Sermon Text: Which One?Which kid are you?
The story we just heard from Jesus has become maybe the most famous short story of all time. The story asks us to think about ourselves. So which kid are you? Are you the Prodigal, the party animal, the person who cuts loose? Do you sometimes lose your inhibitions and make unwise choices and take big risks? Have you had an awful morning after? Are you that kid? Or are you the Good Kid, the one who keeps the rules? Are you the planner, the achiever, the careful one? Are you the one who knows the value of delayed gratification? Are you that kid? Guess what....we are both. Each of us is both of us. All of us are sometimes the younger, prodigal kid, and sometimes the touchy older kid. Eventually, we become wise enough to see that, to accept ourselves, and to integrate both sides of ourselves. I think the reason this short story Jesus told has such staying power is that it has both theological wisdom and psychological wisdom. Most of us get the spiritual message. Sometimes we wander away from God’s way, and act in ways that break God’s heart. Yet God, like that loving father in the story, is always ready to welcome us back home. It’s the whole “Amazing Grace” thing. It “saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.” It’s the joy of the Gospel, the Good News. And sometimes, we are like the envious older brother in the story. We are the religious people, the good people, the ones who may not be perfect, but we are decent and don’t run off and do rotten things. And deep down, we are not happy that some loser can come in with a sob story and pretend to be sorry and then, after a life of selfish indulgence, suddenly get all forgiven and accepted by God. It feels unfair, like the Gospel is the Bad News. This makes this short story of Jesus very powerful as theology, as a picture of how God loves both kinds of people, as the spiritual truth offered by Christianity. But I think this story also has power as psychology. As I said, we are both kids. Sometimes we are the party animals who cut loose and make unwise choices and have truly terrible situations resulting from our own bad choices. Other times we are the good kids, the ones who keep the rules, work hard, pay our taxes and don’t cheat. We are both kids. Eventually, we can become wise. We can attain psychological integration. We can accept both sides of our nature — maybe we accept this ruefully, but we realize it’s true — we are both kids. And then, psychologically speaking, we can become like the father in the story. That father accepted both kids. That father generously loved both kids. That father welcomed both kids. We can accept both sides of our own nature. We can think of ourselves a little more generously. Rather than be harsh with ourselves and others, we can welcome being human. There is an old Jewish rabbinical story I come back to again and again. A wise old rabbi of long ago said this: “Everyone should have two pockets. And you should have a note in each pocket. One note should say, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’ And the other note should say, ‘For my sake the world was created.’” I think Jesus would agree that we should have two pockets, one for each of those notes. Ash Wednesday gives us the first message: We are but dust and ashes. Easter gives us the other message: For us, the world was created. And the resurrection means new life for everyone. So which kid are you? Are you the Prodigal, the party animal, the person who cuts loose? Do you sometimes lose your inhibitions and make unwise choices and take big risks? Have you had an awful morning after? Are you that kid? Or are you the Good Kid, the one who keeps the rules? Are you the planner, the achiever, the careful one? Are you the one who knows the value of delayed gratification? Are you that kid? Well, each of us is both. And true wisdom is to become integrated. True wisdom is to accept ourselves as that father accepts both of his boys. My sweet daughter, the Baby Buddha, once asked a very wise question. And like the parable of the Prodigal Son, her question stays with me. She said, “If you were you, what would you do?” My own answer is to tolerate and accept myself — the good, the bad, and the ugly — and to accept others in the same way. That seems to be what Jesus is saying with his short story. It seems to be pretty good news. It seems to be the Gospel. |
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4/1/2019
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