two brothers, perhaps the younger, having lived a little harder than we’d like to have, looking back.  Or as the older brother feeling that life has somehow shorted us out of some of the joy we had coming for the faithful work we have done.  There is a party going on.  Things can’t be like that?  Can they?

We don’t know if the younger brother has changed for good, we don’t know if the older brother ever lightened up and joined the party.  But every time someone comes back home, truly tries to draw closer to God.  God celebrates.  As we hear this story again, check your own thinking do you say, “yes let the prodigal return home”, but to bread and water, not a fatted calf.  In sack clothe, not a new robe, in tears but not merriment.  We do want people to come back, but first don’t we want them to feel pretty bad and come home with the air out of their balloons? Some say the image of the feasting and party cancels the seriousness of sin, and repentance.

There are some wonderful, frustrating tensions in this story, we don’t really know how it ends.  We don’t know whether the older brother joins in the party.  We don’t know what the younger brother does after the party.  Grace seems to supersede justice and we are left to struggle with what that means.   But as we come to ourselves, and seek to find that place where we are loved by someone best of all, we come home to find God’s love already waiting and a supper that is still hot.  Amen. 

An enchanting story is told of an elderly woman who lived her life by the motto, “if you can’t say something nice about someone don’t say anything at all.”  (I imagine we have each encountered someone like this, maybe we are someone like this.)  Somehow this kind woman could always find something nice to say about anyone, no matter who they were or what they were known for!  Now this proved to be a creative challenge for her grandchildren, and they would test her often saying “what about so and so?”, and she would come up with something nice.  Then one day, they thought they really had her.  “Grandma”, one child asked with a wicked grin, “what about the devil?, what do you have to say about him?”  She thought for a moment, the children waited and then she replied, “well, you have to say.. he’s always on the job- isn’t he!”  

If there is any biblical word that needs virtually no explanation for us today, it is “temptation”.   We know of it from biblical stories of Adam and Eve, King David, and others.  We know of it from books like the “Scarlet Letter” and from just about any “block buster” movie we may rent.  And too much so, we know of it from newspaper headlines.  Almost by instinct we come to learn that “temptation” is a negative word, meaning a desire to “be bad” or disobedient. 

Temptation today it is often thought of as an alcoholic reaching for one more drink, a teenager doing something stupid in order to fit in, someone pursuing an affair.  Often these are things that other people can clearly see would be bad for them, yet somehow they can not see it for themselves.  To those who are tempted, it can be very difficult to see the downside of what is so appealingly set before them.   

Jesus, however, could clearly see the shortfalls in what was being offered him by the devil.  His eyes were open to the reality of the consequences of his choices. As we consider the temptations before Jesus, it may seem like what he faced in no way reflects temptations we may face.  Yet every temptation has the same underlying tension.  To treat God as less than God, and treat ourselves as something more than human.  It was real for Jesus and it is real for us. 

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes “the Bible is not like a book of edification, telling us many stories of temptations and their overcoming.  To be precise, the Bible tells only two temptation stories, the temptation of the first man and the temptation of Christ, that is the temptation which led to man’s fall, and the temptation which led to Satan’s fall.  All other temptations in human history have to do with the two stories of temptation.  Either the Adam in me is tempted-in which case we fall.  Or the Christ in us is tempted – in which case Satan is bound to fall.” 

A good friend of mine defines temptation as a choice between “freedom and oppression.”  

We speak of temptations as a desire to be disobedient, yet at the heart of temptation is something greater, to treat God as something less than God and to treat ourselves as something more than human.  In temptations we choose between God’s will, which leads us to live in the freedom that is intended for each of us, or choosing to live in oppression of our own design, and a distortion of the truth. 

As we consider the temptations that Jesus faced, it may be difficult for us to believe that he was truly tempted, because he never did give in.  The Christ in him responded always.  The part of him that knew his essential identity so he always put God’s will above all else.  He chose to live in the freedom of the bounds of belonging to God. 

As we face temptation, the Adam within us sometimes prevails and we find ourselves living in a form of oppression that results from our choice.  Sometimes that which looks so appealing and perhaps even freeing at first can in fact narrow our world and close in things around us. 

While we may not be tempted to turn stones to bread, are we not tempted to question whether God will give us what we need for our daily journey?  While we may not be tempted to test God and gravity by jumping off a building, don’t we at times question or doubt God’s helpfulness in times of difficulty?  Asking where was God during that last crisis?,  Do we forget God’s promise my grace is sufficient for you.

It will always be tempting to give in to the ways of the world, in an effort to achieve whatever goals we may have set for ourselves for our personal or professional lives.  There are appealing shortcuts that will present themselves.   It is hard to worship and serve God only.  That is our calling.        

We pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “lead me not into temptation”.  For good cause.  It is most difficult to be in times of temptation and choice.   Many times we are going to make the wrong decision.  Jesus was led by the holy spirit to temptation for him to gain a greater sense of his identity.  He came away knowing more fully who he was and what he was called to be and do in his ministry.  He was not going to have power and possessions and prestige, he was going to have servant hood, poverty, and humility.  

In his time of greatest temptation he was alone and hungry in the desert, standing at the edge of his ministry.  The rest of his life was before him, a book filled with only blank pages.  What will be its nature and shape?  How will he relate to God and rely on God? Temptations will come to us with the same challenging questions that will shape our identities, no matter where we are in life.  Let us not shun temptations, but acknowledge how real and trying they are, and enter these times with a trust and confidence that the Holy Spirit is among us and within us actively showing us that which is of God.  Amen.