[Propertalk] Gospel tidbits - March 14 - Lent 4 - Part 5

[Joe Parrish]

Any way you look at it, this is an alarming story. It is about hanging out with the wrong people. It is about throwing parties for losers and asking winners to foot the bill. It is about giving up the idea that we can love God and despise each other. We simply cannot, no matter how wrong any of us has been. The only way to work out our relationship with God is to work out our relationship with each other.

http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=644

Barbara Brown Taylor, 1998
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We fret about the young man's sincerity, and our own, but John Stendahl says, "often we worry about purity of motive and depth of feeling when the critical thing is simply what we do or where we go or remain" (New Proclamation Year C 2001). That is, the turning home itself was all it took, the bringing ourselves into range, so to speak, of God's love, which sets us free but waits and watches and hopes for our return. 

http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/march-14-2010.html

Kathryn Matthews Huey, 2010
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...the good brother begrudges his father's joy over his brother's return - so those who are godly should welcome God's extension of love to the undeserving. 
The parable raises a question: at the end of the era, will godly people be ready to be joyous in sharing the Kingdom with reformed sinners and a God who loves them?

http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/clnt4m.shtml

Chris Haslam 
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Verses 29-30: The elder son omits the polite address, "Father", which the younger son uses in v. 21.  Further, he cannot bring himself to acknowledge the younger son as his brother: he calls him "this son of yours". 

http://montreal.anglican.org/comments/archive/clnt4l.shtml

Chris Haslam 
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Feasts were celebrations of belonging, not only among the rich entrepreneurs, but also in modest form in religious groups, like the Essenes and the Pharisees. Like them, Jesus saw such meals as celebrating what was to come and celebrating that belonging already in the present. 

http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/LkLent4.htm

William Loader
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A man came to our church with this moving testimony. He is a truck driver. His life had taken a wrong turn as he became addicted to crack cocaine. His family was destroyed by his addiction. One day, while driving south on Hampton Boulevard in Dallas near Interstate 20, tears filled his eyes as he drove and pondered his plight. To make matters worse, he noticed a siren and a police officer signaling for him to pull over. This is the last thing he needs, he says to himself, feeling his life is being flushed down a toilet toward a ruinous end. The police officer notices his tears and asks if he is all right. The truck driver is proud and says he will be. The police officer tells him, it's Sunday morning and he should go to church and hear from heaven. The truck driver says he would be glad to, but he's from out of town and doesn't know where to go. The officer tells him to go to Friendship-West, the church he belongs to. The truck driver asks for directions, and the directions began the change his life needed. The officer said, "Make a U-turn at the next light. Drive two blocks and turn right. When you turn right, look up and above the trees you will see a cross. Follow the cross and you'll be all right."  

http://www.theafricanamericanlectionary.org/PopupLectionaryReading.asp?LRID=91

Frederick Haynes III, 2009
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But Jesus wanted his audience to identify with that older brother; we today need to identify with that older brother. The older brother represents the "in-group," the righteous and good Jews in Jesus' audience, faithful believers who led pious lives, the established church membership of the last 1st century Greek church for whom Luke alone recalled this parable of Jesus, and the solid, middle-class regular members of our churches today. Yes, the parable is about the good folk, it is about us. We prefer to view the parable as all about the prodigal because it takes the heat off of us, and our real need to identify with that older brother.

http://www.goodpreacher.com/shareit/readreviews.php?cat=28

Robert Gnuse
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