The Divine Crash

Today’s sermon was awesome.  It was almost 40 minutes long and I got to share my favorite verses.  Luke 15 and the prodigal son.  This sermon was a remix of the sermon series I gave at a college ski retreat (over the next week I will be posting the individual sermons).  I took those three sermons and combined them into one sermon.   Unfortunately my sermon was so long that my little handheld recorder couldn’t carry it all, so there is no podcast today.

To make up for not having a sermon podcast this week you can watch this video of the Skit Guys and their rendition of the prodigal son.

 

 

- Luke 15:11-24

There is so much going on here that I am going to try and preach all of it.  We have called in a caterer and lunch will be served at noon.  If I am done by then.

Prayer: God, your words are so rich with so much going on, give me the strength to speak it and give us all the power to hear it in a way that we need to hear it this morning.

 

A few things to note:

1. In this time period men controlled everything.  They were the head of the household and everything else was their property.

2. When a father died all money was an inheritance to the sons.

3. The son is asking for his inheritance early.  He is wishing his father dead.

4. In this culture to wish your father was dead was a death sentence.

- Exodus 21:15-17 says if you curse your parents you are put to death.

5. In that 1st century Jewish culture the law was the son should be stoned. The son’s life was so bad he would rather be dead than live at home.  He thought he could figure it out on his own.

6. The father should have dragged the son into the middle of the city and stoned him.  This son had brought great shame on the family.

- Made it impossible to live out the 5th commandment to honor mother and father.

 

 

How many of you have annoying little siblings that do stuff like this while you sit back and watch the train wreck?  How many of you are that annoying little sibling?

 

This young man thought he could make it on his own.  He knew better than his father.  Again, this is a lot of us at some point in our life.

 

But look what happened, he ended up wasting his money on “extravagant living”  Some translations say fast cars and loose women.  Another translation says prostitutes and drugs.  Scholars debate exactly what the son was doing and it really doesn’t matter.  What matters is that the son thought he could live life on his own and didn’t need anyone else to help/direct him.

 

He ended up at the bottom of a pig pen, hungry, alone, and now someone else’s property.

 

There is an ancient rabbinic saying that says “Cursed is anyone who takes care of pigs.” So to make things worse, the son is now cursed too.

 

Ever been in this guys spot? Maybe not literally but figuratively.

 

How often do we think we know what we are doing and so we trek off and head into the great unknown.

 

When I was 6 I did the same thing.  My grandfather passed away and his will said to take the whole family on a cruise.  So we did. While on this boat I got mad at my cousins and decided I knew better than them and my parents who told me to stay with them.

 

Off I went to create my own adventure.  The next thing I know every turn looks the same and I have no idea where I am.  I tried to find my way back and I just got more lost.

 

Eventually I sat down and started to cry in my own pity.

 

This is what happens when we try to go on things by ourselves.  Sometimes we end up lost, alone, and ready to give up.

 

Too often we believe we are in charge and we can make our own life in our own ways.

 

Too often we try to make our own path and we end up so far down the whole we have to look up to see rock bottom.

 

It is before this happens, It is in those moments, it is after this moment that we can do what the son did and come to our sense and get help.

 

We can stop doing life by ourselves and start doing life together.  Sure we have friends and people we can call on, but is there someone who will actually help you fix the problem?

 

You are all here today with so many different things going on.  Some of you hurt, some of you are sick, some of you are lonely, tired, and over burdened.  Call on each other and ask for help, ask for someone to do life with you.

 

This is why your church’s small groups, bible studies, and sunday school are so important because when a small group of you get together you can accomplish anything.

 

 

Back to my adventure on the cruise ship.  While I was sitting there lost a woman came up to me and asked if I was okay.  I just sobbed and she took me by the hand and took me to the security desk to find my family.

 

You should be like her. Some of us are so lost all we can do is sob and we need your help more than anything else.

 

 

Luke 15:11-24

 

 

It has been said that “Sin takes us where we don’t want to go and gives consequences we never intended.”

 

Some of you here might be thinking to yourself “I can’t go back. I’ve done too much.”

Some of you here might be thinking to yourself  ”If you really knew what happened you wouldn’t want me back.”

Some of you here might be thinking to yourself  ”I was close, I was in a community, but there were things I wanted to try and I have burned too many bridges to come home.”

 

enter our scripture.

 

The younger son who had wished his father dead found himself broke, homeless, and hungry.

 

1. Famine was not uncommon in the world. There was always a sense that a person needed to prepare for the worst in case a famine happened.  This son did not prepare.  In the culture he would have been seen as lazy and no one would have had pity on him.

2. Someone did have pity, he became the servant of someone with pigs.  His job was to feed pigs.

3. pigs are unclean to a jewish person.  No pork. There is a saying from the ancient rabbis “Cursed is anyone who cares for pigs.”

4. The stuff the pigs ate are called “pods” in the Bible but are most likely edemamae.  They look like peas but the outside has little spines on them.  You can eat the inside but the outside can be dangerous to eat.

5. If the son had eaten the pods he could have been killed because he was stealing what didn’t belong to him.

 

So the son who had danced with hookers, bought drinks for everyone, and otherwise wasted his money is now alone, do what is detestable for his beliefs, and wants to eat things that might kill him.

- Ever been there?

- Ever wondered how to get out of that place?

- Some of us know exactly what that place is like.

- Some of us still bear the scares of that place.

 

In verse 17 it says he “came to his senses” and decided to go home.

 

So the son starts walking home.  He starts rehearsing his speech.

 

When he is still a long way from home his father sees him and starts running.

 

The father gets to him, cuts off his speech, hugs him, kisses him. and dresses him in the best clothes and then starts getting a party ready.

 

There are some things going on here.

1. To come home was a death sentence.  He should have been stoned.  If those in the community would have seen him there would be no questions only stoning.

2. The father was looking for his son.  This would be unheard of because to the father, family, neighborhood the son was dead.  Why look for the dead?

3. Real men don’t run.  In this culture if you were an important man you were worth waiting for and you walked.  It was undignified to run and made a man a public disgrace.

4. The best clothes in the household of that time, belong to the father.  The father is dressing his son to look like him.  This would protect the son from the stoning because the people didn’t know who was who.

5. The fattened calf was something saved for a big deal.

 

So then, the son coming home is a big deal and he ends up going from a bare foot, cursed, homeless beggar to looking like the most respected man in the town.

 

Now, back to me on the cruise in 1989.  I got lost and after getting helped to the main deck security called my dad over the PA and I saw him and I’m crying and bawling but my dad scooped me up in his arms and hugged me like I have never been hugged.

 

so then, when you find yourself at the bottom and you come to your senses and then come home through Jesus you are made to look like Jesus, God runs to you and throws a party.

 

You are worthy of a party in the eyes of God.

 

You are worthy of God becoming a public disgrace.

 

You are worthy of God’s hugs, kisses, and clothes.

 

In the eyes of God even being cursed with pigs is not enough to keep you out of God’s love.

 

There is nothing you have ever done that will keep you from God.

 

Colossians 1:20 says that on the cross all things were reconciled to Jesus.  All things means you, your accomplice, and your victim.  They have all been forgiven and accepted before God.

 

If you find yourself today, now, in this place, wondering if you can come back to God the answer is yes.

 

There is no magic prayer and there is no magic ritual or saying.  There is only you coming to your senses and finding that Jesus is running towards you.  Sometimes this will bring you to your knees in prayer and sometimes it will make you jump for joy but either way you can know that you are forgiven and accepted as you are.

 

 

So, I’m on this cruise and my dad finds me, scoops me up, and then he takes me to the store on the ship and buys me a sweet new video game.  It was one of those old school games I could go left, right and shoot. I was a submarine and I had to shoot down the boats overhead.  It was awesome.  Then we went to dinner with the whole family.  Including all my cousins that I blew off to try and go my own way.

 

Now I’m the oldest cousin and then my sister.  Our next oldest was my cousin Matthew. He was 4 and he thought he was all that. When I walked in playing my video game boy I got a look.  He was so mad that I would get rewarded for breaking the rules.

 

With that my dad went to my cousin and said look, this is my son and I will make sure he is taken care of.

 

This is our scripture.  The father throws a party for the younger son and the older son gets mad because the son wasted his money and shouldn’t be rewarded when the older son does everything right and never got a party.  The father looks at the son and says I love you and I love him.  We are having a party not because of what he did but because he is home now.

 

If we are honest with ourselves we have been there.  We have found ourselves thinking that those people who just came back to God are not as good a christian as us.  That we are maybe more mature because we don’t accidentally curse anymore….we have moved on to cursing for attention to use it as a witnessing tool because it makes us look cool and relevant to the world.

 

And maybe some of you this have done that, you have decided to come back to God, that you are sick and tired of trying to do this all by yourself and you want to be back in the house of God.  But you are worried about what will be said about you by those who didn’t left.  Those who can’t tell you their conversion date because they can’t remember a time they weren’t Christian. You are worried about the older brother.

 

Look at what the older brother does. He says what about me, What’s my share?

The father responds with, everything I have is yours. And it is right that we should be happy because your brother is home.

 

Then the screen fades to black.  There is no catharsis of knowledge no sudden breakthrough to a new level of consciousness.

 

Just God and the good son, standing outside a party.

 

So then, for those of you who have come home, there is a party happening in your honor.

 

For those of you who have decided you are a better Christian than those new people you can stand back and be aggravated at their forgiveness and party or you can join the party and rejoice that they were lost and now found.

 

If you decide not to join all of heaven in the party you miss out on some super fun and you make the younger sons upset because they need the help of the older son to learn what it is to be a Christian, they don’t need more condemnation.

Story about abortion clinic protesters.

Don’t be like the protesters who claim the greatness of God to scare people  and judge them….it only turns people off, even the younger son.

 

If you do join in the party then you now have the opportunity to join with heaven and you get the ability to teach the younger sons and daughters what it means to be in the family of God.  To remind them that God’s love is always there and that you will help them stay in the family of God and not let them go through life on their own.

 

However, the choice is entirely up to you.  The screen fades to black and what happens next is not in the Bible and God doesn’t force the choice on you.

 

As we close in prayer may you ask God for forgiveness from all those times you were the younger brother and for all those times you were the older brother.  May you have the courage to welcome home the younger brother and to join the party of those who have come home

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Sermon by RevBT