Luke 15:1-3, 11-24

Jesus upset the Pharisees, the good religious folk of his day.    What sort of God did he represent? He mixed with the wrong people, enjoyed life and parties, and worse openly welcomed people that were considered sinners and beyond the pail.  When the Pharisees grumbled he simply told some stories.  There was the story of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the story we read this morning. 

It begins with a simple little opening.  A man had two sons and the younger comes and asks for his inheritance – half the farm.  “Give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” And so the father divides the property and gives him his share.    We read these words with ease but I invite you to stop and reflect what you might do if one of your children came and said, “I would like my inheritance now.”  I can almost guarantee you’ll react inside at least with some anger and hurt.  In Middle Eastern culture the father reigned supreme.  No true son would dream of asking this question, and if he did, he could expect a very clear message.  Asking for your inheritance now is rude, inappropriate, and unacceptable.  Further, this father knew the character of the son.  He was the wild impulsive one and the father would know that there was every chance that the land would be cashed up and the proceeds wasted and lost to the family forever.  Everyone listening would simply expect the father to say ‘no’ and to tell the disrespectful son to go jump! 

But this father is screw loose, crazy, different.  He simply let’s the son have his way.  He simply lets the son make his wild choices and instead of putting him in his place lets him freely choose his path.

It didn’t take long for the worst fears of everyone to be realized as the younger son cashed in the assets and head off to another country turning his back on his dad, his family, and his religion.  You can just imagine what the village gossips were saying about the crazy father, and maybe you can just imagine how the father felt as his younger son left possibly without even a word of farewell.  In the background the older son was absolutely fuming and would have gladly wrung his brother’s neck.  He could see his dad hurting.  The family had not only lost half their farm but were now deeply troubled and divided.

The younger son meanwhile was having a great time.    My Bible says he “squandered the money in dissolute living.”  That’s living without moral constraint, or as we might say loose living – parties, wild living, women, fast cars, and booze. 

It didn’t last, and just as the money ran out a severe famine hit the far off land and the son disassociated from any of the normal support networks finds himself at rock bottom.  A Jewish boy ends up feeding pigs wishing he could eat what the pigs were eating.  You can’t get much more desperate as a Jew.  He is in a distant country isolated and lonely.  There is it seems no-one who would know or care what was going on inside him.  He is lost.  He is far away from his father’s home.  Both literally and figuratively there is a deep void and emptiness within. The story simply says he came to his senses.  It is often the way that it takes a deep crises to face up to things in our lives.  For the son it was time to swallow whatever little pride he had  left and realize there was a better life back home.   This wasn’t going to be easy – he had no idea how he might be received.  There would be anger no doubt and judgment, and things could never be as they were.  But maybe there would also be some mercy , just a little mercy and he could serve as a labourer on the farm.  And so he prepares his little speech that comes from deep within.  Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me like one of your hired hands.  It’s his only hope of life, so this bedraggled, skin and bone lump of  flesh sets off with his last play of the dice. 

Word travels and while he was still  far off the scriptures tell us the father saw him and was “filled with compassion.”  Full up with Compassion.  The father ran to meet him….. no father in these times ran it simply wasn’t the done thing.  The queen would never run in public.  He immediately throws his arms around him and kisses him a sign of welcome and acceptance that even in our culture we understand well.  I might add that this welcome I believe would have saved the son from a stoning at the hands of the locals who would not want this boy back in their midst.  They remembered well how he had shamed his family and turned his back on them all and in typical middle eastern fashion they would ensure he didn’t come back into their midst. 

The boy however is oblivious.  He knows he’s really gone off the rails so even after the welcome from his Dad he splutters out his little speech.  Father I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son, treat me like one of your hired hands.  But the father simply doesn’t hear him.  He’s busy ordering his servants to bring a robe – the family robe- to put a ring on his finger and shoes on his feet. These are all the signs that this boy is not a servant but is one of the family, and not only one of the family but an important respected key member of the family- a son.  The father orders the fatted calf to be killed, – my Bible has a little note: meat was not often eaten so killing the fatted calf was a sign of a very special celebration, and of course this little episode has lived on in our language where still we use the metaphor of killing the fatted calf to signify a special celebration.

The father blesses him with the gift of amazing acceptance. Despite the hurt, the disaster of his life, there is grace and acceptance.  You are mine.  My son was dead but now he is alive, and they began to celebrate….well all but the faithful older son who was fuming…..judging…..and unbeknown to him as lost as the younger son was.  He has never left home.  He has always done the right thing.  He was a good boy and a model son.  He has never rebelled or turned his back on his dad or family, but sadly he has also never really got to know his father and the compassion that was key to his character.  There’s no way he’s going to accept this younger son – not after what he did and the hurt he’s caused.  There is no compassion, just judgment.

So why does Jesus tell this story and what do you make of the story?  Who do you think you resonate with in terms of your life?  The younger son, the older son, the father?  Maybe a bit of all of them.

I am the prodigal son every time I search for unconditional love where it cannot be found- in the search for success, in the making of money, in seeking the praise of others.   I know in my heart the far off place – the distant country.  I know the fathers love, but I forget.  My rebellion is Adam’s rebellion: the rejection of God in whose love we are created and by whose love we are sustained.  It is the rebellion of the world around me, where overflowing compassion is irrational and crazy.  It’s simply not how the world works…. But it is how God works.     

I am also the older son, the good boy who tries to please the father in the hope that this will earn my salvation.  I keep busy doing good things hoping this will please God and obtain the eternal stamp of approval my soul longs to know. 

But isn’t the story really about the father.  The crazy father.  I often call this story the story of the crazy father because that’s what the father was.  Absolutely crazy.  Irrationally compassionate.  Totally at odds with the way of the world.

But I do see.  I see the carving before us and am reminded that God is a crazy father who never stops believing and never stop longing, and never stops longing to bless.  Every so often it rubs off and I find my true self, I come to my senses and I live the life God intended.  I am no longer lost or alienated but caught up in the compassion of God I too am compassionate.  Praise God! 

Here in this story the spiritual mystery of my life is unveiled. I am loved so much that I am left free to leave home. But the crazy Father is always out looking for me and you with outstretched arms to welcome us back and whisper again in our ear: ‘You are my Beloved’.‘   Such is the Father that we see in Jesus Christ our Saviour.  Such is the good news of Jesus who invites us to put our trust in our God of crazy compassion.

The Banquet…. Isaiah 25: 6-10, Luke 14:15-24,

Have you ever noticed that Jesus liked a good nosh up.  He talks a lot about feasts.  He turned the water into wine at Cana to have a good banquet.  Zacchaeus had an interesting meal with him, Simon the Pharisee got more than he bargained for when he invited Jesus to a banquet.  The feeding of the 5000….The upright Pharisees accused him of eating and drinking too often and too much. 

Feasts still are an important part of most cultures.  Take a wedding feast for example.  Some of you will remember agonising over the guest list trying to decide who to invite and who to leave off.  Those you invite are honoured and those you leave off are … well sometimes it turns into major family issues.  Ouch….The insiders belong, the relationship with the host is strengthened, but for those on the outer there is a message that somehow they don’t matter so much.  That hurts.  Then there’s the food because you want the best for your guests, but there are also practical issues like costs.  The last thing you want is people going home hungry or thinking that was a stingy affair.  Feasts are a celebration and you want the assembled guests to have a good time.  There are all sorts of important messages being conveyed in feasts.

In Middle Eastern culture where hospitality is such an important virtue, magnify this by ten.  Feasts were and remain incredibly important.  

Our scriptures have stories and images about a special feast called the Messianic Banquet.  The idea is that sometime in the future when the earth is transformed according to the will of God, God will host a great feast.   In Christian imagery it also marks the return of Jesus although in my eyes Jesus remains with us in Spirit.  

Whenever we celebrate Communion we are remembering the Messianic banquet…. And our scriptures quote Jesus as saying at the Last supper that he looked forward to the time when he would share a meal with all people at the great reunion. I wonder if you have any thoughts of what that may look like?  (No more hunger because everyone well fed, healing of all the barriers, caring for creation, Shalom – Peace)

Our passage from Isaiah is pre Jesus but it’s typical of the images we have about this great banquet.  Remember as with so much of our scriptures you need to turn on your imaginary brain, your poetic brain, which we are not always good at.

On this mountain the Lord of all hosts will throw a feast for all the people of the world, a feast of rich food, a feast of well-aged wines, of rich food lavish with gourmet desserts.  And God will banish the pall of gloom hanging over all peoples, the shroud that is cast over all peoples, the sheet that is spread over all nations, and God will swallow up death forever.  God will wipe away the tears from all faces and every sign of disgrace of his people.  All will be well fed, and all the earth will be healed and resonate with the joy of salvation.  What an image.

You can hear the resonance with the final passages in the book of Revelation.  There is a new intimacy between God and humanity.  The shroud referred to is the temple curtain that separated people and God.  Heaven and earth become one as all peoples sit down to the great feast hosted by God with the best wine and food.  Exquisite flavour, goodness, rich food.  MasterChef eat your heart out.

But note who is there…all peoples, all nations.

Actually that was too radical for the good religious folk in our past.  Around the time of Jesus there was a translation of some of the scriptures into Aramaic, the everyday language of the day.  This added text to try and explain what the original Hebrew said a little like the Living Bible or the Message does in our own day.  It was called the Targum and in the Targum this vision of Isaiah is given a whole new twist.  All people will come to the mountain but also that they would be inflicted with plagues, plagues from which there would be no escape and they will come to their end.  Where did that come from?  The universal welcome is changed into judgment and destruction for the outsiders.

About the same time another piece of writing called the book of Enoch emerged and that too speaks of a great banquet with the Messiah to which the Gentiles were invited.  But Enoch tells us the angel of death will be present and will use his sword to destroy the Gentiles.  The banquet hall will run with blood and the select few believers will have to wade through the gore to reach the meal and sit down with the Messiah to enjoy the feast.

The Qumran Community also active in the time of Jesus and from whom we got the Dead Sea Scrolls discovered last century has a number of writings about the Messianic banquet have yet another take on who would be invited.  It was a feast for the pure ones, the faithful ones who were part of the select community.  So the Gentiles didn’t even get a look in, but neither did anyone with a disability, the blind, the deaf, or anyone smitten with a visible blemish which clearly was a sign of God’s disfavour.  Oh dear,  people can so often get the wrong end of the stick.  Only the select few who are good enough will be invited.

We are good in all sorts of subtle ways if putting up fences, deciding that some are worthy and some are not.  Jesus seems to have very different ideas. 

He asks his servants to go out and invite others to the feast.  I have to admit I’m not the greatest at going out and inviting others but I’m in good company. 

In a typical Middle Eastern village the host of the banquet invites a group of friends.  On the basis of the acceptances they will design the menu and prepare the food.  On the appointed day the beast are slaughtered and the meal prepared.  When everything is ready the host will send his servants around the village with the message, “please come, everything is ready”.  We do it a little differently.  We invite people for drinks and nibbles and then at the appointed time we say, come let’s sit down to eat.  Whatever when the appointed time came in Jesus’ story there are excuses.  I have to go and inspect a piece of land that I’ve just purchased…. I have just purchased a new car and need to give it a spin….I’ve just married and I want to spend some time in the bedroom. 

Only if you think about it these excuses are not very genuine.  Have you ever purchased a house without looking at it first?  This is pre internet so there isn’t even a picture to look at.  No-one purchases without some sort of pre-inspection.  I guess it could be that there has been a negotiation in the wind for a while that needs to be settled immediately, but that isn’t what the text says.  The response in the text is simply lame and insulting.  So is the second.  You don’t buy a car without a test drive.  You certainly don’t buy yoked oxen without trialling them.  Do they work well together?  They will be hopeless if they don’t pull as a team.  As with props in a scrum you have to get balanced pulling or pushing power or else everything screws around.  No farmer will even bid on a pair of oxen without testing them carefully.  It is an insulting response.  And the third man doesn’t even ask to be excused.  I have a new woman in my bedroom and I am busy with her.   It is rude and insulting.

The master hears the three responses and is angry.  He has been stood up, and he is insulted.  Those invited simply don’t value the master and what he stands for.  The master has been slapped in the face and it hurts, but the anger is channelled into something positive.  Go out into the streets and byways and bring in the poor, the maimed, the blind, and the lame.  The master could have gone after the three so called friends and found some way to get back at them for their rude-ness but instead he channels the anger into grace.  Such is the character of the master.  The everyday people, the nobodies, the common-folk are invited and welcomed into the banquet.  There is no expectation of an invite back because it’s simply not possible for these folk. And despite the fact that there is many of them, there is still room, and so the invitation is issued wider to those who naturally will respond, ‘what me, impossible, look at who I am!”  Some gentle persuasion is required to convince these folk to accept the invitation because the master and they are poles apart.  Why would he invite me?  The Master is a gracious being who seems to care for everyone.

The final sentence is addressed to all of us.  For I tell you none of those men who were invited shall taste my banquet.  This sounds harsh and judgmental but they were invited and I believe the door would have been open had they changed their minds and come.  God is always invitational giving us the freedom to choose yes or no.

It’s sobering to realise that Jesus was aiming these remarks at good religious folk who one suspects had become well settled in their faith and were no longer open to the leading and activity of God in their midst.  We know it all.  We have God nicely boxed up.  This parable gives me a little jolt to open my eyes wider, to open my mind further, to know I have much more to learn and experience in my journey with God.  It’s actually easy for insiders to make themselves outsiders as their faith and religion becomes simply a settled place of comfort and not an ongoing journey of discovery, learning, and celebration of God’s grace. 

For Jesus the banquet is not just something in the future, but it has begun.  Remind yourself often of the great goodness and grace of God.  What an amazing earth we have been gifted with.   What opportunity we have been given in our lives.  What good fortune has been ours in fining a home in this land called Aotearoa.  What hope we have because God has reached out to invite us to join the feast and to look forward to the culmination when Shalom will be found in every corner of our planet.  

And knowing this  is not the challenge of this parable really to invite others to the banquet of grace and belonging where God welcomes us all. 

Dugald Wilson 8 September 2019

Hospitality Gen 18:1-14, Luke 14 7-14, Hebrews 13:1-3

Many years ago I decided to walk the Heaphy Track which runs across the northwest tip of the south island.  Not owning a vehicle and not having much to come and go on I was dependent on hitching rides to get there.  The tramp started from near Collingwood and I spent a glorious four days tramping and eventually arriving at the track end at Karamea on the West Coast in the early afternoon, with the plan to hitch back to Christchurch.   What I hadn’t contemplated was the almost complete absence of traffic on the West Coast in those days.  With about three cars passing every hour I realized that hitching a ride was not going to be easy.  To make matters worse a southerly front came through and it began to rain and in no time I was feeling like a drowned rat.  As I walked along and with the light began to fail I was looking for a suitable bridge or shelter to camp under.  In the gathering dusk an old farm truck approached.  It was obviously a local vehicle so I didn’t hold any hope of a ride, but it slowed and stopped.  He driver opened the cab door and suggested I throw my pack on the back.  “I’m not going far,” he said, “but I’ll give you a bed for the night.”  This was music to my ears for I was wet through, shivering, and cold.

What ensued was an interesting experience.  I was graciously welcomed into a home that was unlined on the inside as obviously the family had no money to finish the build. There were some old curtains pinned up against some of the exposed framing to give privacy. I don’t think there was running hot water but I was offered a towel to dry off.  I had a very simple meal with the mum dad and three kids with the food being stretched to include another mouth.  I quickly realized they were a devout Mormon family as we prayed together and talked a little about our lives.  We retired early but not before they had made a telephone call to the local mailman who they assured me would pass that way in the morning and would be happy to take an extra passenger into Westport.   I told them I was happy to sleep in the barn, but they would have none of it.  I suspect I ended up getting one of the children’s beds, and possibly they doubled up.  Whatever I slept well and in the morning not only was the sun shining again, but I made it to Christchurch.  I will always remember the hospitality of that family taking in an unknown drowned rat and treating him with open handed hospitality. They had so little but they were so gracious and kind. I sensed the presence of divine gracious love.  In their willingness to eat a little less tea that night, give up a bed, make space in their home for a drowned rat stranger I knew God alive in their home.  I might say in many travels in many places and most of the time I have discovered a gracious spirit of hospitality.  This spirit is of God.

Hospitality is a concept that is central to our scriptures especially hospitality to strangers. I love the story of Abraham and Sarah offering hospitality to the three strangers by the Oaks of Mamre.  In typical middle eastern fashion they really go to town with their hospitality, cancelling the planned activities of the day and cooking up a wonderful meal.  And something happens as they make space for these unknown travelers and engage in conversation.  A word from God is delivered. Sarah will have a child.  I think strangers who cross our paths often bring messages from God and what we may think of as random encounter is not quite so random as we think.

Jesus himself often talks about hospitality.  In Luke 14;12-14 he tells us that we should offer hospitality not just to our friends or those who might offer us something in return but to people beyond our normal circle.  “The next time you put on a dinner, don’t just invite your friends and family.  Invite some people who never get invited out, the misfits and the nobodies.  And when you do you’ll be and you’ll experience a blessing.  They may not be able to return the favour, but the favour will be returned.  Wait and see!”   offering hospitality, making space for others is absolutely central to life.  We have often forgotten this in our crazy busy western world.

When Jesus left us he said remember me in this way and he invited his disciples to gather around a table and share a meal together.  Sharing food and drink together is a powerful act of reconciliation and trust. You don’t really eat together if there are outstanding issues, hurts that divide.   

Contemporary life is nomadic.  We pass one another as ships in the night – a sea of strangers.  Even here at church we may know names but we know little more about the lives we sit next to.  The frenetic pace of life means most of us are even alienated from our deep selves.  Our growing youth suicide figures are the canary in the mine telling us of the desperate need for a more hospitable society.  Henri Nouwen the great Catholic spiritual teacher of our time said “if there is any concept worth restoring to its true depth it is the concept of hospitality.”  Making space for each other, listening to the story of another.  A few days ago Janet and I engaged our neighbour and his son just outside our home.  The son is a shy difficult child who I think is really struggling at school and I suspect at home.  He often doesn’t engage at all when you say hello.  We were heading out but somehow the boy got talking about movies he had been watching and with some encouragement we got to hear about Angry Birds 2, ninja turtles, and a host of other characters I had never heard of.  Our cup of coffee at the café went by the board as we listened and engaged.  I think even dad learned something about his silent son as he just kept spouting forth about things that were important for him. 

Hospitality….. listening, making space…..  

In a fragmented anxious world hospitality is a spiritual practice we need to nurture. Nurturing life – building connection we say on our noticeboard. 

Scholars tell us that the remarkable explosion of Christianity in the first century was due not only to proclamation of the gospel, but also to the extraordinary quality of Christian hospitality.  Evangelism wasn’t standing at street corners haranguing people but making space for others, listening to their stories, reaching out over the boundaries of ‘you are different to me’.  Early Christians met around a table where the very wealthy sat next to nobody slaves as fellow and equal human beings.  Bread was broken as a sign that we are all broken and people could be honest about the hell they were going through, the bad mistakes they had made, or the joys they were blessed with.  There was a quality of welcome that patiently dismantled the fences we like to construct around ourselves.  There was some wonderful conflicts that emerged, but hospitality didn’t sweep those under the carpet.  Through this hospitality people knew they mattered, they were accepted, and as their lives were touched by human hospitality they sensed the divine love and healing of God.  Special places of hospitality and healing were created…. They were called hospitals… special places of hospitality. 

Saint Benedict who began many monasteries in the Middle Ages proclaimed that all guests to the monasteries should be welcomed as Christ, because he will say, “I was a stranger and you took me in.”  The heart of Benedictine spirituality is hospitality – a Christian community should warmly welcome anyone in the name of Christ regardless of status, looks, or respectability.

In our own midst I witness many wonderful acts of hospitality every week.  Our Elder Care programme, the listening in the walking group, the warm welcome as people gather on Sundays, the invitation to share a coffee or a meal together… there are many ways we create space for others and open our hearts to see in them the presence of God. 

Hospitality is a spiritual practice just like prayer.  It requires discipline and work.  Often we find it hard to open our hearts to others especially if they are different.  We know it’s hard to walk up to someone wearing a head covering and engage in conversation.  What do you say?  But it is not only dress and religion that causes us to hold back. Within our midst we have huge divides between generations.  Even I find myself saying sometimes “young people these days…!”  I had a young person call by the other day trying to sign me up to regular donations for UNICEF. I made it clear I had other projects I supported but complemented her on her commitment and affirmed her.  The encouragement opened the door to a significant conversation as she asked about what I did as a job.  Finding something to genuinely affirm in the other is a great way of opening the door of hospitality and deeper engagement. 

As Jesus said to us it is easy to offer hospitality to those who are just like us but as his followers we are invited to do more.  In the gracious gift of life God is wonderfully hospitable to all of us.  As Abraham and Sarah discovered when you offer hospitality to strangers you often discover a message from God.   The truth of this is found in that memorable verse from Hebrews 13:2 Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers.  In doing this many have discovered they entertained angels without knowing it. Angels are simply anyone with a message from God.

So I invite you to work at the spiritual practice of hospitality.  Notice more often the wonderful hospitality of God in your life. Be prepared to alter your planned day to make space for others.  Have more coffees and conversations and be prepared to meet angels who of course are broken human beings just like you and me.  Maybe you could think of yourself as an angel and what message of God would you like to pass on to those you meet today

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Dugald Wilson 1 September 2019