A sermon preached at Journey United Church of Christ on Sunday, March 25, 2012.
Based on “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived” (Harper Collins 2011)
READING FOR THE DAY:
Luke 15:1-32 (The Message, By Eugene Peterson)
1 By this time a lot of men and women of doubtful reputation were hanging around Jesus, listening intently.
2 The Pharisees and religion scholars were not pleased, not at all pleased. They growled, "He takes in sinners and eats meals with them, treating them like old friends."
3 Their grumbling triggered this story.
4 "Suppose one of you had a hundred sheep and lost one. Wouldn't you leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the lost one until you found it?
5 When found, you can be sure you would put it across your shoulders, rejoicing,
6 and when you got home call in your friends and neighbors, saying, 'Celebrate with me! I've found my lost sheep!'
7 Count on it—there's more joy in heaven over one sinner's rescued life than over ninety-nine good people in no need of rescue.
8 "Or imagine a woman who has ten coins and loses one. Won't she light a lamp and scour the house, looking in every nook and cranny until she finds it?
9 And when she finds it you can be sure she'll call her friends and neighbors: 'Celebrate with me! I found my lost coin!'
10 Count on it—that's the kind of party God's angels throw every time one lost soul turns to God."
11 Then he said, "There was once a man who had two sons.
12 The younger said to his father, 'Father, I want right now what's coming to me.' "So the father divided the property between them.
13 It wasn't long before the younger son packed his bags and left for a distant country. There, undisciplined and dissipated, he wasted everything he had.
14 After he had gone through all his money, there was a bad famine all through that country and he began to hurt.
15 He signed on with a citizen there who assigned him to his fields to slop the pigs.
16 He was so hungry he would have eaten the corncobs in the pig slop, but no one would give him any.
17 "That brought him to his senses. He said, 'All those farmhands working for my father sit down to three meals a day, and here I am starving to death.
18 I'm going back to my father. I'll say to him, Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you;
19 I don't deserve to be called your son. Take me on as a hired hand.'
20 He got right up and went home to his father. "When he was still a long way off, his father saw him. His heart pounding, he ran out, embraced him, and kissed him.
21 The son started his speech: 'Father, I've sinned against God, I've sinned before you; I don't deserve to be called your son ever again.'
22 "But the father wasn't listening. He was calling to the servants, 'Quick. Bring a clean set of clothes and dress him. Put the family ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Then get a grain-fed heifer and roast it. We're going to feast! We're going to have a wonderful time!
24 My son is here—given up for dead and now alive! Given up for lost and now found!' And they began to have a wonderful time.
25 "All this time his older son was out in the field. When the day's work was done he came in. As he approached the house, he heard the music and dancing.
26 Calling over one of the houseboys, he asked what was going on.
27 He told him, 'Your brother came home. Your father has ordered a feast—barbecued beef!—because he has him home safe and sound.'
28 "The older brother stalked off in an angry sulk and refused to join in. His father came out and tried to talk to him, but he wouldn't listen.
29 The son said, 'Look how many years I've stayed here serving you, never giving you one moment of grief, but have you ever thrown a party for me and my friends?
30 Then this son of yours who has thrown away your money on whores shows up and you go all out with a feast!'
31 "His father said, 'Son, you don't understand. You're with me all the time, and everything that is mine is yours—
32 but this is a wonderful time, and we had to celebrate. This brother of yours was dead, and he's alive! He was lost, and he's found!' "
So Many Stories… Which to Believe?
So, we’ve heard the story a zillion times before … Rob Bell describes it like this: “A man has two sons. The young one demands his share of the father’s inheritance early, and the father unexpectedly gives it to him. He takes the money, leaves home, spends it all, and returns home hoping to be hired as a worker in his dad’s business. His father, again unexpectedly, welcomes him home, embraces him, and throws him a homecoming party, fattened calf and all.”
His holder brother refuses to join. It’s unfair, he tells he father, because he’s never even been given a goat, so that he and his friends could have a party. The gather then says to him. ‘You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (p. 82)
It’s a familiar story … right?!
In the final chapters of his book, “Love Wins”, Rob Bells retells the story because, in his view, there are a number of stories being told in the familiar words of this one narrative.
Consider this musings … “The younger brother tells a story. It is his version of the story, and as he heads home in shame after squandering his father’s money, he rehearses the speech he’ll give his father. He is convinced he’s “no longer worthy” to be called his father’s son. That’s the story he’s telling; that’s the one he’s believing.”
“It’s stunning, then, when he gets home and his father demands that the best robe be put on him and a ring be placed on his finger and sandals on his feet. Robes and rings and sandals are signs of being a son. Although he’s decided he can’t be a son anymore, his father tells a different story. One about return and reconciliation and redemption. One about his being a son again.” (p. 82)
“The younger son has to decide whose version of his story he’s going to trust: his or his son’s. One in which he is no longer worthy to be called a son or one in which he is no longer worthy to be called a son or one in which he’s a robe-, ring-, and sandal-wearing son who was dead but is alive again, who was lost but has now been found.” (p.82)
There are two version of the story.
His.
And his father’s.
He has to choose which one he will live in
Which one he will believe.
Which one he will trust. (p. 82)
“Same, as it turns out, for the older brother.
He too has his version of the story.
He tells his father, ‘All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.” But when this son of yours (he can’t even say his brother’s name) who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!” (p. 82)
“So much is so few words. One senses he’s been saving up it up for years, and now out it comes, with venom.”
“First, in his version of events, he’s been slaving for his father for years. That’s how he describes life in his father’s house: slaving. That directly contradicts the few details we’ve been given about the father, who appears to be anything but a slave driver. (p. 83)
“Second, he says his father has never given him a goat. A goat doesn’t have much meat on it, so even in conjuring up an image of celebration, it’s meager. Lean. Lame. The kind of party he envisions just isn’t that impressive. What he reveals here is what he really thinks about his father: he thinks he’s cheap.” (p. 83)
“Third, he claims that his father has dealt with his brother according to a totally different set of standards. He thinks his father is unfair. He thinks he’s been wronged, shorted, shafted. And he’s furious about it.” (p. 83)
“The father isn’t rattled or provoked. He simply responds, ‘My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.’ And then he tells him that hey have to celebrate.
“You are always with me and everything I have is yours.”
“In one sentence the father manages to tell an entirely different story about the older brother”
“First, the older son hasn’t been a slave. He’s had it all the whole time. There’s been no need to work, obey orders, or slave away to earn what he’s had the whole time.” (p. 83)
“Second, the father hasn’t been cheap with him. He could have had whatever he wanted whenever he wanted it. Everything the father owns has always been his, which includes, of course, the fattened calves. All he had to do was receive.” (p. 83)
“Third, the father redefines fairness. It’s not that his father hasn’t been fair with him; it’s that his father never set out to be fair in the first place. Grace and generosity aren’t fair; that’s their very essence. The father sees the younger brother’s return as one more occasions to practice unfairness. The younger son doesn’t deserve a party – that’s the point of the party. That’s how things work in the father’s world. Profound unfairness.” (p. 83)
“People get what they don’t deserve.
Parties are thrown for younger brothers who squander their inheritance.”
After all,
You are always with me
And everything I have is yours”
“What the father does is retell the older brother’s story. Just as he did with the younger brother. The question, then, is the same question that confronts the younger brother – will he trust his version of his story or his father’s version of his story?” (p. 84)
….so what does this have to do with heaven and hell?
What’s Your Story – Heaven or Hell?
Consider Rob Bell’s theory:
“Hell is our refusal to trust God’s retelling of our story.” (p. 84)
“We all have our version of events. Who we are, who we aren’t, what we’ve done , what that means for our future. Our worth, value, significance. The things we believe about ourselves that we cling to despite the pain an agony they’re causing us.” (p. 84)
“Some people are haunted by the sins of the past. Abuse, betrayal, addiction, infidelity – secrets that have been buried for years. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve met over the years who said they couldn’t go to church because the “roof would cave in” or “there would be a lightning bolt.” Flaws, failures, shame like a stain that won’t wash out. A deep-seated profound believe that they are, at some primal level of the soul, not good enough.” (p. 84).
For others, it isn’t their acute sense of their lack or inadequacy or sins; it’s their pride. Their ego. They’re convinced of their own greatness and autonomy – they don’t need anybody. Often the belief is that God, Jesus, church, and all that is for the “weak ones”, the ones who can’t make it in the world, so they cling to their religious superstitions and myths like a drug, a crutch, a way to avoid taking responsibility for their pathetic lives. (p. 84)
We believe all sorts of things about ourselves. And each of us, in our own, needs to hear another version of our story. The version that Jesus tells.
“It begins with the sure and certain truth that we are loved.
That in spite of whatever has gone horribly wrong in our hearts
has spread to every corner of the world,
in spite of our sins,
failures,
rebellion,
and hard hearts,
in spite of what’s been done to us what we’ve done,
God loves us! (p. 85)
“We are now invited to live a whole new live without guilt or shame or blame or anxiety”
We are going to be fine.
Of all the conceptions of the divine, of all the language Jesus could put on the lips of the God character in this story he tells, that’s what he has the father say. (p. 85)
“You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.”
The older brother has been clinging to his version of events for so long, it’s hard for him to conceive of any other way of seeing things. Perhaps, his inability to trust the re-telling reminds us of our own inability to trust a new story about God, heaven, hell, our fate and the fate of others.
“This story, the one Jesus tells about the man with two sons, has everything to do with our story …. Can we trust the retelling?”
“Millions of people in our world were told that God so loved the world, that God sent his son to save the world, and that is they accept and believe in Jesus, they’ll be able to have a relationship with God.” (p. 85) … beautiful
“But there’s more. Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, that is, the way the person telling them the gospel does, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will got extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormentor who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony. “ (p. 86)
…God is a slave driver …
Which story do you believe?
The story of a God who can switch gears like that, switch entire modes of being that quickly. Loving one moment, vicious the next. Kind and compassionate, only to become cruel and relentless in the blink of an eye. (p. 86)
…or the story of consistency …
Story Time Today
It has implications for how we live our own lives …
… and it has implications for how we tell the story.
Sometimes the reason people have a problem accepting “the gospel” is that they sense that the God lurking behind Jesus isn’t safe, loving or good. It doesn’t make any sense, it can’t be reconciled, and so they say no. They don’t want anything to do with Jesus, because they don’t want anything to do with that God.
“When the gospel is diminished to a question of whether or not a person will “get into heaven” that reduces the good news to a ticket, a way to get past the bouncer and into the club.” (p.88)
The good news is better than that.
It’s about joyous participation…
Life has never been about just “getting in”. It’s about thriving in God’s good world. It’s stillness, peace, and that feeling of your soul being at rest, while at the same time it’s about asking things, learning things, creating things, and sharing it all with others who are finding the same kind of joy in the same good world.
“Witnessing, evangelizing, sharing your faith – when you realize that God has retold your story, you are free to passionately, urgently, compellingly tell the story because you’ve stepped into a whole new life and you’re moved and inspired to share it. When your God is love, and you have experienced this live in flesh and blood, here and now, then you are free from guilt and fear and the terrifying, haunting, ominous voice that whispers over your shoulder ‘You’re not doing enough’. The voice that insists God is, in the end, a slave driver.” ((p. 90)
You’re invited to the trust the retelling now, so that we’re already taking part in the kind of love that can overtake the whole world. (p. 90)
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