Come to Your
Senses!
Luke 15:17
March 14,
2010
Sisters and
brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you, in the name of God the
Father, Son (X)
and Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today we have before us the famous Parable of the Prodigal Son – perhaps the best known parable of Jesus, next to the one on the good Samaritan (Luke 10:30-37). This parable on the prodigal son is great – inspiring the text of the beloved hymn, Amazing Grace, by John Newton (1725-1807), and also the radio humorist, Garrison Keillor, to say that the only eulogy he wants read at his funeral is this parable (The Lutheran, February 2002, p. 22).
The Prodigal
Son
This parable is also internally great for its three leading figures – the woebegone son, after whom it’s named, and then the forgiving father and jealous older brother. The famous German Lutheran scholar, Helmut Thielicke (1908-1986), argued in his popular book, The Waiting Father (1959), that this parable should actually be named after the father since it’s “only because... [he] was open and receptive... that [the son] was able to... be reconciled” (p. 28). But that’s not quite right. For if that naughty boy hadn’t repented of his dissolute, “loose” (RSV) or “riotous” (KJV) ways (Luke 15:13) – he never would have gone home to look for reconciliation with his father in the first place. On that score, then, the younger, disobedient son is the key figure – as has been said for years – because repentance is so central to forgiveness – as Martin Luther (1483-1546) long ago pointed out, calling it in fact a requirement of forgiveness itself (Luther’s Works 12:333).
So the
heart of this parable then is the line that “he came to himself” (Luke
15:17). That’s because this line is a euphemism for repentance. When the
younger son comes to his senses he realizes how wrong he is – and that
starts the ball rolling in the direction of his new life (Luke 15:24,
32). But many don’t see it that way. Barbara Grace Witten has written a
whole book on this theological rebellion, entitled
All Is Forgiven (
Reversus
In the old Latin Bible our key line from Luke 15:17, “he comes to himself,” is given a helpful twist – in se autem reversus. Here the note of reversal is sounded – with the putting of pressure on the boy to repent and live a new life. This is illuminating because it captures what’s so difficult about repenting. Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) – that avid reader of Luther’s sermons – expresses this reversus and its inherent internal turmoil in a memorable way. “Only in this way is... the struggle the truth,” he writes. “when the single individual fights for himself with himself within himself” (Kierkegaard’s Writings 5:143). It’s just that sort of inner battle that brings about the reversus of repentance and our new life with God – whereby we admit he’s right and we’re wrong (LW 51:318).
And all of us need to learn from this reversus – because all Christians are threatened by drifting away from our great salvation (Hebrews 2:1-3). Once we’ve been saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8) – we can still make a shipwreck of our salvation (1 Timothy 1:19). So when we’re told that nothing can snatch us from our Father’s hand (John 10:29) – that doesn’t mean that we can’t ruin our faith all on our own (contra Luke 11:28; 1 Peter 5:9) (LW 28:252-253; 51:128). For God’s faithfulness doesn’t keep us from being faithless (2 Timothy 2:13). Therefore Lutherans condemn “those who teach that persons who have once become godly cannot fall again” [The Book of Concord (1580), ed. T. Tappert (1959) p. 35]. Because of that danger and risk we need to “live in harmony” with our baptism and keep it as a “daily” preoccupation (LW 35:39; BC, p. 445) – seeing to it that we’re even converted on a “daily” basis as well [quottidie converti] (LW 17:117).
Sexual Filth
By studying the prodigal son carefully we’ll be able to work more diligently at being converted on a daily basis. And the first thing we learn from such a study is our weakness for sexual filth. In the parable we’re told that he wanted to run off to a far away country so he could have sexual dalliances with whores and not be seen or caught by his family and friends (Luke 15:13, 30). That’s what he spent his fortune on – illicit sexual favors. And that tempts us all.
Just think how advertisers use immodestly clad women to sell nearly anything (T. Reichert & J. Lambiase, Sex in Advertising, 2002)! Or think how the brawny, sexy fireman’s calendars are sold out right away to women of all ages! The prodigal son escaped to that far away place because he refused to be bound by the vows of the holy estate of matrimony. God gives us those confinements in which to express ourselves lovingly and sexually. But we want to burst our bonds asunder (Psalm 2:3)! We refuse the sexual confinements set within the restrictions of the marriage vows – forsaking all others and keeping ourselves only for our husband or wife. This freedom-in-confinement is the glory of Christianity (Romans 6:16-18) and is well-expressed in that all but forgotten hymn by George Matheson (1842-1906), “Make Me a Captive Lord, and Then I Shall Be Free” [Service Book & Hymnal (1958), Hymn 508]. So let us beware and struggle not to make the same mistake.
In
Luther’s Large Catechism
(1529) he tells us that keeping marriage holy will make for “less of the
filthy, dissolute, disorderly conduct which now is so rampant everywhere
in public prostitution and other shameful vices” (BC,
p. 394). This theological conviction is confirmed in anthropological
studies which have shown that humans – if not constrained by the Spirit
of the Lord – are promiscuous like the sexually wild chimpanzees [Jared
Diamond, The Third Chimpanzee
(1992) pp. 25, 70]. This shameful behavior hasn’t abated much over the
last 450 years – but keeps up at its depressing rate (Infidelity:
A Survival Guide, 1998;
Madam: Inside a Nevada Brothel, 2001). Just think of the rampant
prostitution in AIDS-infested, sub-Saharan
The Battleground
These same
sexual allurements – that the prodigal son caved in to – throw us all
into the battle between the spirit and the flesh. The classic Biblical
passage on this struggle is in Galatians 5:16-24:
Walk by the
Spirit and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of
the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are
against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you
from doing what you would.... Now the works of the flesh are plain:
fornication, impurity, licentiousness.... But the fruit of the Spirit
is... patience,... faithfulness,... self-control.... Those who belong to
Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
On this
battlefield we learn that flesh and Spirit don’t co-exist together
peacefully. So if it feels good – that doesn’t mean you should do it, as
that old mantra from the Summer of Love in 1967 had it. No! we are to
crucify the flesh instead with its passions and desires rather than
simply giving in to them. Those wayward desires always make it look like
the grass is greener on the other side of the hill. But that’s a lie –
and that’s why there’s an adage against it. What’s on the other side of
the hill is actually only a herd of pigs eating their slop. That’s what
the prodigal son found out the hard way. So heed the wisdom of the Lord.
See in the licentiousness of the flesh, destruction and gloom – rather
than some garden of delights. And see in the patience and self-control
of the Spirit, life and freedom – rather than drudgery and despair.
Nose to Nose With Pigs
The prodigal
son turns away from his dissolute life and sexual filth when he
bottoms-out – finding himself starving while feeding the pigs their
slop. At that moment of degradation and humiliation and despair, he
comes to his senses. This is our second lesson to learn from this
parable. It tells us that we’ll continue in our sin as long as we wallow
in its deceits and passing pleasures (Hebrews 3:13, 11:25). But once
we’ve been cut to the quick (Acts 2:37), then our eyes will be opened.
It’s as if some one had grabbed us and shook us until we come to our
senses and discover how we’ve hurt ourselves. That’s exactly what
extreme situations are for. They clear the fog so we can see what’s
going on. That’s why we’re told that no one will enter the
So the
Lutheran Confessions rightly teach that the prophet Isaiah in Isaiah
28:21
calls it
God’s alien work to terrify because God’s own proper work is to quicken
and console. But he terrifies, he says, to make room for consolation and
quickening because hearts that do not feel God’s wrath in their smugness
spurn consolation (BC, p.
189).
Luther
famously called this terrifying quickening being “driven to Christ” or
agitatur ad Christum (LW
16:232). Furthermore he writes (Sermons
of Martin Luther, ed. J. Lenker, 3:130) that
the
righteous, while they live here, have flesh and blood, in which sin is
rooted. To suppress this sin God will lead them into great misery and
anxiety, poverty, persecution and all kinds of danger... until the flesh
becomes completely subject to the Spirit. That, however, does not take
place until death...
Well the
prodigal son found out about this great misery and anxiety, poverty and
all kinds of danger – and so shall we when we sally off to some far
place for our dabbling in dissolute delights!
No Excuses
Finally mark
well what the prodigal son said when he repented. He doesn’t blame his
father for giving him his inheritance too soon – before he was mature
enough to handle it (Luke 15:12). No, he heaps all the blame upon
himself. Nor does he blame the women he abused for sexually selling
themselves to him. No, he takes all the blame himself.
Mea culpa,
mea culpa,
mea
maxima
culpa he cries – “by my most
grievous fault” he bewails his sins [Lutheran
Book of Worship (1979) p. 155]. So he emphatically resolves (Luke
15:19) that he must go and tell his father that
I have
sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called
your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.
And so he
grovels in abject self-abasement – and rightly so for he has been
willfully and defiantly reveling in sexual filth and deep rebellion. Now
all excuses have come to an end (Luke 14:18; B. Cosby & A. Poussaint,
Come On, People: On the Path from
Victims to Victors, 2007; A. Dershowitz,
The Abuse Excuse, 1994). Now
all explanations of extenuating circumstances count for nothing. Now he
must confess his sins in contrite repentance and nothing more. For only
that will do. Anything else – God will surely despise (Psalm 51:17). So
learn this lesson well from the prodigal son. Don’t try to defend
yourself before the Almighty God – for that would be nothing more than
demonic (LW 22:397)! But
instead simply say, “God, be merciful to me a sinner!” (Luke 18:13).
Knowing How It Ends
But what if
the spirit is willing but the flesh is weak (Mathew 26:41)? What then?
What if we can’t muster the
reversus of the prodigal son? What if that act of self-accusation
seems like a super-human feat for us? What then? Are we finished off?
Are we doomed to an eternity of eating slop with the pigs?
No! for
we have more than the prodigal son had in that distant land where he
found himself wallowing in dissolute ways. We have the whole parable
before us. We know how it all ends. We have seen his father running to
him, embracing him and kissing him – while he was still far off (Luke
15:20). And that picture pulls us ahead. It can do for us what we cannot
do for ourselves (John 6:44; Romans 8:3). It changes us from within (2
Corinthians 3:18). It gives us hope – hope in someone other than our
sinful selves (Hebrews 12:2). From our perspective the weakness of the
prodigal son seems awfully mighty to us. Why does he pick himself up and
go home in shame and not just die in the pig sty? How does he summon the
strength to pivot around like that – in the slippery mud and in the
obsessive filth? Well, we don’t have to spend too much time on that –
wondering if we could do the same.
And
that’s because we know about God’s love for us in Christ Jesus. In
Christ Jesus, God’s love for us is not unpredictable and uneven. In him
God’s love for us is sealed (John 6:27) – that is to say, it is certain
and nothing we can do or will do will be able to dislodge it. And that’s
because his love for us is not grounded in our lovability (LW
31:57; 30:30) – but in the fact that he sent his only Son Jesus Christ
to be a sacrifice for our sins (1 John 4:10).
Keeping the Cross in the Parable
We have been
warned that the church has within it those who are enemies of the cross
of Christ and who will try to empty it of its power (Philippians 3:18; 1
Corinthians 1:17). And it’s no different now. Today there are those
trying to use this profound parable of the prodigal son to show how God
doesn’t need Christ Jesus to die for us so that he can love us [M.
Winter, The Atonement (1995)
p. 89; The Nature of the
Atonement, ed. Beilby & Eddy (2006) p. 104]. On this view grace
doesn’t have to wait for the crucifixion before it can be lavished upon
us (contra John 1:17, 19:30;
Ephesians 1:7-8). That’s because the father loves the prodigal son
without any intervening sacrifice being made (contra
BC, pp. 414, 541, 550, 561) –
nor, for that matter, with any repayment of his squandered inheritance
being made. He simply sees him coming home and welcomes him lovingly.
Nothing more happens – nor is needed to happen. And all of that is
because God is simply love (1 John 4:8). No miraculous, divine sacrifice
is needed “to move God to mercy” (contra
LW 51:277). He just loves us
– pure and simple.
But this
revision of Christianity and Holy Scriptures is a travesty, designed to
drive a wedge between this glorious parable and the death of Christ on
Why else did
Christ die, except to pay for our sins and to purchase grace for us [so
that God, for his sake, could] forgive us our sins? (LW
52:253).
Indeed, all
other suppositions are false. That’s because they’re built on a
disregard of Christianity [H. Richard Niebuhr,
The Kingdom of God in America
(1937) p. 193] which vainly supposes that
a God
without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment
through the ministrations of a Christ without a cross.
Foreswear
all such perversions! Rejoice in the cross of Christ instead (Galatians
6:14) – which undergirds the love of God in this parable. Rejoice and
come to the altar today – to receive the bread and wine of the Lord’s
Supper, for the newness of life (John 6:53).
Fearing Food
And then,
for the good work which faith requires, continue to fast in Lent – that
you may draw closer to God, and he to you (James 4:8). Do that being
guided by the Lutheran Confessions which say that fasting is a
“spiritual exercise of fear and faith” (BC,
p. 221).
So
register the fear of food – noting its dangers. For we’re often out of
balance – either due to stuffing ourselves or starving ourselves [C.
Costin, The Eating Disorders
Sourcebook, 1996, 2007; Allhoff & Monroe,
Food & Philosophy, 2007].
This might be because we’re “first of all bodies” and only second of all
minds [P. Sponheim, Faith &
Process (1979) p. 176]. So because of that bodily hazard, be more
serious about controlling yourselves by fasting. Don’t under-estimate
food. By eating of the forbidden tree, we lost paradise (Genesis 3:6);
and by eating of the miraculous loaves, Christ was obscured (John
6:26-27). So beware. Fear food that you might fast and fight against the
hold it has on us.
But also
note that this discipline needs faith. So call on God for help – that
you might also keep your senses about you. Amen.
 |