Embraced to Embrace - Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Lent (March 30, 2025)

Scripture Readings: Joshua 5:9–12 | Psalm 32 | 2 Corinthians 5:16–21 | Luke 15:1–2, 11–32

“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’” (Luke 15:31-32).

Our Gospel reading this morning is one of the most well known and beloved parables of Jesus. A powerful story told to help us understand and respond to His Kingdom work. This story has often been called the Prodigal Son… as prodigal means ‘wasteful’ ‘lavash’, or ‘recklessly extravagant’, in reference to the younger son’s completely careless use of his inheritance.

It's a story that stands out as a profound example of the radical nature of God’s mercy and love, and grace… a story that tells us that no matter how far we have wandered, we really can be welcomed home again. Inviting us to turn around again and return to the Father’s eager embrace.

But this parable is much more than simply a story about the depths of God’s mercy and grace. It’s a story about broken relationships, and reconciliation… about the restoration of the bonds between a father and his sons… but just as importantly, between the sons themselves.

In this parable, we are not simply being reminded of God’s great mercy and saving love offered to us… we are being called to respond to His mercy and love… in how we relate to those in our lives. Perhaps especially those we feel the most estranged and divided from.

And I don’t know about you, but I can think of very few other topics that are more relevant today than reconciliation… the coming together again of those who have been torn apart. Every day it seems, there’s yet more divisiveness and broken bonds in our world… fractured friendships, at the local, national, and international level.

The conflicts we face in life can be incredibly challenging. And it’s not always easy to know how to respond, or what we can do to move forward. But thankfully, in today’s parable we have been given a word from our Lord Jesus Christ not only offering us hope for our own forgiveness and grace, but also an invitation to change how we see and respond to this deeply divided world that we find ourselves in.  

In the first part of the parable, Jesus introduces us to a family of three: a father and his two sons. Right away, we’re told that the younger son demands his share of the inheritance, and then heads off to a distant land, where he wastes everything he had received, and is left with nothing. Now, the scandal here is not just about the younger son being careless with his money… it’s also about the shameful way that he treats his father, and the damage done to their relationship.

In the largely patriarchal and honour-shame cultures of the ancient Near East, fathers were the honoured head of the family. They were expected to be treated with great respect, and deference. And the same would go for the older sons, those who were expected to fill in for their father as head of the household once he dies. So when this youngest son rudely demands his inheritance right away, he isn’t just being impatient, he’s acting disgracefully… it would be like saying to his father: ‘I wish you were dead.’ And it suggests a complete break in their relationship… disregarding all that he had done for him.

But then everything blows up in his face. Disaster strikes, and the younger son finds himself in desperate straits. A famine strikes the land, and the son is left destitute. His new friends abandon him, and he’s forced to do degrading work with no hope of relief. And here at rock bottom, that’s when he comes to his senses, and he remembers that his father’s servants were much better off than he was now. 

Of course he knows that there’s no chance of making amends now and restoring their broken relationship. But maybe his father will have pity on him, and take him back as a hired servant. So he swallows his pride, and rehearses his apology… expecting to have to bear the full weight of his mistakes… and heads back home full of shame, but hoping against hope that maybe… just maybe… his father will be gracious enough to give him a job so that he will not starve. 

But as it turns out, the younger son does not understand the depths of his father’s mercy and love. 

His father sees him from afar… and he runs. He runs to his boy, and embraces him… and covers his mud-caked face with kisses. The son starts to recite his prepared apology, but the father doesn’t even wait to hear it. Instead, he calls for his own best robe, and his ring, marks of familial status and honour, to be given to his long-lost child… and then the father calls for a feast. 

And the youngest son is swept up in an amazing act of grace, and lavish love beyond anything he expected or deserved… or even dreamed of. Where he expected to find condemnation and shame, he is surrounded by compassion and forgiveness instead… a beautiful glimpse of the very heartbeat of the message of the Gospel.  

Can we identify with this son’s experience of being embraced by his father’s gracious love? I hope so!

This parable offers us a powerful image of God’s love, that Christians have looked to from the beginning to understand and express the kind of welcome we have been offered in Christ. This story often hits home when we have moments of conversion… coming to faith for the first time… or of reconnection… returning to the Lord after he have wandered away, and are suddenly made aware that God’s love for us is so much bigger than our brokenness… and so much stronger than all our guilt and shame… It’s like coming to life again: when everything seemed lost, suddenly we’re found and welcomed home.

But this parable is more than a powerful vision of our own forgiveness, and if we stop here, we are actually missing one of the most important parts of this story’s message. 

Because this story is not only about one son. It’s about a family. The parable tells us about another son. The elder brother. The one who was expected to be honoured, like his father. The one who never stepped out of line. Who never shamed his father, or his family, or wasted his inheritance. The son who worked hard and who always did what was expected of him. 

A son who, just like his younger brother, does not understand the depths of his father’s mercy and love.

His story picks up with the party already started. The older son comes back from a day of working in the fields, and he hears about the feast in honour for his long-lost brother. But unlike his father, the older son is filled with anger and deep resentment. And so, he refuses to join in the celebration. 

So his father leaves the party and goes out to find him.

When he does, he begins to plead with the elder son to join them, and the always obedient, responsible son responds by letting his father have it. Now before we look down on him, let’s think about his position. Let’s listen to his complaint. Luke 15:29-30,

“But he answered his father, ‘Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!’”

‘What has this all been for?’ he says. ‘I’ve worked and slaved for you all my life, and for what? You’ve never blessed me like you bless this useless, horrible son of yours!’

Can we identify with this older son sometimes? Do we ever feel weighed down with duty… working hard to do what’s expected, but then seeing nothing to show for it? All the while, seeing other, completely undeserving people being lifted up? If you’ve ever felt this way… if you’re feeling this way today, you’re definitely not alone. And thankfully, this word from Jesus our Lord is for you… to bring you peace and hope as well. But this parable is also a challenge to us… correcting some assumptions that we all make from time to time about the true nature of God’s mercy and love, and how it works in our lives, and in our world.

One way to explain the older son’s point of view is to say that he is relating to his father with a basically 
transactional framework: ‘If I do this for you, you’ll do that for me.’ Of course, there’s a flip side to this too: ‘If I don’t do this for you, you won’t do that for me.’ This is a vision of the world where we all basically get what we deserve… and it deeply shapes how we relate to ourselves… and how we relate to the other people in our lives.

But the Gospel, the Good News of offers us another way to see both ourselves, and others… not based on evaluating what everyone does or does not deserve… but based on what the Living God has done for us, and for them too… through God’s Son, Jesus Christ.

And this parable… this story asks us all: ‘Do we truly understand our Heavenly Father’s mercy & love? How in tune are we with God’s amazing, saving grace for sinners of every sort?’

In the parable, the father seeks to share his life and joy with both his sons… not as a reward, but as a gift. As an outpouring of his own generosity, and willingness to embrace them both as his own. 

With the younger son, we see this clearly, as the father honours and welcomes his child home with unexpected ease, and overflowing joy… seeing his wasteful and wayward boy as one who has been brought back to life from the dead.

And with the older son, we see the father seeking him out, eager for his diligent child to come and share in his joy as well. And we also see the father patiently listening to his elder sons’ angry accusations… against his brother, and also against the father… but then gently challenging the older son’s assumptions… inviting him to adopt a whole different way of seeing himself, his relationship with his father, and with his estranged brother. Luke 15:31-32,

“Then the father said to him, ‘Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.’”

The son seems to have thought that his father had forgotten him… that he had been loved less, and neglected. But in the father’s eyes, that’s not the case at all! It’s not an either/or. He loved both his children, and wanted them both to share in his love together. 

But to do that, the elder son had to choose to make room in his heart and his life for his brother again. He would have to start to see that the new life of his brother mattered so much more than money, or honour, or his ideas about what anyone deserved. 

This story is an invitation to live by God’s grace. To receive His grace, and then to extend it.

And the story is left hanging. How would the older son respond? More to the point: how will you and I respond???
 
After all, this parable is not at all a hypothetical scenario. It is a word from our Lord Jesus Christ, challenging our own assumptions, and calling us to a deeper understanding of our Heavenly Father’s great mercy and love… one that will actually begin to alter how we relate to God, and to all those around us.

In other words, it’s pointing us to Jesus Himself… to God’s own beloved Son, our Saviour.

The One who went out to the lost, to the scandalous, the losers, the compromised, and corrupt, and called them turn around and to share in the New Life of God’s Kingdom… embracing them as His beloved sisters and brothers, not because they deserved it at all, but because of God’s own great mercy and love. 

And we know, Jesus was also rejected by those who were self-righteous… those who could not or would not recognize in Him the mercy and love of the Living God at work… and who were angry and scandalized that Jesus would claim to be so close to the Holy One, and yet still hang out with all the wrong kinds of people. 

But Jesus didn’t come to pick sides. He came to seek the lost, and to share God’s great mercy and saving love with everyone and anyone who would receive it. And He did this by taking our place once and for all at the cross.

Jesus gave His life for both the younger and the older brothers… for all of us, no matter which ways we have wandered from the holy ways of our Heavenly Father: through being shameful or self-righteousness… through our anger or our carelessness. Christ Jesus took on all the consequences of our world’s ungodliness… in every form it may take… in order to save and embrace us all… bringing us to Himself forever.

As St. Paul says in second Corinthians 5:21, “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”

But here’s the kicker: what Jesus has done for us, He has also done for everyone else. That includes those who have hurt us, or who deeply frustrate us, or who give us reasons to be afraid. He doesn’t condone what they’ve done, or want it to continue. Far from it! 

But the truth remains that Jesus Christ gave His life for them too. And our Heavenly Father seeks to save them too. As much as we may want to at times, you and I don’t get to draw the lines about who gets embraced by the love of God.

But if we leave it there, we’re actually missing the biggest scandal of this story, and like the older son, we’re still left standing outside, refusing to come in. The real scandal of God’s mercy and saving love is that He wants us to share it with them too. Not to stand off at a distance, grumbling, but to be an integral part of how his love is made known. 

In other words: Jesus embraces us, so that, with the Holy Spirit’s help, we can embrace our estranged siblings too, and help them return to the loving arms of our Father in Heaven.

Or better yet, in St. Paul’s words: “From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making his appeal through us; we entreat you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:16-21).

Of course we know, that we can’t make people respond faithfully to this Good News of God’s reconciling love. And there is no guarantee that those we share it with will want anything we have to offer. And we can never try to force people who are estranged to be reconciled. It has to be a two-way street. In order for broken relationships to truly heal, there’s lots of healing, and listening, and rebuilding of trust that will need to take place. 
 
But as Christians, we have already received God’s reconciling mercy and grace, and are now called to share it with those around us in Jesus’ name… looking at ourselves and everyone around us, not simply from a human point of view, but as beloved sons and daughters that Christ Jesus died to save.

So how will we respond to all those around us today? That all depends on how we see them, and on our understanding of the mercy and saving love of our Heavenly Father. 

So may we see and treat everyone… ourselves, our loved ones, our neighbours, and even our enemies, in the light of the Gospel… the Good News of what Jesus Christ has done to seek out and save us all. Amen.