Trinity Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

Sermons 

Title: "Never Too Far Away"

Text: Luke 15:1-3, 11-32

the fourth Sunday in Lent, 1986,

I was preaching my very first sermon

in my very first installed pastoral position.

And this is the text that the lectionary handed me.

I remember thinking, oh great.

Here is a story that everybody knows,

and has probably heard dozens of sermons about,

and I have to tackle it on my first Sunday

with a new bunch of people.

All of whom were nice folks, to be sure,

but who were perhaps legitimately wondering

what in heaven’s name this 25-year-old female pastor

had to say that they might need or want to hear.

Well, I thought it went okay,

but after the service, one of them came up to me and said,

"You know, I’ve always hated that story."

As I got to know that person better,

I came to understand exactly why she hated it, because,

like me, she was the responsible-acting sibling …

the one who played by the rules,

did whatever Mom or Dad wanted or needed us to do,

brought home good grades,

didn’t ever rebel very much,

and is still the one her parents depend on

when there is a serious need.

And, in her case as in mine,

there’s a younger sibling or siblings who, growing up,

got away with things we would never have dreamed of doing,

and then acted so charming about it

that they never got in very much trouble.

And yet, our parents loved those finks all the same,

and sometimes it seemed like maybe they loved them even more,

because they certainly gave them more attention!

 

Many of us in the church,

particularly in the established, mainline churches,

have a streak of that older brother / older sister in us.

You can see it throughout church history,

is the ways we’ve tried to make rules

to govern our own and everyone else’s behavior.

That’s "older-sibling" behavior.

In fact, it has to have been an older-brother type

who named this story "the parable of the prodigal son,"

because of what that implies about

the point of the story being the younger son and his problem behavior.

Whereas Jesus,

who was telling the story in order to demonstrate something to the Pharisees,

might have preferred to call it

"the parable of the stuck-up self-righteous son."

Or, as I would suggest,

the perspective that we really need

would be reflected by calling it,

"the parable of the loving father."

Because, even though the younger son

is the character we see in most of the story,

the parable is really more about the father,

and his response to both of his children,

both of whom have problems,

and both of whom need love and correction.

Bill Oglesby, who is a wonderful pastoral counselor,

and a writer about what he does,

talks about the difference between the older brother and the younger brother,

only he calls it the first-type child and the second-type child,

because usually the oldest child is first-type and the second is second-type,

but sometimes that can be reversed.

Anyway, the first-type child, normally the first-born,

in one respect has it easy

because he or she doesn’t have to compete with other small people

for the attention of the big people.

And this child quickly learns

what kinds of things make parents happy,

and learns that when parents are happy,

they will tend to do nice things for child.

So the first-type child grows up eager to please, and anxious to please.

She or he learns how to live by the rules,

suppress anger or other negative emotions,

get attention and love by being good.

All of which works great until the second-type child comes along.

The second-type child is, in a sense, born with a disadvantage,

because there is already a small person in the house

who has cornered the market on being good.

And though the second-type child may try at first,

he or she soon learns that the other

has enough of a head start on learning all the tricks,

that they’re never going to catch up.

And so the second-type child learns, generally quite accidentally at first,

that the way for him or her to get Mom and Dad’s attention

is by not being good.

Let’s say you’re the second-type child,

and you see your older brother or sister looking through a book,

and that looks like fun.

So you get a book too, and you start flipping through the pages,

but you forgot that your fingers were all chocolatey,

and besides, you’re not real coordinated yet,

so when you turn the pages some of them tear,

and they get wrinkled up,

and they get chocolate fingerprints on them.

And when one of your parents sees this … they react!

"What are you doing?!

You put that down!

Come with me and get cleaned up;

don’t you ever do that again!"

But all you were trying to do

was exactly the same thing the older child was doing.

It doesn’t take long to figure out

that you’ll never get attention for being good,

because you’ll never be quite as good as that older kid,

because they’ve had time and practice to get it right.

You discover that it’s when you do things wrong

that Mom and Dad notice you.

So now you know:

If Mom is busy and you want to tell her something,

and she just won’t pay attention to you,

well, go hammer a few nails into the coffee table.

You will soon have her undivided attention!

The second-type child is afraid

that if they start being good,

no one will notice them any more.

They’re afraid to stop acting up,

because they fear they will become invisible

to the people who are important to them.

The first-type child

is afraid to stop acting good.

They are afraid that if anyone ever

finds out what they are really like below the surface,

that no one will love them.

That’s exactly what’s going on

behind the story of the father and his two sons.

One son who can’t be anything but good,

another who can’t give up being bad.

But the story is really about

the father who loves them both,

and about God who loves us,

whether our tendency is to act good or to act up.

No matter which direction we go,

we are never too far away for God’s love to reach us,

and never too far away to return.

We see this in the way

that the father responds to each of his sons.

When the younger son is returning,

we learn that the father saw him from afar off,

so we know that he was watching for him,

even after all this time,

and even though he didn’t know for sure

that his son would ever return.

And when he sees him coming,

he doesn’t sit back and prepare his

"what do you have to say for yourself?" speech.

No, he races down the road to meet him,

and gives him a big ol’ bear hug,

and brings him new clothes, and throws a party for him.

Imagine God welcoming you in that way,

no matter how far away you had been.

The father responds similarly to the older brother.

When he discovers that this son

is not celebrating with everyone else,

he goes out to the fields to meet him.

He doesn’t wait for him to come in later,

or expect him to meet halfway.

He goes out to where the son is.

Because even though the older son doesn’t realize it,

in his own way he is as far away from God as was his brother.

Yet the father comes to meet him also.

Even he, in his self-righteousness,

is not too far away from God.

We are never too far away from God.

Whether we are the prodigal child, or the one who stayed home …

the first-type child, or the second-type child.

God is ready to come running to us,

to meet us halfway, or more than halfway,

to welcome us home,

and to invite us to the party.

God is near, no matter where we are.

There is no such thing as "too far away."

Thanks be to God! Amen.

© 2004 Julie Adkins (e-mail: DrJAdkins@trinitypresdallas.org)